Sway (Landry Family #1)(79)
“What’s that?”
“Hearing the disappointment in your voice.”
“Oh, Barrett,” I say. “I’m not disappointed in you.”
“Yes, you are. I hear it. And if I were there, you’d be looking at me like everyone else looks at me. Like I’m just a fucking idiot for one reason or the other.”
“Barrett, that’s not true. I’m . . . I’m disappointed that you feel like you have to do things you don’t want to do. When you’re with me, you’re strong, confident. You’re happy and funny and kind. And then you go to work and you’re still all those things, just with a buffer built around you to make you more . . . I don’t know, palatable to the public?”
He takes a deep breath and blows it out steadily. “I need to go catch up on work. I got behind today. Can I call you later?”
“Of course you can,” I whisper. “Anytime. I hope you do. I’m worried about you.”
A long stretch of silence falls over us, but it’s not a lonely type of feeling. It’s swollen with a feeling that’s so heavy, so comfortable, I can barely breathe.
“Ali?” he rasps.
“Yes, Barrett?”
“I love you,” he whispers.
I gasp, the words not at all what I was expecting . . . but everything I’d hoped to hear come from his sweet lips.
He stutters at my reaction and I panic that he’s going to recant his declaration before I can get my head together.
“Barrett,” I say, interrupting his bobble of a response.
“Yeah?”
“I love you too.”
The words sound like a song coming from my mouth, a set of words I was prepared to never utter to a man again. But the fact that I’m saying them and not just willingly, but with my entire heart and without a smidgen of regret, makes my heart sing too.
“You do?” he asks, a tremble in the words.
“I really do.”
He laughs a weak, quiet rumble. “Damn it, Alison. I thought you were going to tell me to go fly a kite.”
“Only if that kite is going to carry you over here,” I breathe. “You just took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“But was it a good surprise?”
I grin until my cheeks ache. “The best surprise of my life.”
Barrett
THE DEFINITIVE SOUND OF HEELS against the hardwood tells me who just pulled up. The headlights had brushed past my office window, but I couldn't make out the model of the car before it pulled in. When the key was used and the alarm turned off, the possibilities narrowed tremendously. But the heels were a dead giveaway.
"Knock, knock." My mother's voice rings through my office. When I look up, she's standing in the doorway. Wearing a dark purple dress and pearls, she looks like she's sent straight from Central Casting. The perfect mother.
"Hey," I say, sinking back in my chair. "What brings you by this late?"
"Just checking on my eldest. I'm allowed to do that, aren't I?"
"Absolutely," I grin, happy to see her. "Come in."
She strides in the room with her usual grace, just like Camilla and Sienna do. They are beautiful and composed, yet can be lions when necessary. It's what I love most about them. It’s what I love about Alison too.
Sliding into a leather chair facing my desk, she looks at me. Her eyes search me the way a mother's do, trying to decide how I am before she asks. "How are you?"
"Been better. Been worse."
"How's the campaign coming along?"
"Almost over."
"You say that like you're happy about it."
I shrug and kind of grimace. I don't even bother trying to hide shit from her. She always knows.
"I'm proud of you. You know that?" she asks and I know to brace myself. She always starts out with a compliment before really getting to what she means. "But this—what you're going through right now—is why I didn't want you in politics, honey."
"It's not terrible."
"And it's not great either. And what I want for you is a great life." She sighs and shakes her head, and I feel like a twelve-year-old boy again. "You've done an excellent job as Mayor, and I'd be thrilled for you to do the same things for the people of this state as you've done for the people in Savannah. You've gone up against some serious odds during your terms and you've beaten them all. But you've also managed to not lose yourself in the process and I'm worried that's going to happen." She eyes me curiously. "If it isn’t already starting to happen."
She folds her arms and narrows her eyes. "I've watched my father work in this business and I’ve stood beside your father, through thick and thin, as he navigated this very same thing. None of them were as successful as you in a lot of ways. I like to think it's because you are part me," she teases.
"Probably true."
"You'll get as far as you want to. And I know your daddy pushes you, wants you to succeed in the ways he couldn't. But Barrett, my sweet boy, don't kill yourself for this unless you're sure it's what you want."
"I am sure."
"Are you? Are you really? I used to think so, but now . . . I look at your face tonight and I'm not so positive anymore."