Alison laughs beside me. “It’s okay. It’s true.”
“So, your dad or uncle or brother aren’t around?” Lincoln asks, making me cringe internally. I don’t want the kid to have to start talking about things I know aren’t easy for him or his mother.
“I don’t have a dad,” Huxley says, his words enunciated very carefully. “Or a brother or an uncle. I have a grandpa, but he works a lot. So it’s just me and my mom and my grandma.”
Hearing the words come out of his mouth twists at my heart. I can’t imagine my life without my father or my brothers or sisters. They’re a built-in network of support, even though half the time I want to kill them. But I’d rather have them annoying me than not have them at all.
My heart breaks for this kid, and as Linc forces a swallow and looks at me out of the corner of his eye, I know his does too.
“The next time you come out here, we’ll bring a glove for your mom and Barrett, and we’ll teach them to play. That way, when I have to go back to Tennessee, you’ll have someone to practice with.”
“When do you have to leave?” Huxley asks.
“In a few days. But I come back a lot to visit. Otherwise, my mom cries. You know how that goes,” Lincoln says, rolling his eyes for effect.
“Yeah,” Hux huffs, making us all laugh.
Lincoln takes off his cap, a purple hat with a golden A on it, and plops it on Huxley’s messy head. “I gotta get a drink. I’ll be right back.”
He disappears in the house and as I start to speak, Alison’s phone rings. She looks at the screen.
“It’s Luxor calling,” she says. “I need to get this and confirm my schedule for the next couple of weeks.”
I nod but realize how much I hate it that she’s catering jobs with assholes like me. She should be getting to stay home and take care of her kid and focus on school and whatever makes her happy.
Shaking those thoughts from my head, I look at Hux. We’re alone, the two of us, and I have no idea what to say to a child. I don’t watch cartoons. He doesn’t read papers. What could we possibly have in common?
As my brain scrambles for something to say, Huxley does me a favor: he takes charge.
“You like my mom, huh?”
Shocked, I try to compose myself. “I do,” I say, going for the truth. “She’s pretty special.”
He nods and ponders his next question. “How much do you like her?”
I can’t help but laugh. “Well, I like her a lot. She’s nice and smart and really pretty,” I wink, hoping he at least kind of likes girls at his age. I liked them as soon as I could see, so I’m hoping we have some bond there.
He rolls his eyes.
I wince.
“I think my mom likes you too.”
“Do you now?”
He nods, chewing on his bottom lip. “She’s a lot happier lately. She sings songs in the shower and while she cooks and doesn’t get so mad about the baseball cards all over my bed when I forget to put them up.”
“I’m glad she’s happy.”
“Me too.” He kicks at a rock. “You will be nice to her, right?” He looks at me with the most sincere little eyes I’ve ever seen.
I lift off the swing and kneel at the edge of the porch so we’re eye-to-eye. “I promise you I’ll be nice to her. And if you ever think otherwise, you can call me or come talk to me, and we’ll discuss it.”
“Really?”
“Really. She’s your mom, Huxley. I respect you wanting to protect her. That’s a very big job.”
He grins, just like Alison when she’s on the verge of being embarrassed. If I weren’t trying to solidify my position in their world, I’d laugh.
“My dad wasn’t very nice to her.” The pain in his voice is raw, so visceral that it slices me to the quick. “She cried a lot, and I don’t want her to cry, Mr. Landry.”
I reach out, hesitantly at first, and adjust Lincoln’s cap on his head. “I don’t want her to cry either. And I don’t want to make you worry, okay? I want to be her friend and make her keep singing while she cooks.”
The lines around his eyes start to fade and I almost see a smile.
“And Huxley? I want to be your friend too. I know I’m not as cool as Lincoln, but if you give me a chance, I know some fun stuff. And I can get passes to the water park all summer.”
“Really?” he asks, in total awe.
“Yup,” I say, never more appreciative of the little perks of my job. “And, like I said, if you ever have problems with anything, you call me. Man to man.”
“Man to man,” he repeats. “I will, Mr. Landry.”
“One more thing. Call me Barrett. Only people that want to fu—,” I catch myself. “Only people that want something from me call me ‘Mr. Landry.’ Okay?”
“Okay,” he grins a wide, toothy grin.
Barrett
I TOSS THE FOLDER ACROSS the desk. It slides over the glass top and smacks the side of my pen holder.
“Damn it, Nolan. He had no problem with the budget until now. You know as well as I do that Monroe’s called him and put pressure on him to, you know, put pressure on me.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Nolan pushes his glasses to the end of his nose and looks at me from across my desk.
Groaning, I push my chair back and give myself some space.
He flips through some papers and pulls out another sheet. “This was sent today certified mail.”
He tosses it on my desk and I sweep it up, a feeling of dread sinking into my stomach. “What’s this?”
“It’s a letter from the attorney of a Gabriella Winston, also known as the mother of your unwanted baby. She’s raised her price to a hundred thousand,” he sighs.
“Not happening.” I wad the letter up and toss it into the garbage before looking at Nolan again. I shoot daggers, not necessarily at him, but at the idea that someone would use a topic so sensitive and make it up out of thin fucking air to hurt someone else. “Does she not have a fucking conscience?”
“These are things you ask yourself before you get involved, Barrett.”
“She’s out of her damn mind if she thinks I’m enabling her on this. Fuck this and fuck her.”
“She’s going to go public.”
“Good for her. Let her. And watch us torch her back in the press. She wants to play, we’ll play.”
“We can’t do that, Barrett. Unlike her, you have a public image to consider.”
“Which is exactly why she’s doing this! She’s going to tank my image to profit, using an abortion as the kicker. That’s fucking sick.”
He starts to argue when a knock raps at the door. Graham pokes his head around the corner. “Am I interrupting?” he asks.
“No,” I grimace, sitting up in my chair. “Come on in.”
He nods to Nolan and shuts the door behind him. Striding across my office, he takes a seat. “I come bearing bad news.”
“Great,” I sigh, wishing this day was over already. “Give it to me.”
“There’s a picture in the paper today.” Graham lays a copy of the Savannah Dispatch on my desk. “That was taken outside the Farm yesterday.”
Grabbing it and looking closely, I see Troy in the Rover. In the passenger seat is Lincoln and in the back, behind Linc, is Alison. Her face is kind of blurry, but it’s her.
Thank God Huxley isn’t visible.
I want to die. I want to crawl into a hole and just sleep until this entire fucking election is over, until everyone stops acting stupid—caring about what I do, what I say, what I support, pegging kids on me that aren’t even mine.
Nolan glares from his spot next to my brother.
“Don’t start,” I grumble, putting my head in my hands. My mind is spinning about whether Alison has seen it or not and what she’ll have to say about it. This is absolutely what she doesn’t want and what I thought I could prevent.
How fucking stupid.
“Barrett,” Nolan says, licking his lips, “this isn’t going to go ov
er well.”
“She’s not even officially coming to see me. She’s technically with Lincoln.”
“Even if she is with your brother, and we both know that’s not true, the media will spin it to discredit you, especially with her history. You know that.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m going to need to get back to my desk and figure out how to deal with this,” he huffs, sticking his paperwork back in his briefcase. “This is exactly what we didn’t need and absolutely what I asked you not to do.”
“I didn’t do anything, Nolan. Nothing wrong.”
He pauses, his hand midair, and looks at me like I’m a child. “You just cost me a day’s work by not being able to control yourself for a little while longer.”
“There’s nothing remotely scandalous about this!”
The air in the room thickens, all of us waiting on someone else to make the next move. I want to get out of here, to find Alison, to make sure she’s okay.
“I knew this was coming.” Graham adjusts his tie and clears his throat. “I have a plan, one neither of you may like, but it’s all I can come up with considering the extenuating circumstances. Let’s use this to our advantage. I know there’s no way Barrett is not going to keep seeing her.”
“How do you know that?” Nolan asks. “He’s seen her for a while now and that’s indicative of the end.”
“Trust me.” Graham looks at me again. “Furthermore, there’s no way the media won’t find out about her past—innocent or not,” he adds as I quirk a brow. “All we can do is to go with it, play it off. Defense in the form of offense.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, leaning forward, my hands together on my desk.
He takes a deep breath and watches Nolan. “I propose we go all in. Make a statement that Barrett is in a relationship with a single mom, that he’s this benevolent man that is taking care of her and her son. Let’s swing the story our way, use it to our advantage.”
Nolan seems to consider the absurdity of this.
“She doesn’t want in the media,” I say, nixing the idea. “There’s no way she’s going to agree to this.”
“Are you going to keep seeing her?” Graham asks.
I think about it for a half of a second. “Yes.”
“Then think of it like this—as much as you want to live in Lala Land and pretend like you can do what you want on the down low, you can’t. It’s ridiculous to even consider it, Barrett. So by doing it in the open, as much as she tells you she doesn’t want to do that, you can protect her. Otherwise . . . you can’t.”
It makes so much sense coming from Graham. But I know, in the bottom of my gut, this won’t be that simple to Alison.
“If it were just me, I’d be all in,” I say, feeling my resolve wane. “But this decision isn’t just mine.”
“Since when?” Graham jokes. “You always just make decisions about shit and force everyone else to play your game. That’s what this is, in fact. We’ve told you not to see her and yet, here we are, playing along with what you want.”
I don’t answer him, my mind already on the conversation I’m going to have with her.
“I think Graham has a point,” Nolan says finally, standing up. “If you’re hell-bent on seeing this thing through, let’s run with it. Just until the election. It’s not like you’re seriously going to marry this girl or anything.”
Something about the way he says that burns me. I stand too, my chair smacking the wall behind my desk. Graham notices my demeanor and inserts himself before I can blow.
“Exactly,” he says, assuaging Nolan. “So let’s convince Alison this is the right thing and just roll with it until Barrett is finished.” He raises his eyebrows at me, his way of trying to keep me calm.
My chest heaves with frustration as I watch them walk to the door. Nolan turns to face me before he exits.
“You’re going to need to convince her of this pretty quick so we can get our statement out and beat Hobbs to the punch. You know his guys are working on it now.”
Once he’s gone, Graham turns to me. “This is the best I can come up with. I knew this day was coming and I don’t know how else to let you have what you want and keep you from blowing everything in the meantime.”
My shoulders sag forward and I drop my eyes. Guilt trickles through me because he’s right—this election doesn’t just have my dreams attached to its success, but a host of other people’s too.
When I look back up, he’s gone. I buzz Rose to let her know to hold my calls and cancel my appointments for the rest of the day. I text Troy to pick me up out front. Once I’m in the Rover, I call Alison.
On the third ring, she picks up. I grin as soon as I hear her say hello.
“Hey, it’s me,” I say as Troy swerves through traffic towards her house.
“I was just thinking about you.”
I take a large gulp of air. This could blow back in my face so bad, I know it. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. But it does seem like the most logical solution, and truth be told, I want to be with her. Making up my mind once and for all, I go all in. “Are you home?”
“Yeah, I’m just finishing up a bunch of homework. Why?”
“Would it be okay if I swung by for a minute? I want to talk to you.”
“Uh, yeah,” she says. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine. Just want to run a few things by you.”
“I’m here,” she says, trying to sound confident.
I laugh because I’m trying to be sure this will work out too. “I’ll be there in a second.”
The Rover scurries through thankfully light late afternoon traffic and, before I know it, we’re pulling up to a little white house with black shutters. I dart out the door and race up the steps, knocking a handful of rapid beats before Alison pulls it open.
She stands in front of me in a pair of jeans with holes in the knees and a light green shirt. She looks like she should be fixing dinner in the kitchen, helping Hux with his homework, and waiting on me to come home for dinner.
I shake the thoughts away because the conversation that’s getting ready to happen could end that visual forever.
“Hey,” she says, a lilt to her voice that lets me know she’s as anxious as I am.
“Hey,” I say, entering the house. It smells like her, like vanilla and cotton, and is decorated in a warm, homey way that makes me feel welcome immediately. “Is Huxley here?”
She shakes her head.
Knowing we’re alone and this might not end well, I can’t pass up the opportunity to kiss her. I begin to pull her to me, but she melts into my chest. Our lips find each other, like they could in the dark, and I memorize every movement, every tug, every feeling of peace she gives me by being her.
She leads me into the living room and we sit on a worn sofa. I think about saying something nice about her home and how pretty she looks, but I can tell she hasn’t seen the article and I don’t want to put it off any longer than necessary.
“So,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Apparently someone snapped a picture last night of you and Linc entering the Farm.”
Her face blanches and her eyes go wide. “How? Where?”
I shrug. “It’s in the Dispatch. It’s of Linc and Troy mostly, but you can see you. Your face isn’t super clear, but it’s you.”
I give her time to process this before pushing the issue. She looks away, to a picture of her and Hux when he was much smaller, her eyes filling with tears. But they don’t fall.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words making me want to die. “I know this is what you didn’t want.”
She nods her head and doesn’t look at me. It’s like a knife in my heart.
“It’s not the pictures in the paper exactly,” she says finally, her words barely above a whisper.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s protecting Huxley’s privacy more than anything,” she says distantly. “But it’s . . . more than that.” When she looks at me, the sparkle i
n her eyes is gone. There are tight lines around her mouth letting me know she’s in pain. “When I think of the media, it terrifies me. I have panic attacks, Barrett. It took a couple of years after I left New Mexico to be able to even leave the house without shaking and being ready to puke.”
“I’ll never let anything happen to you, Alison.”
She doesn’t tell me she knows I’m right. She doesn’t say anything at all.
“I thought somehow I could prevent this,” I say, taking her hand in mine. “Maybe it was wishful thinking.”
“I don’t know how I believed it wouldn’t come to this.”
“But hey,” I say, looking at her until she looks at me. “It’s to this now. And we have to choose whether what we have is worth fighting for or not.”
She smiles and gathers the courage to speak again. “What do we have, Barrett?”
I kiss her lightly. “I’m just figuring it out. I don’t know what it is because I’ve never felt it before. But I can tell you this for sure—it’s not something I want to let go because we’re afraid.”
“Are you afraid of this?”
“My staff tells me I should be. They tell me getting involved with a woman can flip back around and kick me in the ass. They say it can ruin my reputation and lend more credence to Hobbs’ claims that I’m a flighty decision maker.”
Her face falls. “I don’t want to hurt your career.”
“You make me better. Don’t you see that? You make me feel like I can conquer the world, Alison. You make me smile, give me little glimpses of something I’d never considered before.”
She picks up on what I’m getting at and seems shocked at the idea. I want to tell her that yeah, I’m thinking of what a future could hold between us long-term, but I don’t go there. I need to fight one battle at a time.
“You give me and my career way more than you’d ever take from it. But it’s not just about me. It’s about you. And Hux.”
“I feel like I need to protect my boy,” she says. “I know what being in the public eye can do. I don’t know what hearing things said about his mother, about you if he grows close to you like I think he will—what will that do to him?” She frowns. “If I don’t protect him, who will?”
Sway (Landry Family #1) Page 17
