Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
BARRETT
The television is on, the volume low, and Alison is giggling at my side. I have no idea what’s actually happening in the movie or what made me bring a plate of Brie, crackers, and fruit into bed, effectively breaking a huge rule of my own.
I’m lost in the sound of her voice echoing off the walls of my bedroom. I’m perplexed by the fact that I’m not sure this room will feel the same without her in it now.
Women have been in my bed before. They’ve stayed the night, stayed the weekend. But as soon as they look at home propped up on my pillows, I’m usually ready to ship them out. So why do I want to lock her down so she can never leave?
She pops a strawberry in her mouth, her lips forming an ‘o’ over the fruit. Her features are animated, soft, uncomplicated. She catches me staring and drops her hands to the bed.
“What?” she asks, swallowing the bite of fruit.
“Nothing,” I grin.
“You’re looking at me weird.”
“Looking at you like you’re beautiful is weird now?”
Her grin widens and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re a charmer, Landry.”
“You’re a beauty, Miss Baker.”
I lean over the tray between us and kiss her lazily. Her mouth is sweet like the fruit and I could go back in for thirds, since I had her once we got in here too, but I don’t.
My landline rings, the handset beside my bed rattling, making Alison jump.
“I didn’t know people still used those!” she exclaims
“No one calls mine but my mother and Nolan. I’d just get rid of it, but it’s wired somehow into the security system of the house or something.”
“Do you need to get it?”
“Nah, it’s too late to be Mom. My cell is off, so it’s probably Nolan pissed he can’t get me and wants to ride my ass about some campaign statement or interview.”
She glances at the clock over my shoulder and presses her lips, still swollen from our kisses, together. “I probably need to be going home.”
“Why?”
She swallows and I see the trepidation washing over her out of nowhere. “Because it’s getting late?”
It’s more of a question than a reason and one I won’t let go.
“We aren’t teenagers, although you could pull off the twenty-something look better than me,” I tease. “Troy can take you home whenever I ask him to. You don’t have to leave now.”
“I probably should.”
I watch her wrangle with her decision and I can tell she doesn’t really want to. She won’t look at me, won’t let me see into her eyes.
“Babe, what’s wrong?”
Although the words were harmless, she flutters her eyes up to mine and there’s a spark of pain hidden inside the blue irises.
She doesn’t answer me.
“You better talk to me,” I lead, rubbing my thumb over her knuckle.
“I guess for awhile I forgot who you are.”
“What’s that mean?” I ask, looking at her like she’s crazy. “Who I am?”
She takes a deep breath and the smile on her face is almost one of resignation. “I forgot about all of that,” she says with a wave towards my phone.
“Alison, it’s a part of my job. It’s not going to go away.”
“No, I know,” she sighs. “I just got swept away and ...” She giggles, a soft, sweet, little rasp. “I relaxed. Do you know the last time I relaxed like this?”
I kiss her again, squarely on the lips. “You can come here and relax like this any time you want.”
She takes my hand in hers and draws little designs on my palm. She’s thinking, lost in some world I’m not privy to, and I want to ask questions. My curiosity is off the charts and I want to fix whatever’s bothering her, but I don’t ask what it is because I’m afraid maybe I can’t fix it.
“What scares you, Barrett?” she asks finally, putting both of her small hands around mine. The warmth from her skin floods into me and I want to wrap myself around her in every way.
“Election day,” I half-joke.
She smiles, but I can tell that’s not what she meant. Still, this is not a topic I’d like to delve into heavily.
“The words, ‘It’s your baby.’”
“Barrett!” she laughs, throwing a grape at me. “I’m being serious.”
“Me too,” I groan, but realize she’s not going to let me dodge this question. I blow out a breath and think. “I guess I’m scared of failure.”
The grin on her face dissolves and she leans back against the headboard. “Continue,” she prompts.
I shrug. “I ... I don’t want to fail anyone. Being in my position, both as a Landry and as the mayor of the city, has all sorts of responsibilities, and I lay awake at night sometimes worrying about the best thing to do for everyone.”
“What about for you?”
My brows pull together and I lean back in the bed and face her. “What do you mean, what about me?”
“What about doing what’s best for you? Do you ever think about that?”
“Sure,” I say, stumped by her question.
“I don’t know how that’s true. When is the last time you did something purely because it was in your best interest?” she asks, her voice tilted with sass. “When is the last time you didn’t consider what was best for your campaign or your father or the city?”
I lean forward so my breath tickles the side of her neck. “When I sucked grapes out of your pussy.”
“Ah!” she gasps, trying to pull away, but I don’t let her. I pull her into me and she melts, letting me kiss her.
When we finally separate, we’re both grinning like crazy and I hope that’s the end of this questioning.
But it’s not.
“So I’m your little form of rebellion?” she asks. She means it as a joke, as a taunt, but there’s no denying the fear hidden beneath the surface.
“Maybe,” I say, watching her for a reaction. “Or maybe you’re the first thing I’ve thought was worth going after.”
She relaxes, but looks away.
“Alison? What’s the matter?”
Her head shakes from side-to-side, but the blankets are pulled higher up her waist. “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. Why would you ask?”
“Talk to me,” I whisper, my gaze pleading with hers to talk to me. “What are you scared of?”
She bites her lip and gathers her courage. I watch her do it, the blues of her eyes solidifying, her shoulders quietly squaring. “You.”
“Me? You’re scared of me?” I laugh. “Why in the world would you be scared of me?”
“Because it’s too easy to be with you. Even at this slow pace we say we’re going at ...”
I lift her chin with my fingertips. “It’s crazy, huh?”
She nods, her eyes wide. “It’s so crazy. I’ve spent the last few years making sure all of my ducks are in a row so I never get trampled by anyone again.”
“The only place I’ll trample you is in this bed,” I grin.
“The parallels from what I went through and this are so similar. What if I get caught up in this, in you, and you get elected? Don’t get me wrong—you should be elected. You’re smart and funny and charming and have the best heart. But you move to Atlanta and ... what then?”
“Then we figure it out,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster. “What if I lose? Will you want to fuck a loser?”
She shakes her head. “Even if you don’t win, you won’t be a loser.”
“Even if I win, that doesn’t make me a winner.” I say the words before I think about it, before I realize I’ve said them aloud. Something clicks and I know she’s going to ask me to expound on the idea, and I grimace and wait for it.
“What does that mean?”
I huff a breath and think about lying to her, but the openness we have in conversation is nice. Cathartic, even.
“It just means,” I say, grabbing a strawberry, “that sometimes in this business you have to agree to things you don’t necessarily believe in.”
“Like what?”
“Like a bill about some land around the state.”
“Don’t agree to it,” she says simply. “If it’s not what you believe in, how could you?”
“Because you have to sometimes give on things to win on others.”
She bends over and presses a sweet kiss to my shoulder. “I don’t think you believe in yourself enough.”
The words hit me hard because it’s true. I start speaking again without thinking. “It’s hard to believe in yourself when you aren’t sure you’ve ever accomplished anything on your own.”
“How can you say that?” she asks. “You won the mayoral election.”
“Did I?”
I raise my eyebrows and watch her face twist in confusion. Her mouth opens to reply, but she shuts it just as quickly.
“Yes, I’m the mayor,” I say, my throat burning. “But did I win it on my own ideas? Or did I win it because of my name or my looks?” I look away because I’ve never said these things aloud to anyone, although I’ve thought them nearly every day for years. “Or did my father influence it somehow?”
The last one is the kicker. It’s something my opponents have projected a number of times, that my father paid off certain people and thereby bought the election.
He denies it, but of course he would. I don’t really think he’d do that, but there’s always a niggle of doubt.
My dream was his dream before it was mine.
The silence between us thickens and I switch off the television. I realize I’ve done what I can’t do. I opened my mouth. It’s Politics 101: Never Open Your Trap. Everything is kept close to the vest, everything in the dark.
So why in the hell did I just say that?
Her hand rolls mine over and she laces her fingers through mine. She doesn’t respond for a long while, just holds my palm like it’s enough. Maybe it is.
“Barrett?” she asks, her sweet voice barely audible.
I turn to look at her. Her features are soft, her lips still telegraphing that they’ve just been kissed. I love the look on her, like she’s just been thoroughly adored. It’s what she should always look like.
“Even if that is true, and I don’t believe it,” she says, taking a breath, “it just means even more that you need to prove to yourself that your ideas are enough.”
“But what if they’re not?”
“If you said what you feel, that you don’t agree with the Land Bill, and you don’t get elected—is that the worst thing that could happen?”
The answer to that is complicated and both yes and no.
It would end the work of so many for so many years.
I have no backup plan; politics has always been my career, the trajectory up the ranks as quickly as I’ve been able.
But looking at her, in my bed, trying to make me feel better, the answer is also that the worst thing is losing the person that makes me feel alive and enough for the first time in maybe forever.
“It’s not,” she says, shaking her head. “The worst thing would be for you to have your legacy tainted by a bunch of half-truths. By your grandkids asking how you felt about this or that in your career and having to lie. It’d be better to not win.”
It sounds so simple, but isn’t. It seems to be true, but it’s convoluted. It seems easy, but it’s so damn hard that I don’t want to think about it anymore. Not while she’s here.
“You know what would be better?” I ask, feeling my lips twitch.
“What’s that?”
“If we stop talking and instead make use of this fruit ...”
She grins and I roll her over before she can object.