Sway (Landry Family 1)

“Okay.”

I wait for her to talk, to navigate this conversation because I don’t want to steer it the wrong way from the get-go. The silence kills me and I want to ramble a million different things, go into a word vomit, a speech of epic proportions on how I just want to fix this fuck-up. But I hold myself back. For the first time, maybe in my entire life, I keep quiet.

“I hope I’m not calling you too early,” she says finally. The roughness in her voice is a clear sign that she’s been crying, and that’s like a punch to the gut.

“I haven’t been to sleep yet,” I admit.

“Me either.”

“So I guess I could’ve called you at two a.m. when my finger was hovering over the call button?”

Her giggle through the phone is mixed with a sigh and it makes me smile and frown at the same time.

“I hate this,” I say, wishing I could reach out and hold her.

“Me too.”

The line goes quiet. Her breathing gets heavy and I know she’s trying to decide how to approach whatever is on her mind.

“I took Hux for ice cream last night. I looked over my shoulder the entire time, Barrett.”

“Did anything happen?” I ask, holding my breath.

“No, it didn’t. We were fine.”

“It will be fine,” I assure her. “I won’t let it be anything but fine.”

“This could end so badly for me and Hux.”

“But it could be amazing too. If you would just trust me and just—”

“You’re right.”

A lump appears in my throat and I have to squeeze the words out around it. “I am? I mean, I know I am. But you think so?”

“When you left last night and things were so . . . broken, something felt broken inside of me. I feel like all the colors of the rainbow are there when we’re together. Does that make sense?”

“Absolutely.”

“When I agreed to get involved with you, I did it knowing all the ways it could go wrong. I did it knowing you’d never intentionally hurt me, and at the end of the day, that’s what Hayden did. He hurt me on purpose. He didn’t give a single fuck about how his actions were going to affect me.”

“I would never do—”

“Barrett,” she interrupts. “Let me finish.”

“Sorry.”

She laughs. “I know you’d never do that. And I know there are things you aren’t going to be able to control. But if I want to be with you, I have to realize that and not hold it against you.”

“Damn it, Ali—”

“Ali?” she giggles. “You’ve never called me that before.”

“If Linc is calling you Ali, so am I.”

She laughs full-on now and it’s music to my ears.

“So does this mean you forgive me?” I ask, hopeful.