Chapter 9

“I SHALL ONE DAY conquer you, Mt. Cotton!”

Hailey huffed while she approached the pile of clean laundry in her bedroom that still hadn’t been folded, judging herself out loud but not enough to actually do anything about it.

Folding laundry was one of those things that just didn’t get done in her house. If she needed to get the wrinkles out of something, she would just wet it and throw it in the dryer for a bit.

She tried to think about the last time she folded laundry. Maybe the month she moved into this place two years ago? Who knows? If it didn’t keep her from living her life, it did not get done in her house. Dishes? Only done when she ran out of silverware and only with her dishwasher. Food shopping? Only when there was literally nothing to eat in her house, and deliveries were a life changer for her. Maybe she should buy stock in GrubHub.

But, putting away that Christmas wrapping paper next to her dining room table did not keep her from living, which is why it had stayed there since the holidays. Okay, fine. It was last year’s holidays.

Executive functioning skills were a favorite topic in her therapy sessions, at least when she wasn’t complaining about Gage. She tried habit trackers, alarms on her phone, and even sitting in video chats with friends where they tackled chores in their own houses as a team. Not much stuck, though.

Hailey stared at her pile of clothes, trying to summon her favorite top with magic, but, unfortunately, those powers still hadn’t manifested in her. Maybe one day.

After a deep sigh, she resigned herself to carefully move through the pile so it didn’t collapse on the floor. She had to meet Gage and his friends at some fancy bar and she was running out of time to get ready.

The challenge was finding a top that looked cute and sexy to Gage without somehow getting another man to look at her. It was a thin line to walk.

She went with a gray-blue, scoop-necked, flowy top that reminded her for a second of Avery’s eyes. Shaking off that thought, she pulled a pair of jeans off the floor, smelling them to make sure they were clean enough, then slipped into the denim. She double checked her minimum-effort makeup and ran a hand through her brown waves to give them some bounce. No idea if it actually did anything, but it was the thought that counted.

Hailey had considered canceling and spending the night wrapped in a blanket burrito, something she did often when she wasn’t up for socializing. It was tough, sometimes, to summon the energy to leave the house. It was easiest when it was an obligation that came with consequences, such as going to work. Canceling on her friends from time to time when her mind was a thunderstorm of feelings was easier to do since they’d still be there when she dug herself out of the mental clouds.

For some reason, part of her wanted to see if there was still anything to fight for with Gage. Was the sweet guy that lured her in during their first handful of dates still there? Or, was she just kidding herself?

Reluctantly, she dragged herself out the door to Gage’s waiting car.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Gage’s friends, it just wasn’t fun to hang out with them. Gage would get overprotective with his own damn friends. If you didn’t trust your friends to not try to hook up with your girlfriend, were they even real friends?

She also had to maintain a more resigned behavior so she didn’t embarrass him. God forbid.

Is this really what my life has become?

Twenty minutes later, Hailey was at the end of a table with Gage and his six friends, all of them still in suits from their work days. One of his friends, Isaac, had a date there with him. But the leggy blonde was unlikely to make it past the week. Isaac wasn’t exactly the monogamous type. The problem was, the girls weren’t always aware of that.

The bar was one of those pretentious places that pretended to be fancy and had high prices, but still housed patrons watching the game and yelling out their approval or anger at one of the TVs around a room that was almost too dark to read the menu.

Everything was trimmed in gold but otherwise looked like an Applebee’s. Suddenly, Hailey wished she was at Applebee’s because they actually had drink specials and food that took up the whole plate.

The conversation was currently on the Phillies, one of Hailey’s favorite subjects so she actually paid attention. It was so much better than when they were talking stocks and accounts, or the previous week’s hookups.

“You guys want to go to the game next week?” Isaac asked. “The Mets are coming to town and I got tickets to the game for getting employee of the month at work.”

“Wow! That’s an awesome bonus. Congratulations!” said Hailey. “What did you have to do to win?”

Isaac said thanks and started talking about what he had to do to earn it. Something about sales quotas. But Gage just turned to her while everyone else was focused on Isaac.

“Do you think you could make it through one night without flirting with one of my friends?”

Was this guy fucking serious? She just put another check in the cons column when it came to the inner “should I/should I not break up with him?” debate that was going on in her head.

“Sorry, I was just trying to be nice.” Hailey wasn’t sure why she was apologizing. He glared at her before they both turned back to the conversation.

“Way too many Mets fans come down for those games and they’re so obnoxious,” said Gage’s friend Lee, thinking about the Phillies’s biggest rival.

Hailey stifled a laugh thinking about the last time she was at a game with Lee. He got drunk and booed at just about everything, including a girl in the row in front of us that rejected him. And he wanted to talk about obnoxious?

The guys continued to discuss the rivalry but Hailey kept to herself. She learned the hard way that it was just easier to keep quiet sometimes.

The conversation moved onto older players and Hailey continued to just listen until she could find a place to safely add to the conversation.

“Okay, best shortstop of all time. Go,” Isaac chimed in.

“Gotta be Ozzie Smith,” offered Gage.

“No way! It’s totally Jeter,” said Lee.

“What about Cal Ripken Jr.?” said Hailey.

Lee at least respected Hailey’s baseball knowledge, adding, “Yeah, he was pretty consistent. What did he play in? Like 2,300 games straight?”

“It was 2,632! No one else will ever touch that record,” said Hailey, with a big smile on her face.

For a moment all the guys at the table just stared at her.

“How do you know that?” Gage asked despite knowing her love for baseball.

She started to get nervous. “He’s my favorite player of all time, so I’m going to remember something big like that. My dad grew up in Baltimore so I grew up visiting there all the time. It’s practically in the school curriculum there.”

“Gage, you sure your girlfriend’s not a dyke?” Isaac asked with unfortunate sincerity. Hailey’s jaw dropped. Isaac’s date actually giggled, and the guys laughed along with Isaac.

“No, Isaac, I’m not a dyke. It’s totally possible for a straight woman to know things about sports without being gay.” Hailey was about to correct his offensive use of the word before Gage piped in.

“Yeah, man, if she was a dyke I could have had a threesome by now.”

Hailey muttered mostly to herself since everyone else was busy laughing, “That’s not how that works.”

She lost track of the conversation for a bit after that. What was the point in adding to the conversation with these assholes? Instead, she ordered another drink from their server, sticking with the Dirty Shirleys she loved so much. Although, sometimes the bartenders really skimped on the grenadine.

Hailey needed her vice and reached into her wristlet to grab her chapstick, cursing to herself when it was nowhere to be found.

“What’s wrong?” Gage asked, shocking Hailey that he noticed anything was wrong.

“Just could have sworn I had a chapstick in here, but I apparently don’t.”

He scoffed. “What else is new?”

Well, that comment sure wasn’t new. She always had trouble keeping track of her chapsticks, but she had also caught Gage moving it before to mess with her. As if she didn’t already have enough trouble functioning.

A bit later when Hailey had finished her second drink and was beginning to feel a pleasant buzz, the music in the bar changed to one of her favorites.

“Yes! This is my jam!” She said before singing along to a Lady Gaga tune.

She turned to Gage while singing some lines from “Bad Romance,” which she thought was a bit ironic.

Gage was turned in his chair so only Hailey could see him raise his hand flat in front of his chest and brought it up and down to give her a “calm down” gesture.

Well, then.

That was enough to keep Hailey quiet for the rest of the night. Instead of engaging with the group, she rolled over in her mind what so many people have been saying to her lately.

Why am I even with this guy? Would he even miss me if I was gone?

Hailey tried to ignore the real reason she was hesitant to break up with Gage. Before him, it had been a long time since she got attention from a man and she wasn’t so sure she could find anybody else. Maybe this was all she deserved.

She thought back to the last time she was at this bar with his friends. The waitress had just left the table when Gage turned to her and asked her why she didn’t do her makeup like the server.

“Why should I? She’s wearing a lot more than I ever wear.”

“It would make you look good.”

She rose to the bait. “Do I not look good now?”

“You do, but you could look better.”

Gage did absolute wonders for Hailey’s self-esteem. As in, she wondered where it went.

If she was barely good enough for Gage, what made her think she could land, let alone deserve, a better guy who treated her with a bit more respect?

As if on cue, the discussion turned into a version of hot or not. After a server with her long, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and her boobs pushed up practically to her chin walked by, Gage asked, “Dude, how hot is she? Babe, we should try to get her into a threesome.”

Hailey could do nothing but just look at Gage, wondering when was the last time he looked at her like that. The blood felt like it was draining from her face and she started to feel a bit dizzy. She stopped her waitress the next time she passed and asked for a water. She needed to sober up so she could get the hell out of there.

Then she realized that Gage drove here. Kill me now.

———————————

On the drive back to Hailey’s place an hour later than when she wanted to leave, she tried to approach the subject that was always a struggle.

“Ya know, I really don’t like it when you check out other women in front of me.”

“What are you talking about? You comment on guys all the time.”

“Correction. I talk about celebrities that I have no chance of ever meeting and I don’t talk about sleeping with them in front of my boyfriend. And last time I checked, Captain America is a fictional character so I really have no chance with him.”

“You should be able to handle a little competition. I should talk about other women more often so you get used to it,” Gage managed to say with a straight face. Was he serious? Holy shit, he was actually serious.

“I’m not sure that will do much for my confidence.” Surely, he must understand that.

“What do you need confidence for? You already have a boyfriend. You trying to attract another one?”

“Is … I … what the fuck? That doesn’t even make sense. Why wouldn’t I want confidence in my life? It’s not like you keep me at home and I never interact with society.”

“I would if I could.”

“Oh my God,” whispered Hailey.

“Speaking of, I’m ready to get you home so I can fuck your brains out.”

Charming. Did he really think this conversation would put her in the mood? Fuck that.

“Oh, actually I got my period today so that’s a no go.” Hailey hoped he didn’t pay too much attention to her cycle considering she actually just finished her period two weeks ago. Maybe if her period never went away he would leave her and make it easier on her. And maybe eventually she would realize how unhealthy those thoughts were.

“That’s okay, you can just give me a blow job. Unless you want to try anal tonight.”

God, give me strength.

“I don’t think I’m really in the mood for either of those things. I’m not feeling well. Cramps, ya know?”

“Fine. I’ll just drop you off at home and head back to my place.”

As much as he was pissing her off tonight, she still liked the idea of sleeping next to him, not being alone.

“You don’t want to sleep over? We can still snuggle all night.”

“Nah, might as well sleep at home if we can’t have sex.”

Cool cool cool. So, she was just sex for him. Great. This is totally awesome and nothing is wrong with it.

Maybe there’s a tree we can drive into on the way home, put me out of my misery.