Page 2 of Bailey-Rose: The Complete Duet

“I love you, bro,” I told him, patting his leg.

He looked down with a grin. “Now I know you’ve lost your mind saying shit like that.”

“Oh fuck off. I tell you that all the time,” I shot back, laughing as I shoved him as hard as I could, but he barely even shifted to the side.

With my genetic disorder, in combination with my heart issues, it stunted my growth, so I was on the small size. Yup, this twenty-five-year-old was a whopping four foot eleven, meant I stood no chance against my two six-foot brothers when they wanted to throw their weight around, which Crew did more than Eli, being the playful one of the two.

“Yeah, you do, LouLou,” Crew agreed as he tugged me on his lap and wrapped me up in a hug, a hug I hadn’t realized I desperately needed. “I love you too, even if you smell like stale gym socks.”

“That’s it… get the fuck out if you’re gonna talk like that,” I said, wiggling out of his arms to stand before him, arms crossed. “Go on, you’ve now seen I’m not wasting away in the corner sobbing to the point of dehydration, so I’d like you to leave me to my wallowing.”

“Ah-ha… and how long should I leave you to wallow? Do you plan to ever reenter the world at large? Something tells me you’re just planning on hiding out forever,” Crew challenged, showing no signs of moving.

I tossed up my hands. “You really want to do this to me?”

“Do what? You haven’t told me anything about what’s really going on in that head of yours. LouLou, we talk about everything, so why can’t you talk to me about this?” Crew pleaded, worry filling his expression.

I attempted to run my fingers through my hair, only for them to get stuck on the snarls since I couldn’t remember when I last brushed it. Ugh, I was a mess, but I just didn’t give a shit. It’s not like anyone outside of Crew and Eli would know or could see me.

“It’s not that I can’t talk to you about this… we have, many times,” I reasoned. “If I tell you how I’m feeling right now, you have to promise me you won’t try to fix it. Don’t run to grab your super-brother cape and swoop in to fix my problems. Right now, I just want to say how I’m feeling and not feel guilty, stupid, or that my feelings are invalid because I’m not seeing the so-called ‘big picture.’ ”

Crew scratched at his jaw while taking the time to consider if he could do this for me. “Fine, I promise to sit here and listen to what you have without trying to fix it the moment you finish telling me how you feel. You need me to be an empathetic sounding board right now, and that’s what I’ll be.”

Unsure if I believed him, I crossed my arms and gave him my best glare. “Do I need to make you pinky promise?”

“Oh, we’re pulling out the big guns.” Crew gasped in mock horror shielding himself from me as I threatened him with another pillow before bursting into laughter. “No, you little grumpy kitten, you don’t need to make me pinky promise.”

With a sharp nod, I climbed onto my pastel pillow explosion of a bed. I made it so it felt like I was sleeping on clouds and flicked on the switch that illuminated the rainbow fairy lights woven in the canopy above my bed. This conversation needed a little more cheerfulness, and I was definitely going to need Pearl for this. She was the giant stuffed octopus Eli got me for my tenth birthday, which I had to spend in the hospital. He told me that if I got lonely, Pearl had eight arms to hug me with so I wouldn’t ever feel lonely.

“The harsh reality is that I’m going to end up alone,” I stated as I rested my cheek on Pearl’s big, round, squishy head. “No Scent Matcher will take me. I don’t meet the qualifications since I’m an Omega with a genetic defect. Why in the world would they want to risk more people having this issue? Did you know there’s a sixty percent chance of passing this on to my children?”

I could feel Crew holding himself back from speaking. The effort was so great it was almost as if it took on a physical presence. Yet he held to his promise and kept his mouth shut.

“You understand part of this since you can’t hire the Scent Matchers to help find your pack, being a Beta and all. Which, I think that rule is shit,” I said with an irritated harumph. “Betas have the ability to be scent-bonded, but it’s just not as common as it is with Alphas and Omegas. Even so, you should have the chance to be partnered with others to create your own pack and work with them to match with an Omega,” I ranted, waving my right arm around, adding emphasis to my words.

Doing that got me so worked up my heart monitor started beeping. Crew’s hand snatched my left hand and pulled it to him so he could see the reading on my tracker. When he didn’t comment, I knew it was in a safe range, just tipping over into the danger zone.

“Lou, we aren’t talking about me right now,” Crew commented as he sprawled out on his back, arms under his head. “I’m well aware of my struggles, but that hasn’t been my priority. I’m not worried… it’ll happen when it happens. Now, let’s bring this back to you and your feelings without getting worked up about it.”

Blowing out a breath, I returned to the point I was trying to make. “Ninety percent of our society uses Scent Matchers to find their scent-bonded Omega. Since I can’t be entered into their system, no one knows I exist, leaving me to hope and pray I might find an Alpha or a pack that will want me. It’s a proven fact that if you don’t go through a service that can access the whole goddamn country… soon the world, if the news is telling us the truth, you won’t find your scent-bonds. This leaves you with the only option of someone liking you enough to date you and possibly one day bond based on their attraction to you as a person.”

Crew rolled his head to the side to look at me instead of the twinkling lights of the canopy. “Why do you make that sound like a bad thing?”

“It’s not for most people, but I’m not most people,” I countered. “Crew, a minute ago, I got upset for you and set off my monitor. Having children is beyond high risk for me, but that would only be if I could ever manage to have sex.”

“No one has ever said you can’t have sex,” Crew argued. “Not that I want to think about that because… ew. My point is, no doctor has told you that’s off-limits.”

“That is true, but do me a favor… the next time you have a sexy time with one of your Beta friends, borrow my spare monitor and see if you can keep your heart rate under eighty-five beats per minute. The. Whole. Time,” I challenged. “I bet you a hundred bucks that thing will go off like crazy.”

“Of course it would. My resting rate is in the mid seventies. You’ve learned over the years to keep yours in the high sixties so you don’t set that damn thing off,” he countered. “I get your point, and I wasn’t trying to fix the situation. I just didn’t want you stating facts that weren’t true.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled. “Then I’ll say it’s challenging to have sex and find a partner who is willing to navigate the terms. Randall only managed to figure it out a few times, and it absolutely wasn’t worth the effort with him.”

Crew stuck his fingers in his ears and started yelling. “La la la, I hear nothing. My baby sister is pure as the driven snow, untouched by mere mortals, and certainly no man named fucking Randall.”

I snickered at that, knowing it would make him uncomfortable. “I thought you said we could talk about anything?”

He chucked a pillow at me. “Anything but that. We can talk about whatever you want that involves everyone’s clothes staying on.”