by Amy Faye
How long ago had it been since he'd realized that was all that politics really was? How long since he'd lost that starry-eyed vision of the world as an open place? He frowned and looked over at Tim, who leaned forward to watch him talking. A smile infected Paul's face in spite of himself, and he skipped over a District Attorney who had taken over for him and never managed to make it any further up the ladder.
"Did you like that, Tim?"
Tim's smile widened. "Yeah!"
Paul could feel that infectious energy, the energy that had seen him through the speech, starting to seep back into his bones.
"You should ask your mother–"
"Ask me what?" Lara cut in and had her eyebrow raised. God, she was just as beautiful as the day she'd left. Her face was different, but now she looked more… mature. More in control. She'd shifted from 'hot young thing' to 'hot mom' apparently without any effort.
"… If she'll let you stay out a little longer. Do you like McDonald's, Tim?"
He looked at his mother with those same wide eyes he'd fixed on Paul earlier. "I'm not supposed to–"
Lara let out a long sigh. "You're not serious, are you?"
"Of course I'm serious," Paul answered. He was always serious about bad food. It was about the only thing that he actually enjoyed. Everything else just got him out of bed, and it was less and less proving to be worth it. Even the bad food wasn't enough these days. But if it was bad food, with a boy so excited about everything that he was tired of…
Well, what could possibly be more worth it?
He took the boy's hand and they walked backstage. A black SUV waited for him. Helen was nowhere to be seen. She'd probably taken a separate car, which was better, because as much as Helen was more than willing to deal with the presence of his indiscretions, Paul didn't want her around Tim. He didn't want her infecting him, ruining that smile.
"Sir?"
"We're going to McDonalds," Paul answered. "If that's not too much trouble."
"No trouble at all," the man answered. They started driving just in time to be clipped hard in the side of the nose and go spinning out into traffic, tires squealing. Paul reached out before he knew what he was doing–his arms wrapped around the most important thing in the car, and Tim yelled into his chest until they'd finally come to a stop.
A crowd of men in suits swarmed the car, all of them seeming to panic over Paul. He pushed them back, relaxed his grip around the boy.
"You okay?"
Tim looked up at him with a deep pout, tears welling up and threatening to fall down his face. "I didn't like that," he said.
Paul flattened his hair and tried to still his pounding heartbeat. "No, I didn't like it either."
6
Lara looked at the pair of them. Looked at all the people wrapped around them, trying to make sure that the Senator was all right. But he didn't seem hurt at all. Something in the back of her mind registered with Lara that she was probably in shock herself, that she should use her eyes to make sure that she wasn't hurt herself.
Her left arm was okay. Her right was okay. Her arms were fine. She patted her body over. No blood came away on her hands. She was alright, except that there was an unpleasant sensation as she patted her chest, where the seat belt fell. A sensation she realized a moment later, dimly, was probably a bruise.
Paul spoke first. "Are you okay?" He said it to the little boy buried in his arms. The little boy who he didn't know his own relation to. As far as Paul knew, Tim was just a little boy that she'd had after she'd 'dealt with' his child.
Tim looked up at him. Not at her, and part of her felt that tugging at her heart strings. Another part felt something about the way that he looked up at the man who he didn't know was his father, and the way that Paul had reacted, something warm and hot at the bottom of her stomach.
"I didn't like that," Tim said. She could hear the tears in his voice. She wanted to cry herself, now, as the adrenaline started slowly to wear away and left her knowing that if they'd been just a little bit faster, she could be dead. If things had gone just a little bit worse–
"I didn't like it either," Paul responded. He pressed the boy's head into his chest and looked up at her, examining her for a long time.
"Lara–you're not hurt, are you?"
"No," she said finally. "I'm alright. I think."
"Nothing hurts? I'll get you to a hospital if anything happened, or–"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Nothing. Just scary."
"Yeah," he said. Lara watched the Senator try to put on a smile, but it was forced. Too forced. He looked like he was going to throw up. "I don't think your son liked it much either."
Tim was crying, she realized. He was being quiet about it, but his shoulders shook when he took a breath and he pressed himself harder into Paul. Paul's hand moved down awkwardly, stroking the boy's back. He gave her a smile that was full of every bit of stress and uncertainty that Lara herself was feeling.
"I don't know if you just want to go home, or–"
Lara didn't know what she was supposed to say to that. Her mind blanked as he said the words. She was afraid, now. Afraid of driving. Afraid of being in a car at all. But it was too far to walk, particularly this late at night. Once he'd calmed down, she knew that Tim would be in no shape for walking, either.
He'd been exhausted before they started, and it was only the excitement of having Paul around that kept him awake all that time.
"Um." She blinked, trying to push the cobwebs away. "I don't know."
"Well, have you eaten?"
She tried to remember. It had only been a few hours since they'd sat there in that coffee shop, and every minute of it was easily cataloged, but her brain didn't want to process the information.
"I don't think so," she answered, as best as she could.
"Okay. We'll go grab that bite. Okay? Then I'll drop you off. We'll drive extra careful," he said, aiming that at the men who still leaned into the door and fussed over him. "So there's no more scares like this. Isn't that right?"
The guy who had been driving was young and smart-looking and looked like he was about to start bawling himself. He nodded, but another man spoke the words. 'Yes, sir.'
Someone came around to her side of the car and opened her door. Lara's hands fumbled for Tim's seat belt first, and once it was undone she did her own.
She tried to pull Tim away from Paul, but he let out a low, miserable "no." Paul smiled at her regretfully.
"I can take him, if you don't mind."
She did mind. If he wanted to be with his son then he ought to have done it sooner. But she nodded reluctantly. If she let Tim get dug in then he was just going to get mad, and she wasn't really interested in that.
"I'll keep him safe. Trust me. It's just a few feet to the car, anyways."
She stepped out to see that they'd stopped traffic. There was a massive dent in the front quarter of the SUV, practically crushed. She walked on unsteady feet across the car, and Paul carried Tim to the other side, slid the boy in. He said something too low for her to hear, and Tim buckled himself in, rubbing at his face and taking deep breaths.
Lara wrapped her arm around her son and hoped that her heart would stop beating so hard. Tim was okay. Paul seemed as worried about him as he was about himself. Maybe more. The drive wasn't far, which only served to drive home the unpleasant irony of getting into an accident in that time. Two minutes later they were pulling into a parking spot, and the man driving the car was getting out to let her out of her side.
"Ma'am," he said, not looking her in the face. She wondered dimly if he knew who she was, knew why she was with the Senator.
He probably didn't. But if Paul hadn't changed, then he probably could guess. She soured. He probably couldn't guess nearly as well as he thought he could, though.
She hated that, and she hated how little it bothered her even more.
Paul stepped out of his side of the car and helped Tim step down.
"You going to be alright?"
Tim rubbed at his eyes again and blinked hard, and then nodded, too vigorously.
"Good lad. Your mom needs a strong guy like you around," he said softly.
That was true, she thought. She tried to keep the bitterness off her face. She needed a strong man around. She knew because she'd had one, once, and when he was gone everything went to hell.
But he'd been the one who decided not to stick around. Not her.
7
Paul sat in the car and tried to forget about what had happened. Tried to think of just the meal they'd had. Tried to think of the boy's smile. Tried to think about how strong he'd been. God, if Paul had been that strong himself, at any point in his life. If he'd been able to just do the right thing, when he knew what he had to do…
Tim was young. Too young to really know much of anything about anything, which might have been why, between the two of them, he was the better man. Then again, Paul was better than himself ten years ago, too. And then, he'd already been dirtied by the job.
"You know what, wait here," he said softly. The driver gave a nod, and Paul pulled the seat belt out and started up the steps again. He knocked, hoping not hard enough to wake anyone. Hoping on some level that he wouldn't know hard enough for anyone to hear at all.
To his disappointment, and his great pleasure, a moment later the door opened. Lara looked good. Great. He kept thinking that, every time he saw her. The history was part of it, he thought. In his mind, she'd always be the one that got away and that was not an unflattering place for a woman to be.
"Hey," he said. He'd been talking to women for years. Talking their pants right off, in some cases. But now he felt tongue-tied, like it was the first time he'd ever talked to a girl.
"Did you need something?"
He looked at her and tried to keep himself under control. Then he stepped forward. His toes were on her carpet, but if she'd shut the door in his face, he would have stepped back. He knew his limits; he also knew how to find them.
"I wanted to see you," he said.
"You've seen me," she answered. "I don't see why you decided you wanted to, after all these years."
"I missed you," he said finally. It was an admission that was at the same time impossible to make, and the easiest in the world. She'd always been his way out, and after all these years, no one else had ever really come along to get him off the track that he'd found himself stuck on.
"Yeah, well…"
"Let me in," he told her. It wasn't exactly a request, but it left room for her to get out of it.
"I shouldn't–I just put Tim down, and…"
"Do you still have a stock of single-malts?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm not in college any more, Paul."
"I know. You graduated after, you know. After we split up."
"Yeah, I did," she said. She looked over his shoulder, at the side-street. He looked himself. There was a car driving by, but it didn't seem to slow or stop, and never paid either of them any attention.
"I didn't ask you about your education. You were always smart. I asked if you had a bottle of single-malt scotch."
A faint smile crossed her face. For a moment, he saw that same young college girl that he'd been so attached to. Then the mother came back out, and he found that he was no less enchanted by it.
"Say I do?"
"I could always use a drink," he said. "I'm terribly thirsty."
She closed her eyes and took a breath. God, he thought. Every little thing she did drew him in. The door opened more, enough to let him in. He stepped through it as she walked away. He watched her, the way her ass moved.
She'd definitely changed in some ways since she was in college. That much was clear. She'd developed into something very different. He was different, too, he knew. His tastes were different, and yet she still fit them perfectly, like a favorite pair of jeans.
"You look good," he said to her. He knew he'd said it before. He knew he'd say it again.
"Thanks, I guess," she answered, pouring a glass. A double, he noted. Then she poured another.
"Here you go." She handed him one of the glasses. Paul took a moment to enjoy the heady aroma of the alcohol before he took some in his mouth. It burned, but more than anything it tasted like nostalgia. Like a relationship that had gotten lost along the way somewhere.
A relationship he hoped to find again, somehow, even after all this time. If she'd let him, at least.
"Why are you really here, Paul?"
He looked at her and leaned his back against the door. What was he supposed to tell her? That he didn't want to go home? Well… fine, that seemed alright after all. He took another drink.
"I'm avoiding Helen."
"You should go see your wife," she told him. "Because I'm not here for you any more, Paul. That's over."
"I know that," he told her. "But I–" Paul let out a long breath. He'd been lying for so long that telling the truth felt wrong. But he wasn't going to win her over with anything less, he knew. And he wasn't going to be able to go on without at least trying to mend this one fence. Not after he'd seen her again.
"Ten years, and I haven't stopped thinking about you. Not once. I don't know what happened, all that time ago. I don't care any more, either. I missed you. I missed us."
Lara's face seemed to be working over-time. She took a deep drink and her face pinched as she swallowed it.
"You should leave," she told him. But there was no force in it.
"I don't care what it is, but I can't go on like this. Not any more. I need something."
"You need what? Some booty call?"
He let out a low breath, the alcohol starting to work its magic on him. "No, but it'll do," he said. He wasn't sure who moved first, but he had to move quickly to set the glass down before his arms wrapped around her body and their lips crashed together. The only thing he was going to regret in the morning, he thought, was that he couldn't go back and do this ten years sooner.
8
Lara enjoyed the feeling of Paul's lips on hers more than she'd remembered. It had been a long time, and the memory of how things had been left had colored that memory a little bit.
Yet, now, she was making one of the biggest mistakes she'd made in a long time, and the way that her heart beat, the way that her body surged with arousal at their sudden interlude was all that she needed to know that she was going to make it whether it was a mistake or not.
"God, I've missed you," he purred against her lips. His arms wrapped around her felt strong and comforting. His body was firm and felt good against her. It had been so long since she'd had, well… since she'd had anything like this.
Relationships took time. Time she didn't have, not with Tim, not with her job, not with how badly the last one had gone. Now she was going to get a second chance and in spite of knowing that it was going to go just as badly as it had last time she wanted to pretend just for an hour or two.
His lips pressed against her throat, his hands finding the crease where her ass met her thigh and cupping it hard. She let out a low moan and clapped her own hand over her mouth before she woke Tim up. There would be no amount of explaining that would make that alright.
He moved his hands again, pulling her in tighter, and she raised one leg to wrap around his hip, feeling something stiff press against her leg. She enjoyed that feeling, enjoyed the idea that there was someone out there who still found her arousing, even if it was going to be under these circumstances, with the man who she'd told herself she wasn't going to make this mistake with again.
He pushed her back until her back was against the wall and pulled her dress up roughly, over her hips. If she were in her right mind she'd have stopped him, she'd have told him that it was too late, that they weren't a thing any more and she wasn't going to be used like this.
If she were in her right mind, she'd have done a lot of things. Instead she helped him lift the hem of her dress higher, his fingers tracing hot lines across her skin that made her want desperately to put her kn
uckle between her teeth again to muffle the moans that she was having serious trouble keeping to herself, moans of anticipation and then pleasure as his teeth scraped across the sensitive skin of her throat and his fingers traced their line right to her panties.
He pressed his fingers against her mound and traced the line of her outer lips as he pulled away. "Lace?"
Lara's eyes shut and she didn't answer him. She wasn't going to answer him, either, no matter what he did with those fingers. No matter what she wanted him to do. She would at least manage to avoid giving him that satisfaction, if nothing else.
He pulled the crotch of her panties aside with one finger, and the other traced the same line again, dipping only the tiniest bit between those lips. Dipping enough that he knew now exactly how much she was looking forward to this, mistake or not.
He kissed her again and entered her with one of those fingers. God, damn. Somehow it felt that much different when it was someone else. That much better. A feeling she'd been missing for so long that she didn't realize how much she had wanted it, except that nothing could scratch an itch she couldn't name.
He moved against her, his thumb moving in concert with his fingers to tease the hardened nub of her clit. She tried to move to put herself more in line with his hands, tried to get herself more of that touch, to get more of the sensations that he was giving her.
He rubbed a soft breast through the fabric of her dress, his kisses moving down again to her neck. She could feel an orgasm building up. His fingers seemed to remember every place inside her, his body moving exactly where she wanted it before she even knew that she wanted it.
She wrapped an arm around him to fit her finger between her teeth, and she bit down, hard. Her voice escaped anyways, muffled by her mouth and by the effort to keep herself quiet. She hoped nobody was awake to hear it, but she couldn't stop herself.
"Turn around, Lara," he said. His voice was husky, thick with need. "Bend over."
She did, pressing herself back against the hard spot in the front of his pants. He pressed himself back against her for a moment before pulling away. She heard the sound of his fly working itself open, and then she felt his shaft pressed against her.
