Chapter 22

The next six months passed in a blur.

Gabe returned to New York to work. His part on the show was expanding and he was working nearly every day, a blessing in his business. In the evenings, he did some voice-over work and a few small off-Broadway projects. As soon as shooting ended on Friday afternoon, he made time for Bailey.

Racking up frequent flyer miles left and right, Gabe went to see her at least every other weekend. When he was in college, there was a guy in his dorm who was carrying on a long-distance relationship with his high school sweetheart. When Gabe asked how he could stick with her over the distance, Keith simply said, "You have to want to."

And that was that. Both Gabriel and Bailey wanted to make their relationship work. There was an implicit understanding that their circumstances weren't permanent and luckily he had the means to make the time between visits as short as possible.

Neither Morgan nor Kimmy returned to the house in the fall. Due to the tough times, Morgan turned to the Navy for help. With promises of assistance for college, a healthy signing bonus and less of a chance at being sent to Iraq than the Army or Marines, she left at the beginning of August for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, her first trip so far away from home.

Kimmy dropped out of school because she partied too much. She kept in contact with April and Bailey, but she had different priorities in her life. At first, Gabe was willing to let her stay in the house if she could hold down a full-time job, but the twins both said that one of the original preconditions for living away from home was staying in school. They hated to turn their friend away, but neither would be deterred from their primary focus: being the first people in their family to graduate from college.

He was also reluctant to continue taking their money, but both girls insisted. Like their parents, neither of them wanted to be considered freeloaders or taking something they didn't earn. Everyone knew they weren't paying market value, but it made them feel better so Gabe didn't argue. Besides, he was putting all their money in a savings account and was going to return it to them as a graduation gift.

On a couple of long holiday weekends, Bailey came to see him in New York. She got to know his friends and even talked about looking for a summer job there.

Gabriel was in love and it sickened everyone around him (in the good way). All of his phone conversations that ended with, "Love you" usually brought rolled eyes and gagging sounds from his friends who were always ready to ride him about robbing the cradle. Still, he knew that without exception they were happy for him and they liked Bailey.

He set up a webcam in the study at his house and every night he and Bailey stayed up talking or even watching TV "together". He made sure to write a thank you note to Al Gore for inventing the Internet and sent a bouquet of flowers to John McCain showing his gratitude for coming up with the Blackberry.

The one thing he missed was holding Bailey at night and waking up with her in the morning. Even if she was asleep, she was always touching him. It might just be her hand on his hip, or her foot intertwined with his, but they always in contact with one other, and he missed that. Of course, he also missed the sex, but the cuddling was the hardest thing for him to give up.

It helped a little that Bailey had made him the DVD. Actually, there were four of them. Loaded up with short scenes, often only ten minutes or so long, Bailey had filmed herself masturbating for him. She said the borrowed the video camera from her folks and thanks to Morgan's mad video editing skillz, they put the files on some DVDs for him to watch. She made sure to moan and groan for the camera; she wanted to entertain him as much as herself. She showed of a wide variety of toys and ingenuity and no two scenes were alike. There was even one of her in the hot tub.

Gabe was only allowed to watch once scene per night and often he called her as the video was playing. He let her know what he was doing and often their conversation devolved into some down and dirty phone sex. For a girl who had seemed so shy and innocent when they met, Bailey turned out to be quite a firecracker. She had a wicked sense of humour and was sexually adventurous.