Mongrel [bxb] | Bad Moon Book III

Chapter 21: stickybobs

Bailey's hands didn't work.

That was all Matt knew about his current condition—that his hands didn't work. That when he helped him out of his shirt and the strange bandaging below, he found fresh marks along his back. Mauve pink scars on tan, sun-baked skin. They were a reminder to Matt. A reminder to be diligent about where he put his hands—when unbelting Bailey's slacks, when helping him out of them. When crutching his weight while they both stumbled into the bathtub.

Matt wouldn't leave him alone to shower—he couldn't. Not with the disoriented look in his eyes and the way his feet fumbled. So he dressed down to his boxers and they both sat at the bottom of the tub, knees to their chests and water coaxing the blood from their bodies. With a washcloth and a bar of soap, Matt cleansed Bailey's skin, starting at his hands.

He didn't know if Bailey hated it because it was too intimate, or if he hated it because being bathed made him feel powerless. But Bailey hated it. Too often he'd jerk away from the rag in Matt's hands, bump his elbow into the porcelain and curse. Too often he'd cringe at the soft cotton on his skin. Sometimes his breath would pick up. Sometimes he'd clench his teeth and curl his head back against the caulking of the tile wall.

He never asked Matt to stop, but he did. Several times.

"You remind me of a cat," Matt told him, once he'd given up and let the shower water rinse them down. "There was this stray I tried to take in when I was a kid. Cat was covered in sticky bobs. Tried to give it a bath and it cut me up."

"As one does," Bailey said, watching from half-mast eyes, "when you bathe them against their will."

Matt crossed his arms over his knees, hot water pulsing against his spine. "Figured out how to make it work. I put the cat in the shower, kinda soaped it up and tossed it in there and let it run out on its own. By the time it was clean, the bathroom was flooded. And you know, the damn thing ran right back out into the sticky bobs." He examined the rag in his hands, gave it a good ringing. "You're a lot like that cat."

Bailey's voice was frayed to threads. "What happened to the cat?"

"I wondered that too, for a long time," Matt said. "It stopped coming around one day. Then one summer, Dad was under the house workin' on some pipes. Pulled out a skeleton. Fuckin' thing was so hungry, it got into the rat poison. If it woulda just let me help, I could've fed it. Kept it as a barn cat to scare off the mice. It was too scared, I guess."

Bailey's gaze faded away to a distracted middle-distance. He thumbed at a bruise on his knee, and said quietly, "Does sound like me."

A silence took to the steaming air, and Bailey stayed there looking lost in thought, his cheeks red from the heat of the shower. Eventually, Matt stood and squeezed the water from his skin-flushed boxers. "I'll go get you some clothes."

As he tossed a towel around his waist and stepped out onto the plush rug, Bailey called after him, "Cowboy."

Matt turned to the sight of him, curled against the wall of the tub, his elbows rested on his knees and shower water beating off his shoulders. "Let's do this again sometime. When I've got the hands to touch you with."

Matt didn't know what to do but to turn away from him then. He ignored his red reflection in the mirror and swung back toward the door, heat curling in his stomach.

That night, Matt cooked a large meatloaf that he couldn't bring himself to touch. He sat on his side of the table with a spoon and a jar of natural peanut butter, and watched Bailey devour several pounds of beef in one sitting.

"Sorry about your cow," he said at some point with his mouth full. Matt could address the irony in it all night, but there was no sense in wasting the meat. It was a nice sight when he didn't take into account it was Billy he was devouring by the forkful. Watching Bailey eat felt like a small victory, but a victory still. He had never been much for food in the weeks he spent at the ranch, so Matt always assumed he hunted for most of his meals as a wolf. It was good to know he had an appetite. Plus, it gave Matt a still, quiet moment to evaluate him.