The Revenge (The Insiders Trilogy #3)(9)

“You’ll be done in thirty minutes?”

I shook my head, making the first slice through the middle of the carrot. “That’s how long it took me to talk Theresa into letting me help prepare lunch.”

“Theresa.” Matt turned to her.

She was standing beside another line cook, who was chopping up the rest of the vegetables for the soup. She didn’t look up, just started shaking her head. “Nope. Not going to happen.” She raised a hand up, pointing at me. “She came in this morning and started doing dishes. I kicked her out. She came back ten minutes later and started making coffee for everyone. I kicked her out again. Came back and you’re now seeing our compromise. She wanted to man the grill, and no way am I letting one of you Francis children near that grill. You all are good staying out of my kitchen, thank you very much.”

Matt gestured to me. “But she’s in here.”

“Yeah, ’cause she wouldn’t stop coming in—”

I spoke up, looking down. “It’s because I’m a Hayes.”

The other chopping stopped.

The guy at the grill stopped scraping.

The dishes were held suspended.

Theresa didn’t talk.

Matt didn’t say a word.

The only sound that filled the room was water boiling on the stove and the dishwasher machine doing a load.

I could feel how pregnant that silence was, but I kept chopping all the while, and I could almost feel my mom patting my back, saying, “You tell ’em, Bailey. You tell ’em how we Hayeses handle ourselves.”

I sucked in my breath, stopped seeing the carrot under my hand, felt the tears swelling up, but I’d gotten damn good at doing things without seeing. I sliced the carrot, moved it aside, and grabbed another. I lined it up and I was putting the knife through it when Matt coughed, clearing his throat.

He leaned in close and said quietly, “How about we go day drinking when you’re done with the carrots?”

I couldn’t do that.

I’d drink. Then I’d feel. Then I’d think.

I could handle it now, working, and feeling her. But if I started feeling my own emotions and then also feeling her, nope.

Not gonna happen.

But I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t explain it like that.

My throat was swelling up, and I couldn’t get any words out.

Theresa called, in that tone of hers, telling me she understood exactly what I was going through at this very moment. “Leave her be, Matthew. The time for day drinking will hit, but it ain’t here yet. ”

Matt was quiet next to me.

I was tense, holding my breath, and then I heard him sigh, too. “Okay.” He patted my shoulder. “Call if you want to hang. I’m going to Naveah then.”

He left.

Those tears didn’t fall.

I never stopped cutting the carrots.

That seemed important to me for some reason.

Kash I was leaving a meeting and going to another meeting when my phone started ringing. Glancing down, seeing it was Matt calling, and knowing he was back at the Chesapeake, I answered just as I was sliding into the back of the SUV.

“Yeah?”

Josh shut my door and went around to the front passenger side. I was alone in the back and I heard a biting greeting: “She’s cutting carrots, Kash.”

I frowned.

“Bailey?”

He snapped, “No. Payton. Yes, Bailey. I wanted her to go to Naveah with me today, and she wouldn’t stop cutting those fucking carrots. Carrots. She’s begging to work in the kitchen. Theresa couldn’t get rid of her this morning, so she put her to work. My sister, who is one of the smartest people I know—and I come from a family of geniuses—is dicing through carrots like her life depends on it. What the fuck, Kash? What the fuck?”

I sighed on the inside.

On the inside, I wanted to swear with him, rage on the phone.

On the inside, I wanted to go back to the Chesapeake and hold Bailey until she could start feeling again.

But all I did was murmur quietly, resting my head back against the seat, because suddenly I was fucking wiped. “She’s in mourning.”

“Yeah.” Another biting word from him. “Three weeks ago. Chrissy died three weeks ago. She—Bailey—she should—”

“He waited.”

Matt swallowed his words. He was silent.

I said again, “He waited, Matt. He waited until she could see and then he killed Chrissy. Bailey knows this. She’s done the math in her head. She is probably haunted by that day every minute of every hour. She has a photographic memory. She is a genius—”

“I know!”

Another sigh, from me. “She needs time.”

He was silent again.

Then a strained, “I can’t lose my sister. I just got her.”

“I know.” My head was too heavy to rest. I let it hang. I let my shoulders slump. “I know.”

“I want her back.”

I did, too.

“I’m going to get wasted today,” he said. “Like, you better send a full detail on me, because I’m letting you know ahead of time. I’m drinking. I’ll probably fuck a few girls today, maybe a few more tonight. I’ll try and not do drugs, but I can’t make promises. I can only promise that I’m going to be stupid today. I need it, Kash.” He was breathing heavily into the phone. I could hear his restraint slipping. “Watching Bailey choose to remain a zombie every day is killing me. And I liked Chrissy. I really liked her, too, but I can’t handle this shit. It’s too close. It’s just like…”