Sway (Landry Family #1)(22)

“Well,” she says, “the fact you didn’t just chase this girl and make her bend to your will is throwing me a bit. You’re usually a more ‘I’ll take what I want’ kind of guy.”

“Maybe I’m changing tactics.”

“Maybe I need to know who she is.”

“Maybe not.”

“Fine,” she groans. “Okay, you should apologize. But here’s the thing—you can say you’re sorry all you want, but words are pretty useless. Everyone says they’re sorry but rarely means it.”

“So what do I do? I mean it, Camilla. I’m sorry as fuck. I feel . . . I think I feel guilty.”

“Wow,” she breathes.

“Yeah,” I nod. “Wow.”

“Okay, so what you need is a grand gesture,” she exclaims, her eyes sparkling. “You need to convince her you aren’t the douchebag you presented yourself to be. Make her think you were just having a bad day. And if she believes you, you can’t go back to douchebag mode, okay?”

I sag. “Of course not. I . . . she . . . I . . .”

Camilla giggles at my stumbling.

“I don’t want to make her feel like I think I did. I hate feeling like this,” I admit, throwing a pen across my desk.

“You have to win her over and you do that by showing her you’re still thinking about her. You need to demonstrate that you listen when she talks, that you care about what she has to say. That is, of course, if you really did listen to her.”

Camilla flashes me a look like she expects me to laugh it off. I don’t.

“Of course I listened to her.”

“Well then, if that’s true, find something she loves, something she’s mentioned in conversation. Something small that she wouldn’t expect you to remember, and then act on it.”

I scratch my head. “So, I should send her flowers?”

“No,” she scoffs. “Flowers are what you send your mother or, I guess, you can send to your wife for a holiday as long as you follow it up with something else.” She starts to grin, but I put a stop to that, reading right through the lines.

“I can’t discuss the follow-ups with you with that look in your eye. You’re my baby sister.”

“Good point.” She fidgets in her seat before exhaling a breath. “Find something else. Not flowers. Something that will mean something to her. If you want to win her over, that’s your plan.”

It’s not a bad plan. It’s even a good plan, really. If only I could think of something to send her that’s not flowers.

“You do realize I’ve never sent a woman something before, right?” I ask. “Rose sends people flowers—which we aren’t doing,” I add as she starts to object. “This is all new to me.”

And overwhelming.

I glance at the stack of papers on my desk and wonder if I have enough energy left in me to expend on Alison.

“I love that it’s new to you,” my sister says. “That means she’s special. Just tell me this isn’t Daphne we’re talking about.”

Laughing, I stand and walk around my desk. “No, Swink. It’s not Daphne.”

“Thank God,” she giggles. Standing up, she reaches for me and I pull her into a big hug. “I’m glad you’ve found someone that makes you want to do better.”

“Do better?” I pull away and smirk. “You don’t want to know—”

“Remember how you don’t want to hear about certain things in my life?” she interrupts. “Well, that works both ways, Mayor Landry.”

“Noted.”

She heads to the door but pauses before she leaves. “If you need anything, call me. I love this romantic stuff.”

“It isn’t romance,” I point out. “It’s just . . . me trying to not be a jerk.”

Camilla grins the same grin our mother gives us when she sees right through our fibs. “If you care enough that you looked like a jerk that you want to go out of your way to fix it, that’s romantic, Barrett. Sorry to break the news to you.”

I watch her leave, her words hitting me head-on.

If I go out of my way to apologize, that would lead her to believe I’m interested.

I am interested.

But do I want to be that interested? Can I afford to be that interested?

The sound of the door closing at the Farm as she walked out echoes through my memories.





Alison

THE CHEESE OOZES DOWN THE side of the bowl, inching slowly down the china, before it globs on the plate below.

It looks divine.

I carry the leftover macaroni and cheese to the living room and sit at the coffee table, stretching my legs out in front of me. The television is playing a soap opera that my grandma used to watch growing up. I always find it hysterical that I can not watch it for months at a time and tune in and feel like I didn’t miss a beat.

Glancing at the clock, I still have a few hours before Huxley gets home from school. After paying bills this morning and doing oddball household chores, I decided to indulge in my favorite food before taking a long bubble bath . . . the one I haven’t had a chance to take since my missed opportunity three days ago.

My chest tightens at the thought.