Leo frantically paced the master suite, his cellphone in his hand. He whispered to himself urgently, “Come on, come on…”
A beep came from the other line and then the sound of the same recording Leo had listened to for the last eight attempts: “This is Jonathan Winters of Winters Talent. I'm not able to take your call, but please leave your name and number and one of my staff members will get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Jon, man. I've tried to call and text you a million times, but I need your help NOW. It’s that housekeeper you hired for me … Belinda or Barbie. Whatever her name is. I hit her. I didn’t mean to, but I hit her. And now I got a passed out chick on my bed with an imprint of a book on her forehead. I don’t know what to do! Call me back!”
Leo hung up and returned to his pacing. Every few steps, he would stop and gaze at the girl with the eyes tightly closed. He watched her carefully to see the heave of her chest and and the occasional twitch of her dainty fingers. Several times she moaned softly to herself, and Leo watched fascinated as her lips parted just slightly to let the sound out.
He was familiar with knock outs. He had been on the receiving end many times himself. The first was when he'd started to seriously fight. He was part of a teenage knuckle league where the blood flew fast and furious and the permanent damage was still etched on his scarred face and crooked nose.
Once he was discovered and his parents invested real money into his training, he saw the soft part of the mat less and less. Instead, it was his gloves that laid the blow to competitor after competitor. He didn’t just go into the ring looking to win. He got in to win decisively with a blow so powerful that no one could accuse him of being cowardly. It was how he get the nickname ‘Lionheart.’
But with his housekeeper being his latest victim from an untimely blow to the head from a flying book, nothing about him was the Lionheart. Instead, he was a ball of anxiety and nerves as he hovered over her spot on his bed. Her body curled like the letter ‘S’ into the white sheets and her long brown hair made rivers on the stack of pillows he laid propped up under her head. It took all of Leo’s will not to reach out and touch one of the loose strands.
After a few more minutes of stillness, Bailey began to stir. One eye fluttered open followed by another. She instinctively recoiled at the sight of the man hovering above her, watching her every move. She moaned softly, “What… what… ugh… what happened?” Her hand reached for the bruise at her temple and timidly touched the hot blue spot.
Leo looked at her with mad, wide eyes. He wasn’t quite sure what to say to her in that moment. “Listen, I'm so sorry…” he searched for his name in her memory and continued to come up blank.
“It’s Bailey. Bailey Reed.” She outstretched her hand to him with a small smile upon her lips. He took it and gently began caressing at the fingers and the wrist. She wanted to pull away, but the sensation was almost magically moving the pain from her head. She sank back deeper into the bed as his massage intensified.
“Old boxing trick for head injuries. Always find the pressure points in the hands and wrist. I'd offer to do your feet, but I’m assuming that would be a bit forward.” His eyebrows shot up comically as she giggled in appreciation. A smile appeared on his sour face, the first real one in awhile. Her light was infectious.
“Well, thank you for that. It’s a good tip to know.” She released herself from his grip and slowly pushed herself up from the bed.
He jumped up, his hands moving towards her shoulders without a second thought as he eased her back down. “Where are you going? You can’t move!”
She took note of the urgency and concern in his voice, yet she still insisted, “Back to my room. It’s getting late, and there’s some laundry I need to do there for you.”
“Are you cra—” He stopped himself. Leo wasn’t sure what his intentions were. She was the help. It was her job to recover and get to work. Yes, he caused the injury, but it was an accident. He could not find one reason to keep her from walking out that door.
… Except that he wanted nothing for her to just lie there for as long as possible. He wasn’t done tracing the lines of her body or memorizing the soft wrinkles near her eyes and the pattern of her fingers as they tapped against the sheets. He wanted more of her, even if he could not verbalize it.
She took advantage of his pause and swung a leg over the side and then lifted off. The sudden motion made her head swirl and spin. She lost her balance and control as she slid backwards uncontrollably like a rag doll.
But Leo’s arms were there. He caught her before her head could even hit the bed. With one swift movement, he lifted her into his large, muscular arms and hoisted her up near his face. She let out a yelp as he reassured her, “I’ve got you. Don’t move.”
Her head continued to spin like a top. Her focus blacked in and out as she struggled to make sense of what was going on. All that she could tell was that she was now moving. Bailey could only make out the vague imprints of the rooms and their walls as they walked outside of the house and into her apartment in the pool house. At the door, Leo moved his hands around her hips until he felt the hard imprint of her keys. He fished out the right one and opened the door, taking her over the threshold and straight towards her own bedroom.
Leo placed her down on the tattered quilt spread out upon her bed, “I like what you’ve done to the place.”
Bailey smiled tiredly and then curled back up with her knees touching her chest. He again placed his hands on her shoulders to straighten her body out. “You have to lay flat, okay?”
“Another boxing tip?”
He nodded and whispered, “Another boxing tip.” He looked around the freshly painted room till he spotted the entry to her bathroom. “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna get you a glass of water.” He repaired in moments with one of her pale blue glasses in hand. He held the rim of it to her lips.
Bailey leaned back and thanked him. “I’m quite alright. I’ll be fine in the morning. I just need to sleep it off.”
“After you took that tumble on my bed, I’m not letting you sleep anymore. It’s probably a concussion.” He pulled up one of her desk chairs to the side of her bed, “And I’m not going anywhere.”
“You should be a doctor or something.”
“I’m not in operating condition, if you know what I mean.” Leo was still tipsy from his bender earlier. But the sight of a helpless Bailey had sobered him up quickly. Drinking was far from his mind.
“That’s okay. I’m not in any condition to clean.” Bailey motioned lightheartedly to the bed. “It looks like we’re both not going anywhere tonight.”
A few moments passed as Leo tried to keep his eyes from wandering back to the softness of her skin. He needed to end the silence, “So, I got you fired?... That sucks.” The words flew out of his mouth before he could stop himself. His tan cheeks turned pink instantly as she turned his head into his shoulder.
Leo expected her to kick him out or to at least lecture him. But she didn’t. Instead, she let out a hearty belly laugh so loud that she had to hold herself in place and keep her body from rattling. After wiping away a tear, Bailey replied, “Yeah, yeah you did. But it’s okay. My boss was an ass, and it led me here.”
“It led you here? I’m sure Jonathan offered you a huge payout for keeping silent. Why didn’t you just take that?” Leo had wanted to ask her that from the moment Jonathan had told him about it in the hospital.
“Have you ever just wanted to life settle down, to stop running from the horrible things? Sure, I don’t want to be a maid and a payout would've been the easy route. But I want to get my—” Bailey stopped herself before she could mention her daughter. She wasn't sure how someone like Leo would react to knowing she placed her daughter in a halfway home. “—to go back to school and finish my teaching degree. But I need the stability first. The easy route gets you nowhere in life. At least, that’s what my grandma always said.”
“The easy route is the easy route for a reason. I would've taken the money.” Leo was being blunt. Taking on life seemed like a waste when there were better options out there.
“Maybe I should've.” She closed her eyes thinking back on her options once more, “But I’m here. And I’m going to make the best of it.”
“I certainly don’t make it worth it.”
“No you don’t.” Bailey regretted it instantly. She was towing a line that, from the stoney look on Leo’s face, wasn’t ready to be crossed. He was, after all, still her boss. She lowered her voice and offered an apology, “I’m sorry. That was horrible for me to say.”
His lips parted into another soft smile as she said, “I don’t know why you're apologizing to me. I’m the one who got trashed and hit you with a book. I’m the one you’re picking up bottles and trash from every day. No one else would do that for me.”
She smirked as she pushed him a bit further, “So Lyanna wouldn’t be okay with the flying books and the rum stains in your sheets? No starching your laundry and dusting your trophies?” Bailey winked at him.
“I’m not sure if she’s ever heard of starch. Or laundry. Or dusting, for that matter.” Leo shook his head at the obvious mistakes he'd been making in front of Bailey. It was adding up in rapid succession. He placed his heads in his hands as he shook it back and forth slowly.
“What’s that for? Stop it.” Bailey reached out towards his chair and grabbed his arm. The heat of her fingertips burned through Leo’s cold skin. He looked up slowly at her, staring into her eyes. He placed his hand gently upon hers as they remained in place. Calm floated over the room, slowing both their hearts to beat at the same pace.
“We’ve gotta keep you talking. If not, you’ll fall asleep, and I can't risk that for at least another four or five hours. Unlike you, I have no idea what to do in an emergency except to call my agent.”
“Well, what should I be saying?”
Anything, he thought. But instead, he asked her, “Where’d you live before this job?”
“With my grandmother. I was working on my degree after my divorce. She gave me a room to stay in and helped out with… with my other activities… It was great, but she passed about two months ago now. I had to leave so I ended up in Chicago working odd jobs to try to pay the rent.”
Leo was taking in everything she was saying. She was previously married, had experienced loss, and had managed to keep herself afloat. It was more than what he was doing with him living in his parent’s home and hemorrhaging his inheritance along with his boxing earnings. Her situation startled him, “What about your parents? No help from them?”
“No. Both are gone. My great-aunt Catherine was the one who kicked me out of my grandmother’s home. Her daughter lives there now. I’m kind of the black sheep of the family. Divorced. No degree or good job. You know the story.” Bailey turned her head away from him. She had not thought about her grandmother’s home or all that she had left behind. All that remained was the blanket belonging to Bailey and the strand of pearls she still wore today.
“What about your ex?” Leo wanted to hear her story. Not because it made him feel better about his own or because he wanted to her to bring up her pain. It was because he wanted to know more. He wanted to know it all, every imperfection.
She continued to look away as she muttered under her breathe, “An addict. I was young and dumb and I spent my time taking on him while he spent my money on drugs and booze. If I wasn’t paying for bail, I was paying for my hospital bill. He had a better aim than you when he threw things. Still, I stuck around for about ten years just hoping he’d get better if I tried hard enough.” She faced him directly, “The fact is, you can’t change anyone. You can’t make them better.”
Bailey admitted to herself that her message was both directed at herself and Leo. Living with him had made her realize just how damaged she was. But he was as lost as she was. And if she couldn’t save the person that she was supposed to love the rest of her life, she would at least let Leo hear it.
“I don’t think that’s true. People change.”
“People change when they have something to change for. I wasn’t that for Joe.” Bailey thought of Lily and how she would cry out for him at night during their first month in the garage apartment. Bailey spent night after night explaining how their divorce wasn’t Lily’s or her fault. She needed to say it as much as the young girl needed to hear it.
A haze took over her body as she suddenly jerked backwards. The bed had seemed to pull her in as her mind looped images of her daughter. She began to shiver.
Leo noticed the way her hand had stopped gripping the blankets and how her head had fallen into her chest. He shot up from his chair, knocking it over in the process. He stripped her bedding and lifted her body up. He gently grabbed her small, delicate face, bringing it close to his. He could feel her slowing breath against his face as he searched for a pulse.
“Stay with me Bailey!” He was calm as he unbuttoned the top of her shirt and poured the water from her glass onto her bare chest. “Talk to me. Say something.”
She shook even more violently, her head nodding back and forth. He grabbed the back of it and steadied it once more. He continued to plead, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not letting you go. Just stay with me. Stay with me.”
Leo looked down at the girl as her eyes timidly peeked open. They struggled to focus on him until they found him. A softness lightened them as the dark circle grew wider in its own expense. “Leo,” she whispered, “Leo…”
His thumb traced her bottom lip over the faded pink lipstick. His other hand pulled her closer to him. Their noses touched as her body stiffened under his guidance. Her hand found his arm once more. Finally, their lips found each other, both parting for the other as his tongue left a trail along the top of her mouth.
Slowly they fell back into the stack of pillows. He held his body over hers as her arm moved to his back, lifting up the edge of his shirt, searching to feel his skin. His hand slid under her hip with his fingers tracing the lower edge of her hip and slowly moving towards the hem of her hiked-up skirt.
Bailey arched her back as he moved the stiff material up and up and up. Her stomach twisted in knots as his thumb hooked under her cotton panties, slowly yanking them towards her knees and then using his palm to gently spread her legs. Bailey gasped inaudibly as her breath escaped her. But Leo could feel her moan as her lips opened deeper.
His lips began their own trail as they moved to her cheek, the very tip of her chin, the lines of her neck, and down to the V-shaped line of her still-wet blouse, already half-unbuttoned. The top of her breasts raised to him as she lost control of herself. He rested his head between them, alternating kisses and small flicks of his tongue.
But Leo needed to see her. He needed to know that what he was doing was alright. He had never asked permission before, nor had he been so gentle and reactive to another’s body. Bailey was different. She was light in places where he had only known dark, primal urges. She was soft in places he had always imagined were hard. Her body and her soul had shocked him in so many ways.
Their two pairs of eyes locked. Hers teared up from the sensations he was creating as his fingers found the soft, damp folds of her pussy and slowly massaged circles in the sensitive skin. His gray eyes burned with a fiery but contained desire. He watched her face as it contorted beautiful from longing to pleasure with each longer stroke of his finger. Every bit of her had become a wave, tensing and cresting with the rhythm of his movements.
Leo wanted nothing more but to linger there, to feel the spark that lit his body from the inside out. He needed to hold her closer and to take her further. His fingers, his palm, his lips were not enough. His arm shot up from under her as Bailey cried out. The buttons of her grey blouse gave way one by one as he ripped away the remaining fabric separating her covered skin from him.
He dove in for a kiss, as passion took ahold of him. He was uncaged and unmatched. The sudden change in energy brought Bailey back to center. She pulled back, her face turning to the side. The familiar taste of whiskey had hit her, causing to remember where she was and who she was with. The scent of his body was a memory she did not want to relive tonight.
Leo could feel her go limp and begin to resist. He gently set her back down and then slid off her bed. His arms folded, he looked down at her as she slowly buttoned up her shirt and replaced her underwear. He was unsure of what his feelings should be. If she were just another girl, a girl that had rejected him, he would be out of there in a rage. He would want nothing to do with a woman like her.
But didn’t flee. Instead, he sat back down and pulled the black phone out of his pocket. Jonathan was returning his phone calls.
“Leo? Fuck man! What happened? Is the maid okay? Should I send someone?”
Bailey listened as Leo retold the story from the book to her last fainting spell, leaving out the part about their time on her bed with her spread legs and his open mouth.
“I’m sending a guy. He’s a medic; he’ll check her out. Just keep her awake until then. Got it? I’ll be there tomorrow evening to check in on you. I’ve got some things to discuss with her anyways.” His voice sounded almost too serious to Leo. There was no hint of the overly friendly employee aiming to please him.
Leo hung up his phone and walked towards the door. “I’ll wait outside. Jonathan’s sending a guy, an EMT, to take a look at you. Will you be okay alone?”
“Leo...” Bailey tried to apologize, but it was too late. He was out of her sight. She'd wanted to go back to that moment when their two bodies had found one another, to have a do-over at whatever caused them to pull together. But she knew, in her heart, that she could never get past the alcohol on his lips or the way he looked at her with such unchecked desire. Some things were not meant to change. This, for Bailey, was one of them.