For years and years, our parents raised their sons and daughters exactly the same. Then Bailey hit puberty and suddenly, no man in the house could walk anywhere without stepping on one kind of minefield or another.
Whether it was seeing your little sister’s lacy panties in the laundry by mistake, a shared bathroom trashcan with the tampons of three women whose cycles had synced, or a wardrobe malfunction during creek swimming, the men in this family had learned about women through trial by fire. The lesson I’d soldered into my brain at this point when it came to my sisters? Covering my eyes to avoid seeing shit I’d never be able to unsee.
“Bails,” I try to whisper, but the woman sleeps like the dead. I’d tapped my knuckle against the door before I came in, but unless I wanted to wake the whole house up, I had to enter Bailey’s lair and hope she didn’t mistake me for an intruder and tase me.
Her cattle dog, Rainy, jumps off her bed and runs over to me, the clicks of her nails against the floor my only warning beforeshe starts bouncing around to be pet. I pull my hand from my eyes so I can avoid stepping on her.
“Bails, wake up. Jesus Christ!”
Despite my best efforts, I trip over the dog, not even hurting her but she yelps anyway and jumps back up on the bed. Bailey shoots up, clutching the blanket to her chest and breathing heavily as she tries to piece together what happened.
“Maddie, what the fuck?”
I assume it’s probably terrifying for her to wake up to a man in her pitch-black bedroom, but considering I’ve been whisper-yelling her name for a minute now and I was already in a shitty mood, I didn’t appreciate the attitude.
“Your fucking twin ended up in the slammer for brawling at the bar. Since you’re the only one he’ll listen to besides Mama, and I don’t want her finding out about this, I need you to come with me to get him out.” I tell her, turning my back to her in case she throws something at me. She’s got a wicked aim and doesn’t appreciate being woken up.
She groans and falls back onto her bed. I wait for the rustle of her sheets or the sound of Rainy’s nails against the floor again, but the room stays quiet. “Bailey?”
“I’m coming!” she growls.
It really doesn’t sound like she’s moving at all, but another thing I’ve learned about the women in this family is not to argue with them when they’re already pissed off. Instead, I head down to the kitchen and grab one of the two million colorful metal cups in the cabinet, filling it with ice water as a peace offering.
Bailey emerges five minutes later wearing sweatpants and a men’s hoodie with a beanie mostly covering her brown hair. She heads to the front door to shove her bare feet into a pair of boots and I’m trying to decide if it’s worth getting bitched out to remind her how cold it is outside.
I really just need her in the cab of my pickup in the next two minutes so Theo’s dad doesn’t decide to officially book Colt andTravis, so I just grab someone’s Carhartt off the hook and hold the front door open for her.
Deputy Walker had agreed not to as a favor, but the longer we took to get there, the longer the two of them had to run their mouths and change the cop’s mind.
“Don’t know why I even had to come,” Bailey grumbles as she takes her cup of water from me, sucking it down greedily without thanking me.
“I told you already,” I explain, trying to keep my tone as steady as possible as I open the truck’s passenger door for her. I can’t stand repeating myself, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sorta terrified of Bailey. “Colt hates me. If I go in there alone, he’s gonna let himself get booked just to prove a point, and Mama doesn’t need that. You’re my best shot at getting him home before sunrise. You can cuss the whole time.”
I toss the extra jacket in her lap and by the time I’ve walked around the hood of the pickup, Bailey has slumped down in the seat and put her boot-covered feet up on the dash, arms crossed. Her head is pillowed on the jacket against the door and her eyes are closed like she thinks she’s gonna catch some extra sleep on the ten-minute trip to the jail.
Normally, I’d harp at her to put her feet on the floorboard for safety’s sake, but it’s a short trip and it’s late enough that there most likely won’t be anyone else out driving. The ding of the seatbelt warning echoes repeatedly in the cab and annoys the shit out of me, but I swear I can hear Bailey’s unspoken dare to say something, so I just grip the wheel harder until it times out right as I reach the open gate. I turn onto the main road as gently as I can, but Bailey still huffs as though I’ve slung her across the cab with the motion.
I’d hoped the old family motto would make Bailey at least crack a grin, but no such luck apparently. When we were younger, our father used to offer to let us cuss to get through something we didn’t want to do. Usually, that was putting peroxide on a skinned knee or going to visit our Aunt Meredith,who loved to pinch our cheeks. It became something we’d barter. Didn’t want to eat the green beans on our plate? Tough luck, we had to eat them anyway, but it was always, “Can I cuss the whole time, Dad?” Mama hated it, but Dad got a kick out of it. Even though skinned knees were rarely a concern anymore and Aunt Meredith had died several years back, we still liked to pull it out on occasion.
When we get to the sheriff’s office, she’s out of the truck before I can even put it in park, stomping toward the door like attitudes are welcome here. I catch up just in time to open the door for her to storm through, but run slap into her back when I try to follow her because she’s stopped short.
Should I have told Bailey that her ex was also a part of the brawl and would be here as well?
Probably.
Should I have noticed it was Cartwright’s old hoodie she’d thrown on and assumed it would be the last thing she’d want him to see her wearing, considering she goes out of her way to avoid him?
No.
Because why the fuck would I notice that?
Won’t stop her from chewing my ass out for it later, though.
In my defense, I thought they’d be in the holding cells in the back and that the deputy would only release Travis and Colt to us, meaning Bailey wouldn’t even know Chase was involved until later. Unfortunately, Colt and Chase are sitting in chairs on opposite sides of the lobby with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Travis is nowhere to be found.
The sight of her ex throws Bailey off for a few seconds, but when she gets her ass in gear and rounds on Colt, we’re all wincing at the earful he gets.
“Colton Dean, you are twenty-six years old! Why the fuck am I being dragged out of bed at one in the morning to come get your ass from jail?”
