Switch (Landry Family 3)

He grins, letting his hand fall to my thigh in some kind of comforting motion. I try not to blush. “I have more acquaintances than I do friends, I suppose. I mainly spend my time with one of my brothers or alone. I prefer it that way.” He pauses, smirking. “And, yes, I have girlfriends sometimes. But those relationships are very particular.”

I gulp, imagining red rooms and contracts. “What do you mean by that?”

“Just . . .” He looks at the ceiling. “I don’t spend time with a woman with the expectation, or desire, if I’m honest, that it will become something routine.”

Each word is said crisply without eye contact. Every syllable stings my heart. With each rip against the fabric of my most precious organ, it’s obvious: I was hoping for more.

Maybe I didn’t realize it until now, but it’s impossible to ignore the feeling in my stomach. The grinding, tumultuous movement in my soul.

My spirits fall, the wine glass shaking in my hand so I steady it with the other. I smile at him. I don’t want him to see me looking dejected.

“That being said, I really like spending time with you, Mallory. You really make this difficult for me.”

“Since we are being honest and all,” I say, looking at the darkness through the window and thinking, briefly, how it feels like my heart, “that makes things really difficult for me too.”

Before he lifts his hand off my leg, he squeezes it. The spot he’d taken right above my knee feels utterly vacant as soon as his palm is gone.

“Mallory, if I have—”

“No,” I cut him off. “You have never indicated you wanted anything more from me than professional performance from seven fifty-nine to five o’clock. The rest of this was just a bonus. I don’t expect anything from you.”

I say the words and I mean them, but they still hurt like a motherfucker. My butt scoots away from him just a bit and his eyebrows shoot to the ceiling, but he doesn’t comment.

“You say I make things difficult, but I don’t want that, Graham. I’d never want to interfere with your work, with your family.”

“Mallory—”

“No. We aren’t at work, so I can put my foot down and make you hear me out.”

“Oh, like that matters,” he mumbles.

I shrug. “If this gets too difficult or hard or weird, I want to stop it before it gets out of control. I like this, but—”

“You don’t like this more than I do,” he whispers. “I just keep things in boxes for a reason. Right now, they’re a mess and I can’t handle messes.”

“I hate this for you,” I say honestly. “You must be so lonely.”

“Being alone is better than being in a relationship and making sacrifices you don’t want to make. Or having pressure put on you to choose between the other person and what drives you.”

“Who did that to you, Graham?”

The lines in his face move, and I see his surprise that I came out and just asked. Frankly, I’m surprised I came out and just asked too, but I want to know.

He sighs and gets up and heads back in the kitchen. His shoulders are stiff as he fills his tumbler again, keeping his back to me as he quickly downs a good portion of the liquid.

A ripple of panic bubbles up and I’m not sure what to do. My purse is in his car, with my phone, so I can’t even call Joy to come and get me, but I feel like I should leave. That I’ve overstepped my boundary by asking.

My mouth opens to issue an apology and an offer to just go when he turns back around. This time, I see that he’s made up his mind.

My wine glass rattles as I place it on a coaster on the table in front of the sofa. My breathing gets ragged as he gets closer. I’m unsure what he’s going to do or say.

“When I was in college,” he says, sitting on the edge of the sofa, “I wanted to go to law school. I thought it was the best way to help my dad’s company, which was the only thing I ever wanted. Growing up, Barrett would go to the movies on the weekends or to a friend’s house, and I would go with Dad to the office and just soak it up. I loved the excitement, the power I felt sitting at the spare table and listening to his conversations.”

He takes a deep breath, refusing to look at me.

“I have everything laid out in front of me. I knew from eighth grade what I wanted to do and how I was going to get there. We had career day in middle school. We had to pick four professionals to go talk to. The other kids were picking the deejay and television guy and whatever. I picked the attorney four times,” he laughs, his voice a touch shaky.

With a trembling hand, I let my palm rest against his knee. The corner of his mouth quivers, but doesn’t quite turn up.