Swear (Landry Family 4)

“I’d love to do that. Really. But it’s hard when you’re so fucking secretive and then G gets a call—”

She springs to her feet. “Don’t get me started on Graham!”

The rise in her voice sparks something inside me. The edge of brattiness catches me wrong. Whether she thinks she’s right or wrong is one thing, but to pretend that all of us, Graham specifically, are out of line is another.

Fuck. That.

“Don’t get you started on Graham?” I ask coolly. “Okay. That’s fine. But I’m going to ask you to consider who works their fucking ass off to make sure you that you can go to the mall and buy those fancy labels you like so much.”

She flinches, falling slowly back into her seat.

“You say what you want about Barrett and Lincoln and I. But Graham?” My elbows resting on the edge of my desk, I look her in the eye. “You must be out of your damn mind if you think for a second that anything he does

or says isn’t in your best interest. Use your head.”

“How does anyone know what’s in my best interest besides me?”

My chuckle has little to do with amusement and more to do with my struggle to contain the frustration I feel. “Oh, I don’t know. Because we’re your family. Because we don’t see the world through rose-colored glasses. Because we don’t stand to gain from any interactions you have except to see you happy and healthy.”

“I am both,” she says, getting her nerve back. “I’ve never been happier, as a matter of fact. I wish you all would stop seeing me as some little girl that’s clueless and trust me to make my own decisions! It’s like you think I’m not following along Landry protocol so someone has to intervene. I don’t need an intervention.”

“If you want to be treated like a big girl, Cam,” I say, looking her square in the eye, “we’re all happy to do that. Be sure you’re ready for it.”

My words hit their target. She falls back slightly in her chair, the fight leaving her eyes. While it gives me some relief that she hasn’t completely lost her mind, it does cause a little bubble of regret to begin to form.

I sigh. “I know what it feels like.”

“What?” she mumbles.

“I know what it feels like to look around our family and feel . . .” I struggle to find the word, “ . . . different than the rest of them.”

This gets her attention. Furrowing a brow, she adjusts in her chair. “What could you possibly know about not fitting in around here? You’re Ford. The hero. The one of us that’s never done anything wrong but be a feather in our parents’ cap?”

Laughing, I shake my head. “Oh, Cam.”

“What?” she asks, joining my laughter. “It’s true. Even when Barrett was the Mayor, I know Mom and Dad worried about some of his . . . extra-curricular activities?”

“Nice way of putting it,” I wink.

“And Graham is definitely Dad’s favorite, but even he worries sometimes that G will make the wrong decision or is working too much. And Lincoln . . .”

Our laughter starts up again, that one not needing an explanation.

“But you?” she shrugs. “You’re Ford, the military boy. The pride of the Landry family. The one that took after Grandpa Landry and went the honorable route. The one that—by listening to our parents rave to their friends—can do nothing wrong.”

I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve never thought about it like that, didn’t think it was like that. It certainly doesn’t feel like it. It never has.

“Did you know I went into the military in part because I didn’t know what else to do?” I ask her.

She responds with a confused look.

“I graduated from high school and had no idea what I wanted to do. I had Dad shoving me towards business. I swear he had this vision of Graham and I working together, his office right in the middle,” I laugh. “Then I had this baseball scholarship sitting there from Texas . . . and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Good problems to have.”

“I felt so . . . different,” I say, giving her word back to her. “I couldn’t see myself wearing a business suit every day, crunching numbers and scheduling meetings like Graham. Kill. Me. Now.”

“But that’s what you do now, right?”