4. Bailey
Bailey
S ix Years Earlier…
“You gonna grab me a beer, too?” I asked Reed, who was heading inside from the front porch where we’d been sitting for the past hour, waiting for Lettie to get home.
“You’re not twenty-one yet, genius,” he called over his shoulder as he disappeared through the door.
I jumped out of my chair, following him inside. “My birthday is in three days. I’m basically already twenty-one.”
He closed the fridge, only one beer in his hand. Popping the top off onto the counter, he took a long swig. “ Basically isn’t the same thing as actually . Not in the eyes of the law, at least.”
I rolled my eyes, opening the fridge to grab a beer anyway. We’d been drinking beers together since I was thirteen and Reed was sixteen. Though my liver and the law hated it, I wasn’t going to stop three days before I was actually legal.
“You’re a buzzkill, you know that?” I said as I popped the top off my bottle using the edge of the counter.
He shrugged. “You still hang around me.”
“I’ve been questioning the why behind that for ages now.”
He punched me in the shoulder and I cracked a smile, leaning back against the counter. Right as I was bringing the bottle up to my lips, Lettie came storming through the front door.
Without taking a sip, I lowered the bottle to the counter beside me as she glanced up, briefly making eye contact with me before beelining it down the hall to her bedroom. The door to her room clicked shut, and Reed sighed, looking down at the toe of his boots as he adjusted his black cowboy hat.
“If that fucker did something,” he started.
“We’ll have to kill him,” I filled in. “I know.”
We wouldn’t actually kill him, of course. Just rough him up a bit. We always had a plan in place for Reed’s little sister if shit ever went south with a guy she was with. Not that it had ever happened before, but we all protected Lettie.
“I’ll go see what’s up,” Reed said, taking a step before I stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“I’ll go,” I offered. I wanted to be the one to hear it from her lips before I grabbed my shotgun.
I was exaggerating. Okay, maybe I wasn’t. The point is, no one fucks with Lettie and gets away with it. Not on my watch.
He eyed me. “You sure? She can get a little snappy with you. ”
I raised an eyebrow, dropping my hand from the center of his chest. “As if she doesn’t do the same to you?”
“You’re right. You better talk to her. I’ll probably say the wrong thing, then she’ll go get Dad, and it’ll be a whole thing.” He grabbed his beer and walked past me, heading for the couch.
I let out a small snort at his comment. Lettie was always using the “dad” card on Reed because she knew he was always doing his best to live up to his high expectations. He loved all his kids, and me, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have high standards for all of us.
I hated thinking of Lettie out with some guy, even if I knew who he was.
She was worth more than some lowlife from school who played tennis.
I mean, really, tennis , Lettie? On top of that, the guy was thinner than a toothpick.
She could probably lift more with her pinky than he could using both arms.
Lettie was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen - aside from my mother, of course - and I’d always had this unwavering attraction for her. She could trip me in the mud at the creek and I’d still worship the shin that made me fall. That’s how fucking gone for her I was.
Would I ever admit that to her, though?
I didn’t know.
It felt weird thinking of crossing that line with her no matter how much I wanted to cross it. Lettie and I had this relationship that was like an unspoken truce. We were always there for each other when we needed someone, but only ever just as friends.
Did she even want more than that with me ?
Leaving my beer on the counter, I made my way down the hall, coming to a stop at Lettie’s door. I went to reach for the handle, but stopped myself. What if she was indecent?
Tapping my knuckles lightly on the door, I heard her bed shift, then light footsteps padding on the hardwood. Setting a hand on the door frame above my head, I waited for her to peak out.
It slowly swung open a few inches, and Lettie tilted her chin back to look up at me. “May I come in?”
She crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. “It depends.”
The corner of my mouth lifted slightly. “On?”
“Are you going to ask how my date went?”
“Why would I care about how your date went?” I asked innocently.
“So you’re telling me that you and Reed weren’t waiting for me to get home just now?”
“Nope.” She was pinning me with those baby blues, making it so fucking hard to lie to her.
“You guys are always out doing stuff on the ranch when you hang out. You really think I believe that?”
I shrugged, adjusting my grip on the doorframe to lean down a bit closer to her. “Now why would I lie to you, Huckleberry?”
She rolled her eyes. The nickname got her to break every time. “Fine. You can come in.”
I smiled, dropping my hand from the door frame and walking past her. She closed her door, which she only ever did with me. Any other guy and she’d keep it cracked.
I walked over to her dresser, noticing the lack of dust on the surface, and eyed the photo of her and Brandy on their horses. “So how was your date?”
“Bailey Cooper!” she squeaked.
I couldn’t help the smirk on my face as I turned to face her. “Call a guy curious.”
“I don’t need you meddling in my relationships,” she huffed.
I arched my brow. “Is it a relationship, though?”
She pursed her lips, plopping herself on the edge of her bed. After a moment of trying to keep up her hard exterior, she broke, looking down at her hands tangled together in her lap. “No,” she admitted softly.
She’d changed after she got home and was now wearing pink shorts and an oversized t-shirt, which covered the shorts. The shirt stopped mid-thigh, exposing her long, tan legs down to her bare feet.
Forcing my eyes to stop trailing down her body, I sat down next to her on the edge of the bed, our shoulders touching. “You want to talk about it?”
“No,” she said through a sniffle.
“Alright.” I laid back on her white comforter, grabbing her pillow and setting it behind my head.
“That’s my pillow!” She grabbed it from me, my head plopping to the blanket.
“I was using that,” I pointed out .
She set the pillow right above my stomach, laying her head on it. I resisted the urge to stroke her hair or rest my hand on her arm.
After a few moments of listening to her breathing, she said, “He didn’t want to be in a relationship with me.”
My eyes stayed trained on the ceiling, which was basked in an orange glow from the sun setting outside her bedroom window. The entire room was the color of a flame as day slowly turned to night.
“Lettie?” I said after a few minutes.
“Yeah?”
“He doesn’t deserve you. You know that, right?”
She gave a poor attempt at a shrug with her current position. “Will anyone deserve me in your eyes?”
“Honestly, no.” Not even me. But fuck, I’d work my damned hardest to become the man she did deserve. I didn’t know if that’d be in one year or ten, but I’d earn Lettie Bronson one day, and I’d treat her better than any man could.
Once I was sure she’d fallen asleep, I slipped out from under the pillow, hating that I couldn’t stay. If Reed found me asleep in here on her bed, he’d flip.
Slowly standing up, careful to not jostle the bed, I looked down at her. Her chest was rising and falling with her steady breaths, her lips slightly parted.
She looked so peaceful .
So damn beautiful.
I crouched down, my fingers just barely touching her as I pushed a strand of hair out of her face. Before I did anything stupid, I stood, then made my way to the door.
I twisted the handle slowly, knowing that if you twisted it too fast, it’d make a small squeak, and I didn’t want to wake her.
Before slipping out of her room, I took one last look at her sleeping on her bed, one arm curled under her cheek and the other draped across her stomach. I committed the image to memory, never wanting to forget how she looked in this moment.