The Handoff #2
“He showed up a week later,” Bailey said, that moment so clear in his mind.
Dean, head leaned back against the stucco, eyes closed, half smile on his face in spite of the discomfort of his injury.
“And I was so glad he was there. And that’s how it went.
He’d disappear and then show up again, and we forgot to talk about the important things because… .”
“Because being together was the important thing,” his father supplied, and Bailey sighed, because his father, as always, got it.
He had since… well, since Bailey was eleven and had a terrible crush on the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
He’d been so excited about football, but he couldn’t remember any of the rules, and when his dad had asked him what about the sport he liked best, he’d blurted, “The guy with the ball is so pretty!”
And that had been it. His father had bought him posters of Drew Bledsoe and told him to maybe tell his friends it was because he was going to “bring it home this year” and not spread the “pretty” part around school.
Bailey had taken his advice to heart and hadn’t come out to friends until college, when he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be a thing.
But his father had always known and had always supported him and had always, always wanted him to be happy.
“Yeah,” Bailey said now. “It was. And this morning I almost… almost made him leave, because I realized I wanted more.”
“What did he say?” Connor asked drowsily.
“He said I should have asked him earlier. He had no problems talking, but he needed specific questions or he wouldn’t think about telling me things.”
His father’s laugh sounded slightly more awake. “Uhm… wow.”
Bailey snorted. “That’s Dean. He”—Bailey’s voice grew soft—“said he’d been diagnosed as on the low end of the spectrum when he was in college, because he organized information so specifically and didn’t always pick up on emotional cues.
I-I don’t know if his family knows that, but I get the feeling… .”
“They wouldn’t have cared?” Connor asked.
“Well, not so much not cared,” Bailey said, “but the way Val talks about Dean, about his other family—like the quirk wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was communicating with the person. I, uhm, think that’s why Dean wouldn’t think to tell me .”
“Mm…,” Connor murmured. “Because he’s been accepted for his entire life by all his important people.”
“Yeah,” Bailey said softly. “I hope I didn’t let him down.”
“You must not have,” Connor told him. “You called him with an emergency, and that boy called in the cavalry, didn’t he?”
Bailey laughed softly, thinking his father probably really needed his sleep now. “Oh yeah he did.”
“Someone who would go to the wall for you like this—son, that’s special. What’s he look like?”
Now Bailey really did laugh. “Like Val, but leaner and younger. Just as cocky, though, but you can definitely tell they’re brothers.”
“Well, Val’s a good-looking man,” Connor murmured. “His little brother might almost be good enough for my son.”
“Dad,” Bailey said, figuring it was time.
“’Night, son. Let me know when we come to a rest stop. I don’t want to use that tiny portajohn. It’s terrifying.”
God, Bailey’s father was the best.
AFTER ABOUT six hours of sleep, Val was going in the back to rest, and Rory was up, so Bailey asked to sit up front with him.
Rory was good company, Bailey realized, but then, Val had been too.
Snarky, snappy, the two of them could bitch at each other like an old married couple, and then they’d laugh into song, which only made Bailey laugh more.
And miss all he’d let lapse during the past four years.
Those times leaning on Dean on the couch while they’d been watching TV or listening to music were the closest Bailey had gotten to really appreciating anything— movies, TV, music—since Emmett had passed.
Talking to Rory about the beauty of Grease was fun, but it made Bailey want to know what Dean’s opinion would be.
Four hours later, they switched off, and this time Bailey’s dad got to run Catherine around the rest stop for a few minutes.
That put Bailey back in the sleeper with Dean’s brother and a few questions Bailey had been gnawing on since he’d hopped in the semi at around six thirty in the evening the day before.
“So,” he said, as they made themselves comfortable, “do you help Dean out a lot?”
“Nope,” Val said, folding his arms and tipping his head back onto the pillows. “You’re special.”
Bailey snorted and prepared to ask another one, but Val stopped him.
“Look—you may not know this, but we had the intercom on when you were talking to your dad. So here’s the thing.
Dean’s my little brother. No, we didn’t have a label for the autism spectrum thing, but yes, the whole family had pretty much agreed that Dean’s brain was special.
The fact that you figured it out too and basically learned to move around it for him—well, that makes you special too.
No, I don’t know if you two are destined for each other, but I think he must really care about you to do all the shit he arranged yesterday, so there’s that.
And”—his voice softened—“he probably knows about Emmett. But he probably doesn’t want to talk about him until you bring it up, because it’s private.
There were seven of us, Bailey, and that means we always had somebody to have our backs, and we always had a best friend or a confidant or somebody to be a part of our lives.
But it also meant that if we had something that was private, it had to be locked away in a steel safe and buried under the bodies in the backyard.
Private is important to a family that has no privacy at all, you understand? ”
“Yes,” Bailey said, his head swimming.
“So if you’re ready to talk to Dean, he’ll be ready to listen, but he’s not going to open your steel safe.” Val puffed out a breath. “Now I need my last two hours or tomorrow’s gonna suck. Can I get that?”
“Yessir,” Bailey said.
“Good. Nice meeting you, Bailey Dodge. Welcome to the fucking family.”
And with that Bailey swore Val Royal fell asleep with the snap of his fingers.
And almost like magic, so did Bailey.
ANOTHER NIGHT at a rest stop, and then they started the last leg of their journey to LA.
At around eleven in the morning they stopped at a truck stop diner just outside of the city.
Bailey was cramped and frowzled and probably a little bit ripe and wishing for a bed that didn’t rumble under him in the worst way when three young men strolled in, looking fresh as daisies and beautiful and clean and not a day over twenty-five, not one of them.
And two of them were the spitting image of Dean and Val, with dark hair, dark eyes, slight builds, and square jaws.
One of them had slightly browner hair and the other had big, almost forest-creature eyes, but yeah, Bailey was starting to see the family stamp like a glow-in-the-dark pass to a members-only club.
Royal family blood was apparently very exclusive.
The young man next to them was taller and rangy, with an impressive chest and an almost familiar strut, including a chin with a divot down the center and fine lines already branching out from light hazel eyes.
Impressed, Bailey looked to Rory, who grinned. “That’s my boy,” he said, preening. Then he stood and walked over to hug the young man with absolutely zero self-consciousness, saying, “Anthony! I didn’t know you were coming!” and Bailey liked this whole family even more.
“Heya,” said the young Royal with the forest-creature eyes.
“It’s good to meet you.” He grew his hair long over his brow and sort of floppy, and he punctuated his words with a little toss of his head that threw the hair back and revealed his sly smile.
Oh wow. This kid—innocence, beauty, that beguiling summer-child smile.
Dynamite. Undiluted TNT. And Dean’s youngest—had to be the youngest—brother had it all.
“You must be Chance,” Bailey said, feeling a little befuddled by that beauty.
He held out his hand and then turned to the other boy, who was not “plainer,” but he was quieter .
He kept his brown hair cut shorter and hid his hazel eyes behind glasses and his smile muted, and when Bailey turned to him for a handshake with “And you must be Reg,” he startled to even be noticed.
Bailey remembered Dean’s voice when he’d talked about his younger brothers—indulgent, protective, gentle—and he got it.
It wasn’t just that they were the youngest of seven, it was that they’d been allowed to be young.
Had Bailey been any less innocent when he’d been a premed, absolutely sure that being a doctor meant helping people and not playing politics?
Had Dean ever felt forgotten and anonymous in his big family, with every child vying for a spot with a distinct personality?
These young men were still children to their big brother, like Anthony was still a child to his father, Rory.
“Oooh,” said Chance, after the introductions were finished. “You just sat down? Can we eat too? I’m starving , and I bet they have ham and hash browns, right?” He smiled winningly at Val, who rolled his eyes.
“Yes, I’m buying, you freeloading little shit. Reg, you up for breakfast?”
“Sausage, fruit, hash browns, and—” Reg paused to yawn. “—coffee. I drove down while Tony and Chance slept.”
“You let him call you Tony?” Rory asked in surprise as they all settled down into the large booth Val had procured. “You told your mother and me absolutely not.”
Anthony gave his father a mild gaze and said, “Pop, do we need to have a talk?”
Rory gave a quiet, bemused shake of his head, and while Bailey recognized some sort of family code, he couldn’t say exactly what had been communicated. It didn’t matter because Chance was obviously used to being the center of attention, and he took over from there.