“I know I come with a lot of ‘extras.’ I just . . . I’m sorry,” he says again, the puffiness around his eyes making me wonder how much sleep he’s getting.
“I believe you.”
“You do?”
I nod, but take a step back. “I don’t think you knew about this. Not really. But you know what? It hurts all the same, Barrett.”
“I know. Let me fix it.”
A small smile creeps across my face and he doesn’t miss the sadness in the gesture. His eyes go wide, his face pale, and I think he’s going to lunge at me and hold me against him. A part of me wouldn’t object, but I don’t get the choice because he doesn’t move.
“There isn’t some magic button that can fix this,” I point out.
“I can’t take it back now. I can’t make this un-public,” he groans. “What do I fucking do? What do you want me to do?”
The lines of his face shine in the sun streaming through the window. I see every crease, every line of stress, every pinch of frustration in his handsome face. My lips want to press against the wrinkles, my hands crave to smooth out his anxiety, but I hold back.
“I want you to give me some time to think about this.”
“Why?” he says, his voice now touched with irritation. “You said you know I didn’t do this on purpose.”
“That’s true. But that doesn’t mean this didn’t just change the game for me.”
“This isn’t a fucking game,” he barks.
“No, it isn’t.” My voice stays calm as I watch him pace again. “But it is exactly, unequivocally what I didn’t want. It would’ve been different if the article was right, and people knew who I was and gave me space. Now they’ll look at me like I’m pathetic, and I refuse to be made the laughingstock of another city because of a man.”
“No one is laughing at you,” he gulps. “They’re laughing at me.”
A heavy breath leaves my lips. “The timing of this also makes me worried. Am I going to get asked about it or mocked because—”
“You better fucking not.”
We face each other, the room pushing us closer, but we both fight it. Me out of self-preservation, him out of manners. The clock on the wall ticks softly and every second we stand there feels like an hour.
His chests rises and falls, his lips falling open as his breathing quickens. His nostrils flare just a bit as he bites down and the muscle in his jaw clenches.
“I need to pick Hux up from school,” I say quietly. “He has a dentist appointment.”
“We haven’t finished talking.”
“We have to be finished for now,” I say, forcing myself to turn away from him. On some level, I’m grateful for the excuse to get away. I need to think.
“When can I see you again?”
I pick up my purse off the chair. The papers sit inches away and I make myself not look at them.
He takes a deep breath and blows it out. “If you want time to think about this, I get it. I’ll give you that.”
“I need to make sure this is something I can handle,” I gulp. “All of a sudden, this just got very real.”
His arms come around my waist from behind and I sink back into his chest. I breathe in his cologne and let it carry me away from reality for a few seconds.
“It was always real to me,” he whispers and kisses the top of my head.
Alison
I CURL MY FEET UNDER me and look up at the stars. The moon is bright and high in the sky, yet the air chilly.
I tug the blanket closer to my body and look at Lola sitting on the other side of the patio furniture. She picks up the bottle of cheap wine and offers me more. I motion for her to fill it up.
“You’ve had three glasses,” she points out, having grabbed some sort of logic on the way over after my frantic call when Huxley went to sleep. “You’re a lightweight. We’d better cut you off.”
“Don’t even start making sense now, Lo. This is not the time.”
She laughs and tosses the now-empty bottle into the trashcan by the door. It hits the bottom with a thud.
“So . . .” She waits on me to stop talking about the research paper I finished tonight and about my early shift at Hillary’s. I’ve discussed why my oil needs changed in my car and how I’m suddenly craving hummus. Anything and everything has been toyed with tonight, except the reason I called her, a reason we both know.
“So . . .” I heave a breath, not sure how to bring it up or what part to bring up or if I even want to bring it up to start with. What I wanted was to not be alone with my thoughts.
“What happened after I left?” she asks carefully. “Did things go okay?”
I nod and down the rest of the wine in my glass.
“Why do I think you’re lying? No, strike that—why do I know you’re lying?”
“I don’t know, maybe because I’m drinking wine like a fish?”
“Good point.”
I sigh and rest my head on her shoulder, the low alcohol content in the inexpensive wine finally adding up to enough percentage to dull my senses. My thoughts aren’t so jammed. They’re clearer if not a little muddled, which makes no sense and all the sense in the world.
“He said he was sorry. He swore to me he didn’t know the statement was going to say that, and the other article about the baby was a shocker.” I shake my head. “No, not a shocker. He knew it was happening, just not today.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Mhmm,” I mumble, letting my eyelids drift closed. It’s a delightful feeling to trust the peace of the dark.
“You do?”
“Yup,” I say, fluttering open my lids. “I do. I don’t think he knew it was going to be so unflattering to me and there’s no part of me that really, truly believes he staged this to happen at the same time.”
“So you don’t think the timing was suspicious?”
I shrug. “Maybe it was a coincidence or maybe his people knew exactly what was happening with the ex-girlfriend or whoever in the hell she is or was. But did Barrett? I don’t think so.”
Her face scrunches in thought as we gaze across the yard. We sit like that a long time, both of us lost in thought, trying to make sense of this ridiculous situation with a man neither of us imagined we’d ever be discussing like this. Maybe it would be easier if we weren’t.
“So boil it down for me,” she requests. “If you believe him, what’s the problem?”
I take a deep breath and look at Lo. She gives me a small smile, encouraging the words out of my mouth. They’re on the tip of my tongue, but I hesitate. She’s going to just tell me I’m stupid and, truthfully, maybe I am. Maybe it’s ridiculous to feel the way I do, but I can’t help it.
Once you’ve been burned by someone, the scars never leave. They become more sensitive to the same type of fire that got you once, tingling when you get too close to the heat. And as much as I’m starting to really, really adore Barrett Landry, the sensation is still there that maybe this is another fire.
It’s possible I’m being overprotective of myself. There’s a chance I’m overthinking things. But if I had overthought them a little more with Hayden, maybe my scars wouldn’t run so deep.
My lips twist together, feeling swollen from the wine. My eyes wet, glaze over, and I fight hard not to cry.
“Ali?”
“Tell me I’m being stupid. Tell me I’m being completely idiotic for being scared.”
“Oh, my friend,” she says, amusement thick in her voice, “I’ll never tell you that being scared is wrong. Being scared saves lives. Hell, it saves venereal diseases and unplanned pregnancies,” she laughs. “But that doesn’t mean it’s always warranted either.”
Looking up at the night sky, I try to find the stars that look like a baseball. I don’t find it—the sky still looks like an erratic mess of twinkling lights. But it also causes my heart to beat wildly as I remember my first walk with Barrett.
“He m
akes me feel like I’m important to him. Barrett looks at me and sees me, Lo. He sees my heart. And he’s so great with Hux. He makes me feel like I matter to him, he asks my opinions. He . . .”
“Sucks grapes out of your hoohah?”
I burst into a fit of laughter. “That too.”
“So what you’re saying here is that he convinced you he’s this great guy, one that was good enough to lay aside your reservations and give it a whirl. And yet, at the first sign of struggle, you’re rethinking everything?”
Gulping, I feel my cheeks heat. “I’m not necessarily rethinking everything. I’m trying to be smart, Lola. I’m trying to make sure I’m not walking into a replica of what I walked away from.”
“No offense,” she says, tipping back the rest of her wine. “But Barrett Landry is spades over Hayden Baker. Okay? Regardless of what Barrett’s done to upset you, let’s not put him on the level with your asshole ex. It’s not like he has paraded up the steps of a swanky hotel with a hooker at his heels.” She groans. “And with a hooker in ridiculously ugly heels.”
I glare at her.
“What? They were. They actually looked Bedazzled, Ali. Who does that? And who fucks that?”
I roll my eyes, grateful for the bit of levity but knowing it’s not enough to completely distract me.
She wraps her arm around my shoulder and snuggles into me like only a best friend can. I wonder absentmindedly what would’ve changed if I’d had her in New Mexico when I was going through everything. I was alone then. Would it have been easier if I’d had her there? Because this is a lot easier with her here.
“I think, in my infinite wisdom, you need to give the disastrously hot mayor the benefit of the doubt,” she says matter-of-factly.
“What if it destroys me in the end?”
“Hey,” she says, tugging the blanket around her waist. “You were the one that insisted on tangling up the heart and vagina. I believe my initial suggestion was to keep them separate.”
“They’re pretty wound together.”
“I think they’re more wound together than you even realize.”
The stars twinkle a little brighter as I acknowledge that she’s right. Every part of me is tangled up in this irresistibly handsome politician and I’m afraid there’s no way out.
I’m really afraid I might not want a way out.
Barrett
The house is dark, just the light over the cook top is on. I sit at the kitchen table and take another swig of bourbon.
The room is full of expensive pieces of furniture from a double oven to a restaurant-style refrigerator. The table I’m sitting at was handcrafted, as were the barstools lining the granite-topped bar. It’s a warm room, the one everyone calls the heart of the home. Most assuredly the most expensive room in this house. Yet, when I think about sitting here or sitting at the little beat-up table at Alison’s, there’s no question where I’d rather be.
And it isn’t fucking here.
My body aches. My shoulders are stiff, my head feels like I’ve gone a few rounds with my trainer. My throat is scratchy from yelling so much today, my knuckle a little ripped from hitting a punching bag at the gym with no gloves. The pain felt purifying, distracting from my true ailment—a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl that I just might have ruined my chances with.
Not being able to smooth this over with her destroys me. Seeing the pain on her face, the little spec of insecurity in who I am and what I believe about her, hasn’t left me all day. In fact, it’s only pressurized, built, and now is bubbling over.
My phone buzzes and I only look at it in case it’s her. But it’s not. Of course it’s not. It’s Linc.
As much as I don’t want to hear his stupidity, I really don’t want to be alone. So I answer it.
“Hey,” I say, flinching as the bourbon festers in my stomach.
“What’s up?”
“Not much.” I sit the glass on the table. “What about you?”
“Not much. Just seeing what’s happening over there.”
I look around the room and consider just how much of nothing is happening. No conversations, no plans for tomorrow, no lunch dates on the schedule that I actually want to attend. Not one damn thing.
“Graham called earlier and filled me in on the debacle with the papers and all that,” he says, like he’s just tossing that out there as a conversation piece. It’s the reason he fucking called and as much as that annoys me, it’s also a relief.
“Yeah, it’s been a fucked up day.”
“How’d you handle it?”
“What do you mean, ‘How did I handle it?’” I snort. “I had a complete fucking come-apart in the middle of my office.” I cringe as the memory washes over me, the fury I felt the moment I saw those headlines driving a nail into my skull.
“I can imagine,” Lincoln says, no humor in his voice. “I have to say, I was a little disappointed no punches were thrown.”
I scoff at my little brother, the one that nearly charged the mound last year when a pitcher hit him three times in one game.
“I know you don’t like Nolan. Hell, I’m not sure how much I even like the son of a bitch right now. But I can’t throw punches. I have a real job.”
“Baseball is a real job, asshole. I make more than you do a year. Choke on that.”
I laugh, even though I don’t want to, because Lincoln is right. He makes more than I do doing a job that’s a hell of a lot more fun and less stressful.
“How’d Alison take it?” he asks.
“How do you think she took it?”
“That good, huh?”
Rubbing my temples, I consider refilling my glass with liquor. It would absolutely dull the pain, but it would also mute my ability to think, to process, to plan, and that’s nearly all I have on my side right now. I need to figure a way out of this.
“She’s effectively not talking to me right now,” I say, the words tasting as bitter as I expect them to. “A part of me feels like I need to act, to do something to make this better. It’s what I do. There’s a problem, I fix it. But you know, maybe this life I lead isn’t what’s best for her. I mean, fuck, Linc. My own people put out that article.”
He chuckles under his breath. “The life you lead isn’t the problem, brother. It’s your quote-unquote ‘own people’ that are the issue. I’m not even going to start into a big lecture here on how much I hate Nolan and all the reasons I think he’s poison to you.”
“You’re just mad he told dad you’re the one that wrecked my BMW back in the day,” I grin.
“Yeah because that shows his lack of loyalty! It was none of his fucking business. You and I had it worked out. It would’ve been fixed and that would’ve been the end of it. The cocksucker overhears us talking and snitches like the asshole he is.”
Sighing, I stand and walk over to the island where I left the bottle of bourbon. I pour a little into my glass and swirl it around while I consider Lincoln’s words.
“I’m days from this election. If I weren’t, I would’ve fired him today.”
“You should’ve fired him today.”
I groan. “We’ve been working on this campaign for years, Linc. There are so many people’s jobs riding on the line.” Sighing, I slump against the counter. “I was reading him the riot act today, and Dad shoved me out of the room and told me to calm down.”
Taking another swig of the liquor, I feel the burn as it trickles down my throat. “If I fire him now, my chances of losing this election triple. Maybe quadruple. So much time and money have been spent that I can’t just blow it now because I’m pissed off. Those people have families to feed, bills to pay. That’s not fair to anyone.”
“It’s fair to you. You gotta stand up for yourself, man.”
“I did,” I sigh. “I’ve done everything I can.”
“Welp,” Lincoln says, “if that’s the case, have you done everything you can to tell Ali that?”
“Ali? You’re on a nickname basis with my girl now?”
“Go to hell.” A pang of jealousy that their relationship is so easy taps my heart.
The line grows quiet, both of us trying to get some kind of game plan together. The problem is that neither of us plan as well as Graham, and this isn’t something I can plan with my logical brother. I’m closest to Graham, but when you need someone to plan shenanigans, you have to go to Linc.
“You know, I’ve never understood why you like politics,” Lincoln says.
“I’m not sure why I do right now either.”
“Is it what you want to do? Do you want this life, worrying about what everyone says about you, picking you apart, going after your girl?”
Sitting back at the table again, I think about how many times I’ve asked myself that very question over the last few days.
“It’s the only thing I ever considered doing,” I point out.
“Because Dad pushed you.”
“Not just that,” I say. “I’ve always felt like this is what I’m supposed to do. And I’ve enjoyed it for the most part. You can do a lot of good things with the power it gives you. It’s constantly moving, changing. You can’t stand still or you get lost in the shuffle. And, before the last couple of months, I’ve had all the women and parties and opportunities I could ever want.”
“That’s all fine and dandy, but everything you’ve said has been past tense.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I know.”
“So . . . why not drop out? Change courses. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to try to save the world or give up your life and subject yourself to this craziness.”
“I’ve considered it.” My fingertips strum the table, lost in thought. “You know, I wonder what my life would’ve been like if Dad hadn’t bought me the mayoral election.”
“Barrett, don’t even fucking go there. You won that thing on your own.”
“Did I, Linc?” I ask. “I remember going to the debates, answering the questions at the interviews, and not really having a fucking clue what they were talking about. I said what I was supposed to say, smiled, and boom—I’m the mayor. Did you ever think about that?”
Sway (Landry Family #1) Page 19
