Switch (Landry Family 3)

“That could be a summer bonus. Three free ski lessons.”

“I never said they were free.”

Taking a sip of my tea to wet my throat, I try to wrap my head around what that means.

He groans into the phone. “My father is calling. We’re working on a charity thing for Lincoln, so I really need to take it.”

“Go,” I say. “Take it. I’m glad you found the paper you were looking for.”

“Me too.”

The way he says that makes me think it was never lost, but I’ll never be sure.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.

“At eight sharp.”

“Goodbye, Graham.”

“Bye, Mallory.”

Mallory

I WOKE UP WITH A smile. On a Monday. This surely means the world is ending.

My tea in hand, my hairbrush standing in for a microphone in the other, I dance around my apartment singing nineties music while I get ready for the day.

While my moisturizer sinks in, I check my email. My inbox has a few junk mail pieces, but buried between them is a notification from the local university. I click it, humming the chorus to a song about opinions being like assholes.

It’s a breakdown of their undergraduate degrees and an online form to begin the application process.

Turning the music down and placing my tea on the counter, I go back to the form. Could I do this? Am I ready for this?

It was great in theory when I sent in the request form, thinking it would get lost in online traffic and I could say I tried. But it’s here. Looking at me. And all of a sudden, things seem real. And terrifying.

What if I do it and fail? What if I get in it and hate it? What if I can’t hack it?

What if I really am the little poor girl from the trailer park with parents that can already say, “Told ya so”?

Exiting out of the program, I down the rest of my tea and then head back to the bathroom. As I flip through my lipsticks, I think about Graham.

He’s unlike Eric or the guy I dated briefly before him when I was eighteen. Graham is mature. Confident. He’s in charge, but not in a stroppy way. After you break through all that obsessive and relentless attention to detail and being a total control freak, he’s fun. I bet he’s even sweet.

Plucking out a new tube I got yesterday, I know it’s the right shade.

Red. I’m definitely going with red.

It’s the color of ripe cherries and I love it. I count to thirty, not letting them touch, and do another layer. Once that’s dry, I swipe on some gloss and check out the entire ensemble in the mirror.

It’s just what I was going for. Professional and studious, yet just a little sexy flair with the red lips, slightly off-the-shoulder top, and the highest heels I own that are daytime appropriate.

A bubble of anxiety rustles in my abdomen and as hard as I try to ignore it, it’s there. I feel it, nestled heavily in my stomach. I’m not sure what part of it I’m most nervous about. He clearly wants me to come back to work, but I’m terrified it will be weird even though talking to him yesterday helped.

Then it hits me. That’s why he called me. To make it less weird.

A full-body shiver takes over and I force the scent of him out of my thoughts. I can’t. Today, I’m determined to be Mallory Sims, Administrative Assistant extraordinaire. I will resist his power. I will not succumb to his prowess.

Yeah, right.