Fo

Hoda takes a few final notes before closing the notepad. “I think I have it, Mr. Landry. I’ll send the estimate over now.” She stands, smoothing out her dress, grinning.

“What?”

“You’ve seemed really happy the last few days. That’s all.”

“Really?” I smile at her in a tell-tale sign that she’s right. It’s amusing to me that she’s noticed.

“I like seeing you like this. I don’t know what’s causing it, but I hope it continues.”

“I didn’t know you were so invested in my happiness, Hoda.”

She laughs and heads towards the door. “If you’re happy, you make my life easier.”

“Is that some kind of veiled way of saying you don’t want me stressed and acting like Graham?” I joke.

“You said it. Not me.” She heads back to her office, closing the door softly behind her.

Glancing at my phone, I look for a missed call. A missed text. Anything from Ellie, but find nothing.

I wasn’t sure how she was going to take the news of Barrett’s possible campaign, but I knew I had to tell her. Even if it doesn’t work out to be true, it wouldn’t be fair to not have her know. Not when I plan on having her by my side regardless of what happens.

Still, her reaction worries me. There wasn’t a fight or a complete break-off of the conversation, but something changed. I felt it. I saw it. And she hasn’t called me back today.

I turn back to my computer in hopes of getting something done when Hoda pokes her head back in again. “Mr. Landry? I’m sorry to bother you again so quickly, but Camilla is here to see you.”

“Oh,” I say surprised. “Send her in.”

The lid of my laptop closes with a quick snap. Swink doesn’t just drop by to see me in the middle of the day. As a matter of fact, she’s pretty scarce to all of us these days. Her arrival has me curious. And worried.

“Hey, Ford,” she says, her tone terse. She breezes in, her posture perfect from years of instruction from our mother. Her blonde hair, the most like mine out of all of our siblings, is tied at the nape of her neck.

“This is a surprise.” I watch as she sits across from me, smoothing out her emerald green dress. It’s a throwback to the old Camilla—the one before she decided to be a renegade.

She lets loose a heavy breath. “I came to talk to you because you’re logical.”

Leaning back in my chair, I take her in. Her forehead is marred with a line of wrinkles, her blue eyes shining with a seriousness she doesn’t wear often.

“Because I’m logical? This should be a fun conversation if you’re coming to me appealing to my logic.” I lean towards her and grin. “You know what that tells me?”

“What’s that, Ford?”

“It tells me you think you can persuade me to go along with whatever bullshit you’re selling more easily than to Barrett or Graham or Linc.”

Her jaw sets. “Apparently I was wrong. You’re just as irrational as the rest of them.”

“We aren’t irrational, Swink.”

“Oh, so going to The Gold Room was rational?”

She nearly glares at me, which makes it hard not to laugh. She’s this little thing in a glitzy-label dress trying to battle with me. It’s hard to take her seriously.

“Do you have any idea what The Gold Room is known for?” I ask, smirking. “Tell me, Oh Brilliant One, how smart it was for you to be hanging out at a place that’s best known for its happy endings.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

I laugh. “You’re right. Because I’ve only been there precisely once in my life. Would you like to tell me more about it, Cam?”

“Where I go shouldn’t matter to you. I’m a grown woman.”

“You’re my little sister,” I warn. “You’ll be my little sister when you’re fifty. Got it?”

“You’re just as bad as the rest of them!”

“What do you want me to say? Just go get mixed up with the wrong people? Just go hang out on Davis and good luck to you?”

“How about a little faith that I know what I’m doing?” she volleys back.

“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?”

“Sort of, but I’m also in a very different time of my life now, Cam. I would’ve hated this ten years ago.” Shoving back from my desk, I stand, letting the chair roll back and bump the window. “The point is that I didn’t want to follow along with what everyone wanted me to do. I couldn’t imagine playing baseball every day. What’s the point in that?”

She grins. “Lincoln found one.”

“Linc found a couple thousand with nice racks,” I laugh. “And good for him. That’s what made him happy. It wouldn’t have me.” Sunshine beats in and warms my skin as I watch the cars below struggle to get to their destinations. “This family is so goal-oriented,” I say, more to myself than to Cam. “It’s all about the next check-off point, the next level, the next dollar. I had a really hard time with that for a while.”

I turn to see my little sister looking at me. She looks so young sitting there and I calculate how old she is. Then I consider how I felt at her age.

I was just starting to figure out who I was then. I’d seen enough, done enough, been exposed to enough to know what I wanted. What I liked. What I hated. If someone would’ve told me at her age I was wrong for feeling a certain way, I’d have been pissed. Just like she is.

I ran away from my problems and fears. At least she’s fighting for hers.

“Talk to me,” I say. “What’s going on?”

Her eyes flip to the floor as she wrings her hands in her lap. “I met a guy.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?” She looks up at me again. “Did Sienna say something?”

“Sienna has your back to the grave.”

“Then how do you know?”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Cam. It was obvious to everyone weeks ago.”

She fights the smile stretching across her face, and it’s then I know—she’s much deeper in with this guy than any of us thought.

“Who is he?” I ask.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it matters.” I quirk a brow. “What’s his name?”

“Look—”

“Why are you doing this?” I sigh. “Just tell me his name so I can figure out who the hell he is—and by that I mean who he is to the rest of the world and not just Camilla Jane Landry.”

Her courage is back. She narrows her eyes. “You know why I won’t tell you?”

“I’d love to know.”

“Because you won’t give him a chance.”

Putting my hands in my pockets, I sigh. “Is he that bad, Cam?”

“No. He’s fantastic.”

“But we’ll just hate him right off the bat because he’s so fantastic?” I groan. “I can’t deal with this.”

Falling back in my chair, I open my laptop. The screensaver waits for the password. I start to type it in when she speaks.

“What if I told you,” she says, gulping, “that he’s kind to me? Sweeter than anyone I’ve ever met? What if I said that he’d do anything to protect me, that he’s loyal … like you? What if he was a businessman and started a company from the ground up to take care of his family?”

I consider this. “I’d ask to meet him to see for myself.”

“What if I’m not ready for that?”

“Cam …” I bow my head. “I can’t guarantee you that I’m not going to search around and see what I can find out.”

“Ford—”

“But,” I say, giving her a look, “I will promise you that when the time comes that we meet, I will give him the benefit of the doubt.”

This puts a twinkle in her eye. “You will? Honestly?”

My shoulders slump as I admit defeat. My natural inclination is to go all crazy-brother on her right now, but I know better. I know how she feels. She needs someone on her side, someone that knows what it’s like to want to color outside the lines a little bit. Someone to tell her it’s all right to break protocol.

“As long as he treats you well—”

“He does!”

“And he doesn’t get you involved in anything dangerous or illegal—”

“He wouldn’t do that, Ford.”

“Then I’ll meet him with an open mind. Soon,” I say, giving her a warning look. “I’ll meet him soon.”

“Soon … ish,” she responds. Waltzing around my desk, she places a kiss on my cheek. “I knew you were the logical one.”

“That may be true,” I tell her. “But remember one more thing, Cam.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll also be the first one to kill him.”

She giggles as if she thinks I’m playing and almost skips towards the door. “Thanks for talking to me, Ford.”

“Any time,” I sigh.

“One more thing,” she says, her hand on the knob. “You said you left in part because you didn’t know what else to do. What was the other reason?”

My shoulders fall. “Story for another day, Cam.”

“Fair enough. See ya later, Ford.”

I know for the first time what Graham must feel like. Thank God I’m not him.