Swing (Landry Family 2)

“I don’t think this is the place for that conversation.”

“Would you rather move this to a locked conference room? I’m so, so game for that.”

She laughs, her melodious chirp ringing through the room. It cuts through the tension and I find myself heaving in a fresh breath of air. Picking up a pencil as if she’s about to work, she smiles easily. “This was fun, but I really need to get to work.”

“What?” I don’t mean for it to sound as brusque as it does, but fuck it. What is she doing? She has me worked up to beat all hell and she’s going back to work?

A few seconds later, I’m still standing, trying to grasp what the hell just happened. She looks up from a notepad on her desk, seemingly surprised to see me still here.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, shoving off her desk.

“And why is that?”

“I’m painting with Rocky.”

“We only paint one day a week. There won’t be supplies here tomorrow.”

I just grin. She sighs.

“You aren’t cleared to come by. There is protocol to follow, Landry, even for you.”

“Good thing I’m me then,” I wink, knowing I’m pissing her off. “I’ll have my people call your people, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I don’t have people,” she says through gritted teeth. “I am people.”

“Sounds good. You’ll like them. My people are good people.”

We stand off, each of us as determined to get our way as the other. She narrows her eyes. I widen my smirk. She throws her shoulders back, I shrug mine. This little game incenses her, riles her up. If I were the true gentleman my mother raised, I’d warn her that seeing her pissed off only makes me want her worse.

Good thing I’m not.

Danielle

THE WATER SPLASHES DOWN THE sides of my favorite teacup. I hold it under the faucet, letting my dirty chai tea wash down the drain. Sitting it in the strainer, I pad through the simple little kitchen adorned with sunflowers and into the tidy living room. As much as I try to make it feel like home, it doesn’t. It lacks a flourish of warmth or coziness that I can’t fill with all the throw pillows and candles in the world.

I glance at the handful of framed pictures on the mantle. There are two of me and Macie in college. One is of me and Pepper that was taken by a newspaper doing a feature on the Smitten Kitten. The other is of me and my parents, taken on the day I graduated high school. It’s one of the only pictures I have of the three of us. I’ve stared at it for hours over the years, dissecting how we look to the world. We are all smiling, my father’s arms stretched around my mother and I. We look normal. If only.

The rumble starts in my chest, and I watch my hand reach for the phone. My brain tells my hand to stop. It warns my heart not to have too much hope that my mother will answer, and if she does, that we’ll have a nice conversation.

Warning in hand, I dial the numbers and wait as it rings, once, twice, three times before she answers.

“Hello?” she breathes into the receiver.

“Hi, Mom. It’s me.”

My heart leaps in my throat and I can feel my pulse in my temples. My mouth goes dry as I wait to see what she has to say.

She takes in a sharp breath and blows it out in one long, drawn out action. “Hello, Ryan.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine. Ryan, I’ll have to call you back shortly. Your father will be in soon, and I need to be ready. You know how he hates to wait.”

Forcing the words to come out of my mouth, my hand not to drop the phone, I tell her it’s fine and even manage a laugh. And before I know it, I’m sitting on the sofa watching the shadows move across the wall with the setting sun. She won’t call me back. Not tonight, not tomorrow. This is a fact, the

way it is, but it doesn’t mean it still doesn’t sting. I wish it didn’t, I tell myself it doesn’t. I lie.

Grabbing the remote, I flip on the television and wander through the channels until it lands on some reality drivel. The noise helps fill the house and keeps me company as I go into the kitchen and pour a large glass of red wine.