Chapter 26

26

Annika

Bailey gives me the side eye when I get home two hours later.

My clothes are dry, my sorely disappointed lady bits have come to terms with their fate today and are holding out hope for a round two sometime in the not-so-distant future, and I'm carrying a box holding six bubble waffle makers that I had to go practically all the way to Copper Valley to find.

Apparently I guilt-shop.

And ever since I crawled out of Grady's bathroom window and took off out of Shipwreck, I've felt guilty.

Guilti er , that is.

For lying. For leaving Bailey in charge of Mama and the bakery while I went to dry-hump my former best friend. For those seven seconds when I hit the edge of Shipwreck and considered turning left on the state highway to run away and stick my head in the sand instead of turning right to come back to Sarcasm.

I did turn left, but I had to if I was going to find a store that sold bubble waffle makers.

And I came back.

That's the important part.

I came back.

"Do you know what tonight is?" she asks.

"Netflix binge night?"

She crosses her arms and glares.

"Bad karaoke in the living room?" I guess.

" The softball game , Annika. The softball game is in thirty minutes against Snyderville, and they need you to play, and Roger asked if he could take Mama. On a date . To the softball game. Where Bridget is going to be watching. And you almost missed it ."

I'm missing something else too, because she shouldn't be so upset about a softball game.

Should she?

Wait.

"You…don't want Roger taking Mama to the softball game."

"She's in no condition to date."

"Bailey. She's blind. She's not broken . Wait. Where is she?"

" With Roger ," she shrieks. "Annika, if she has sex with him, she'll get pregnant again, because she's forty-five, not past menopause, and she can't be blind and pregnant and raising a baby, and then you and I are going to be the old married couple who aren't married because incest , plus I'm thirteen and can't legally get married, but we'll still be that couple who put their entire lives on hold to raise one more baby that she could've prevented if she didn't get asked on dates by old plumbers who just want to get in her pants!"

I sincerely hope this is teenage hormones and not some insight she has to what Mama and Roger's relationship might've been before Mama lost her sight.

But in any case, I'm almost positive I know how to handle it.

"I got bubble waffle makers." I tilt the box so she can look in, but it doesn't help.

Her eyes fill with tears, and she collapses into a kitchen chair as if she's just found out her long-lost first love who went missing during a war has come back, but decided that he'd rather date Grady's goat because the goat wrote him letters.

I need more sleep.

"Bailey. Hey. It's okay." I sit down next to her and pull her into a hug, then pick out a clump of cookie dough that's stuck in her hair, and then kiss her head. "Roger won't take advantage of Mama. And Mama won't let him. And you need to take tomorrow off and sleep in and go play volleyball with some friends. I'll make some phone calls and get you into the gym at the high school, okay?"

"But you juuuuust got buuuuuubble waaaaaafle makers," she sobs. "I want to make buuuuuuuuble waaaaaaafles. And not be a sister-aunt."

"You're not going to be a sister-aunt."

"You're a sister-aunt."

"I'm going to pretend I'm not confused right now."

"You're just so old ."

"Or offended."

"It's like we're not really sisters. You're more like my aunt."

Oh . "If I had a baby, you'd be an aunt."

" YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE BABIES ."

I rub my ear. Pretty sure hearing will come back in another day or two. "Bailey?—"

" No . We have too much on our plates for babies. And what if the bakery fails, Annika? What if we can't do it?"

"Then I'll get a new job, and we'll be just fine . I do have a few skills that can earn me money."

"But—"

"Bailey. Trust me. We're going to be absolutely fine. Do you want to know how I know?"

"Because you're a know-it-all who's just projecting confidence to make me stop having a hormonal freak-out?"

"Yes."

She sputters a laugh and pokes me in the stomach. "Not funny."

"We're Williamses, Bailey. We survive. It's what we do."

"And kick ass in softball games?" she whispers.

" Oh my god . There's a boy on the Snyderville team, isn't there?"

"No," she replies so fast that my whiplash gets whiplash with the cherry of a lie on top.

I rise and scrub my hands over my face. "Who is he?"

She jumps up too, but instead of telling me no one , she bursts into tears again and runs out of the kitchen.

So.

I just fucked that up.

I am so fucking awesome.

I drop back down into the chair at the kitchen table and thunk my forehead against the scarred wood.

I almost reach for my phone, but texting Grady won't solve this.

He doesn't know anything more about teenagers than I do.

And honestly?

I don't know that I know anything more about relationships than Bailey does.

But there's only one way to learn.

And that's to do .

So I give myself thirty more seconds to just breathe, and then I call Roger to check on Mama, and then I go digging for my old softball glove.

I'm going to learn.

Starting with a softball game.