Swear (Landry Family 4)

“The S-word,” I groan.

“Syphillis?”

I burst out laughing. “No! Space. She wants space.”

“Oh,” she says, choking on her drink. “That sucks but it’s better than a venereal disease.” She gets herself under control. “So what are you going to do? How do you play this?”

“Short from kidnapping her?”

“Kinda illegal, bud. But I know people, and Cam definitely knows people . . .”

“What the fuck?”

“A joke,” she says, her eyes going wide like she’s been caught in the cookie jar. “It was a joke.”

“It better be a joke.”

“Can we focus on the problem at hand?” she sighs. “What are you doing with Ellie?”

I give her a final glare to warn her about her idea of a joke. “I’m giving her space. That’s what she wants, that’s what she’ll get.” Tossing my sister a napkin, I lean back on the sofa. “I’m going to make her miss me.”

“You sounds like a country music song.”

“Well, I have the truck and the dog and the woman that’s running off. I guess it kind of works,” I laugh. “Fuck, that’s pathetic. Never tell this to Linc

oln.”

“Blackmail,” she laughs, taking another bite. “But I think it’s smart to just give her some room.”

“You know what? I’m kinda pissed.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I say, propping my feet up on the coffee table. “She’s holding shit against me from years ago. That’s not fair.”

Sienna wipes her hands off and seems to gather her thoughts. When she looks at me, it’s not a look from my little sister. It’s a look from a grown woman, someone that’s been through things, and that takes me by surprise.

“You know what’s not fair, Ford? You dismissing her feelings.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“You don’t mean to, but you are. You have every right to be angry. But she also has every right to be scared if that’s what she is. You can’t force her through that. What you can do, though, is to let her work it out with you standing by her side.”

“Why are you talking to me like this? You’re my baby sister.”

She laughs, patting me on the leg. “You realize I date. And I do other things that make me—”

“Shut up, Sienna,” I laugh. “Seriously. This is not the conversation I want to have with you. You want to talk about that shit, go hit up Lincoln. I’m out.”

“I hear Barrett’s the kinky one,” she giggles.

“Grapes?”

“Yes,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m disgusted that I know that about my brother.”

“I’m disgusted you even know what sex is.”

Sienna laughs as she sips from her soda. We sit quietly for a long while, the only sound coming from Trigger’s occasional claws hitting the kitchen floor as she walks back and forth from her food dish to her bed.