Lone Star Family Values

Chapter 32

Full House

            Carlos was at the kitchen table working on a few things that the station had sent over for him to do while he was on leave. Since the fire two weeks ago, things had been a bit tense. They'd temporarily moved in with Owen who was still housing Mateo, so five people and a dog in a house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms was not a good idea, no matter how you tried to configure it. Bailey had been sleeping on an air mattress in the bedroom that TK's old room while TK and Carlos slept in the bed. That wasn't an issue, they'd shared a room before, however the bathrooms were what were currently causing an issue. TK had taken to sharing a bathroom with his dad so that left the second bathroom to Carlos, Mateo, and Bailey. You didn't have to be very imaginative to figure out how that was going.

On top of the current living predicament, Bailey had still needed to complete her school work. She'd been given a leave of absence that gave her until the end of Spring Break but she'd still been asked to complete her assignments. With no space to do her work in private, she was struggling in every edge of her world.

"It's my turn in the bathroom, you already had it this morning." Bailey called, knocking on the door.

Mateo was yet again in the bathroom and Bailey was close to losing it. She was covered in paint, had somewhere to be in an hour and was far too exhausted to try and argue with people.

"I'm almost done, I promise." Mateo's voice came from the other side of the door and Bailey bit the inside of her cheek and rolled her eyes in spite.

"Yeah you said that fifteen minutes ago." She mumbled, dropping her towel and clothes in a neat pile next to the door and slumping back down the stairs.

She walked through the house and her body language caught her papá's attention.

"I thought you were gonna shower Bails." Carlos said looking up from his laptop.

"I thought so too. But Mateo is in the bathroom." Bailey sighed, plopping onto one of the stools at the counter.

"Again?" Carlos asked.

"Yeah." Bailey mumbled.

"Hello hello." Owen said, happily walking into the kitchen from the back yard, TK not far behind.

Bailey smiled glumly and TK furrowed his brow, stopping next to his daughter. Bailey leaned her forehead against his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her gently, avoiding her hands and portions of her shirt which were still covered in paint. TK looked to Carlos with a look that clearly asked, 'what happened?' to which Carlos only shook his head. TK rubbed at Bailey's back for a bit before he could clearly feel his shirt growing damp and when he looked he could see that she was crying.

"Hey, Bails, what's going on?" He asked hugging her tight to his chest, paint covered shirt be damned.

Bailey shook her head gently, never pulling away.

"Okay, how about we go upstairs and go sit in the bedroom for a little while." TK suggested.

Again though, Bailey shook her head, harder this time.

"I just wanna have space again." She mumbled after a few minutes.

TK's heart ached. This was definitely not what he wanted for his daughter and when he looked over to Carlos he could see that he felt the same way.

"I know you do kiddo; I know." He said gently.

Owen watched as TK just pulled Bailey into a tighter hug. He knew that they were having a hard time, he knew that Bailey specifically was struggling with more anxiety and without her own space, she had very little outlets that she could turn to. The fire had thankfully spared the shed in the backyard so they'd been able to move her art supplies to his backyard but Owen knew that it wasn't the same.