by L. A. Witt
No. That’s the one thing you shouldn’t do right now. But I nodded anyway and loosened my grasp on his shirt. “Right. I’ll, um, see you at the airport, then?”
“Yeah. The airport.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he stepped back. “Bright and early.”
I groaned melodramatically. “Do we have to?”
He gave a quiet laugh. “Yes, we do, I’m afraid.” Then his humor faded. He looked at me but quickly dropped his gaze, and we separated a little more. I desperately wanted to work up the nerve to kiss him again, but I could barely even look at him. Without physical contact, eye contact was suddenly almost impossible. And he was right: we had to end this now, or we’d get as carried away as I so, so badly wanted us to.
“Anyway.” He glanced at me; then his gaze darted toward the door, and he muffled a cough. “I really should go,” he said again. “I’ll, um, see you tomorrow.”
“Right.” I nodded toward the door like he’d forgotten it was there. “Have a good night.”
“Yeah.” He managed a faint smile and met my eyes for a second. “You too.”
“Will do.”
With a couple of murmured good-byes, Anthony made a quick escape. I shut the door behind him, turned the deadbolt, and activated the security system, moving slowly as an excuse to linger in the foyer.
His footsteps faded down the walk. His car door opened, then closed. After a moment, the engine turned over, but it idled. Kept idling. I fantasized he was hesitating, that he was a breath away from fuck it, let’s do this.
I wanted to believe that, but this campaign was too important to both of us. We did have to leave early tomorrow. We really couldn’t do this. I guessed he was lighting a cigarette, and the phantom clink of his lighter made my mouth water.
I laughed softly to myself at the thought that that kiss had necessitated something like a postcoital cigarette, but even my own amusement couldn’t mask the knot coiling in my gut. I knew better. A smoke probably meant nerves. Stress. The longer that engine idled in my driveway, the more time he had to take a few drags and curse and regret everything.
A full three minutes after Anthony walked out my door, the engine rumbled into motion, and my heart sank deeper in my chest as the car took him down my driveway and out into the night. I imagined him gripping the wheel in one hand, holding the cigarette out the open window in the other, swearing and asking himself again and again what the hell we’d just done. Reality must have been settling on his shoulders like it settled onto mine. If we were going to take that kiss to another level, one that involved sweat and bedsheets, the “now or never” opportunity had passed when Anthony walked out the door.
At least then we could have blamed it on the heat of the moment. From here on out, anything we did was as good as premeditated, and he had to know as well as I did that we couldn’t. Not while he was managing my “look how straight and married I am” campaign for governor.
Still standing in my otherwise empty foyer, I rubbed my temples and swore under my breath. It was a mistake. We never should have let this happen, and we couldn’t take it back now. But damn it, of all the impulsive things I’d ever done, why did this one have to be a mistake? Why couldn’t something that felt this right be right?
I wanted this to be right. I needed it to be. And no matter how much I bargained with higher powers or rationalized in my mind, I knew it couldn’t be. Even if this was the one time, more than any other, I didn’t want to regret.
“God, Jesse…”
Thirty-two years old, and this was the first time I’d ever kissed a man who knew my name.
Chapter Nine
Anthony
Goddamn it, Hunter, what the fuck were you thinking?
Sitting beside Jesse on the early flight to San Francisco, close enough to catch the vague scent of chlorine from his daily swim, I stared straight ahead. The occasional glance at him confirmed he focused in the same direction. Neither of us had said a word to each other since we arrived at the airport at crap thirty this morning, and this silence was in no danger of breaking.
Fortunately Ranya—who was appallingly perky for someone conscious at this hour—had bought our excuses about working late last night, not being morning people, and not having nearly enough coffee in our systems. She already knew Jesse didn’t function this side of nine o’clock, and it hadn’t taken much to convince her I was equally anti-early.
And by the time we made it to the gate, she was in no mood to give a shit anyway. Perky and chipper made a very quick switch to pissed off and silent thanks to security treating her like a potential terrorist.
Well. Wasn’t this trip off to a spectacular start?
Now here we were, sitting in a silent row in business class. Ranya had buried her nose in a book and blocked out the world with a pair of white earbuds, and she nodded subtly in time with whatever she was listening to while Jesse and I very carefully didn’t look at or speak to each other.
God, what was I thinking last night?
Jesse told me he was gay, and my campaign manager brain had shut the fuck off when we’d both needed it the most. Damage control should have been my first instinct. After all, there were so many reasons why this could be disastrous to his campaign. The charade of a happy marriage had to stay solid. The media and the public had to keep believing Jesse was heterosexual and married. No one could know about this, and I needed to do everything in my power to make sure no one did.
But did I think about that last night? No. Fuck no. Because suddenly all those looks I thought I’d imagined were potentially real, and all those thoughts he’d unknowingly put into my head had the potential to come to fruition. I couldn’t resist, I didn’t resist, and now I had to figure out how the fuck we could continue to work together without awkward silences and uncomfortable throat clearing. We’d had enough of that before we’d crossed this goddamned line.
Now what? We couldn’t talk, not here where we could be overheard. And for God’s sake, Jesse and I couldn’t get caught giving each other any kind of suggestive or flirtatious looks, but then I supposed that wasn’t an issue as long as we couldn’t look at each other in the first place.
It was just a kiss. Okay, several. It wasn’t like we’d slept together. Besides, his marriage was over. He had his wife’s blessing to discreetly move on, and my God, the attraction was there. Once we’d broken the ice and touched, there was no pretending that intense mutual attraction didn’t exist. The only thing that had stopped me from fucking him then and there was our early flight.
To further his campaign.
His campaign that was every reason not to sleep with him. Or kiss him. Or touch him. Or fucking want him.
I groaned and rubbed my eyes, hoping Jesse and Ranya took it as a sign of stress and fatigue if they even noticed it at all. Christ. This was going to be one long campaign.
Not long after it took off from LAX, the plane touched down in San Francisco. Flanked by two of Jesse’s security escorts, the three of us walked in silence through the airport to baggage claim. Once we’d collected everything—this was, after all, the first of about two dozen stops before we were anywhere near home—Ranya called to confirm our car was on its way.
“The driver left about fifteen minutes ago.” She dropped her phone into her purse. “Assuming traffic is still light, he should be here in the next ten.”
I nodded. “Good. That gives us plenty of time to get to that breakfast.”
“Thank God,” she said. “Airline pretzels will only keep me sane for so long.” She glanced around, then looked at us. “Can you guys watch my stuff for a minute? I’m going to go use the restroom.”
“Sure,” Jesse said, his tone flat. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“You’d better not.”
They exchanged tired smiles, though Jesse’s seemed to take a lot more effort than hers. She narrowed her eyes slightly like she wanted to grill him about it, and when her gaze darted toward me, my blood turned cold.
But she didn’t
say anything. Instead she took off for the restroom, leaving Jesse and me alone in the middle of the crowd. We were a good arm’s length and luggage cart’s width apart, with the two security guards on either side like a pair of armed bookends, but we may as well have been on opposite ends of the airport. As hurried travelers rushed past us like water around a stone, I shifted my weight and kept my eyes down, pretending I didn’t feel this conspicuous. Intellectually I knew no one noticed, but I swore we radiated the guilt of two men who shouldn’t have gone there and the tension of two men who had.
I looked at Jesse in the same instant he turned toward me, and we made unexpectedly direct eye contact. He quickly dropped his gaze. Cue awkward silence. Cue uncomfortable throat clearing. Fuck.
Damage control, Anthony. Do some fucking damage control.
I drummed my fingers on the upraised handle of Ranya’s suitcase. “Listen, I’m sorry about…um, about what happened.”
Jesse played with the shoulder strap on his carry-on bag and looked anywhere but right at me. “It happened,” he said coldly. “Not much we can do about it.” He nodded toward the doors. “I’ll go see if the car’s here.”
And with that, he and the security guards merged into the rush of people, leaving me staring at his back while I waited for Ranya.
She emerged from the crowd a moment later. “Where’s Jesse?”
“He went out to see if the car’s here yet,” I said. “Ready?”
Ranya’s eyes darted toward the exit, then back to me, and they narrowed again, this time with the faintest hint of suspicion. But then she shrugged and took the handle of her suitcase. “Let’s go.”
* * * *
If there was one thing I could say about the campaign trail, it was that the damned thing was almost nonstop busy, busy, busy. There was plenty of downtime on planes and in cars, but even that could be occupied with speeches and campaign strategies, especially when a candidate and his campaign manager had shared a kiss that they really needed to not talk about.
But it was inevitable that something would get canceled or rescheduled at the last second, leaving us with some unexpected time to kill. I knew it would happen sooner or later. I dreaded it.
And about a week after that night in Jesse’s foyer, in the backseat of a rented sedan in Redding, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out and opened a new text from Lydia:
2 pm event canceled. Chairman wants to reschedule in 2 wks; working on details.
I swore under my breath, resisting the urge to throw my phone out the damned window. Last-minute cancellations were a pet peeve of mine even when they didn’t leave me facing down an awkward, unavoidable conversation.
“What’s wrong?” Jesse asked, eyebrows up as he glanced at me in the rearview.
“This afternoon’s canceled.” I shoved my phone into my pocket. “Looks like we’re coming back up here in two weeks.”
Ranya twisted around in the passenger seat and stared at me. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “Good thing we have a few other events while we’re up here, or I might have to bash some skulls together.”
“Wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you did it anyway.” She groaned and rested her forehead against the seat. “God. That means another flight, doesn’t it? Can’t fucking wait.”
I gave her a sympathetic grimace. “Sorry. Par for the course for the next few months. I’ll see what I can do about making sure we’re close enough we don’t have to fly, but…”
“I’ll live.” She scowled but made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t worry about it.”
“So what do we do with the rest of the day?” Jesse asked. “Before we have to go to that dinner, anyway?”
“As far as I’m concerned,” Ranya said, “this afternoon calls for hanging out at that shithole you guys call a hotel, eating pizza, and not campaigning for five minutes.”
“I like that idea.” Jesse looked at me and bit his lip. “You?”
Any other day during any other campaign, hanging out in a hotel room with pizza would have been heavenly. Any other day during any other campaign, I wouldn’t have made out with the candidate who’d be hanging out in the same room.
Way to complicate things, Hunter.
Jesse muffled a cough. “Anthony?” In the rearview, his eyebrows rose again, a distinct look of panic creeping into his expression. Ranya glanced at me, at Jesse, at me again, and I wondered how much she knew.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Sure. Pizza. That actually sounds like a good idea.”
An hour later, there we were, sitting around in the shithole we called a hotel, eating pizza, and not campaigning for five minutes. I sat cross-legged between the extra-hard pillows and one of the pizza boxes. Jesse and I both had half-empty beers on the nightstand between the phone and the clock radio, and he mirrored me on the other bed. Beside him, Ranya sprawled on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows as she ate.
“I thought you were a vegetarian.” She nodded at the slice in my hand.
“I am.” I tilted it so she could see the toppings. “If you’ll notice, there isn’t a single scrap of animal corpse to be found.”
“So you’ll eat cheese, then?”
Normally this kind of discussion irritated me, but Ranya was good-natured about it, and it meant we weren’t discussing the fact that I knew how Jesse kissed, so I didn’t mind at all. “I’m a vegetarian,” I said. “Not a vegan.”
“Why are you a vegetarian?” Jesse asked, glancing at me just enough to be polite. “Ethical reasons, or…?”
I shrugged. “Just can’t stand the idea of eating meat. It’s disgusting.”
“You are aware you’re a predator, right?” She gestured at her eyes. “Forward-facing eyes? Teeth meant for cutting?”
“You’re talking to a man who buys cigarettes on his way to a health food store,” I said. “I assure you, what nature intended and what Anthony does are not always in sync.”
She picked a piece of sausage off her pizza and tossed it into her mouth. “Suit yourself. Just means more for me.”
“Have at it,” I said, chuckling.
“Has anyone ever pointed out the hilarious irony of your last name, though?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Oh no. No one’s ever caught on to that.”
She snickered, and even Jesse let himself laugh as he picked up his beer.
Adopting a ridiculously horrible Australian accent, Ranya said, “Look, it’s Anthony, the fearsome Hunter. Watch him as he prowls the produce aisle and stalks the unsuspecting bean sprouts.”
Jesse choked on his beer, and Ranya and I both burst out laughing.
Still giggling, Ranya continued, “The tofu packages are helpless to fend him off, and now he’s moving in for the kill. Look out, he’s—” She snorted and dissolved into giggles.
Rolling my eyes again and chuckling, I picked up my beer can. To Jesse I said, “How do you put up with her?”
Jesse shrugged and gave a nervous totally-pretending-to-be-comfortable grin. “She has her uses.” As he reached for the pizza box, he said, “If nothing else, she makes pretty good furniture.” He set the pizza box on Ranya’s back.
“Hey!” She glared at him. “I am not furniture, Jesse Cameron.”
He shrugged again. “Well, at your height, you would make a great ottoman.”
“And at my height, I have the perfect vantage point for kicking the crap out of your shins when you stand up.” She narrowed her eyes and gestured at the box with her thumb. “Move it, buster.”
He eyed her coolly. “You know, you’re awfully mouthy for a sidekick.”
“Sidekick?” She pointed at the box again, bracelets jingling emphatically. “How about you take this thing off my back before I show you a roundhouse kick?”
Chuckling, he picked up the box and set it beside her but didn’t quite pull his hand back before she smacked him.
“Let that be a lesson to you,” she said.
“That’ll be the day,” he said.
/>
“Yeah, isn’t that the truth?” She reached down to pick up her beer off the floor. After she took a drink, she set it down, and as she drew her arm back, she paused to look at her watch. “Oh man.” She pushed herself up. “It’s almost five.”
“Is it?” I looked at the clock and blinked. When the hell had we gotten this far past noon? “Goddamn, it is.”
Ranya sat up with a dramatic groan. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to go make myself quasi-presentable for this evening.”
“Good idea.” Jesse swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. Muttering, he added, “Another late night, another early fucking morning.”
A retort of get used to it, Governor stopped at the tip of my tongue. I glanced at the clock radio while the two of them tossed plates and beer cans away.
It was a little after five. We all had to get ready for this dinner, and we’d likely be back late tonight. There wasn’t much time now, but there’d be even less when we got back, and God knew when even the smallest opportunity might present itself again.
“Jesse,” I said. “We need to go over a few things before the rally tomorrow.” I gestured at my laptop case, where I kept notebooks and crap for briefing him prior to events.
He hesitated, his eyes darting toward Ranya. “Does it…need to be tonight?”
Yes. It needs to be now, damn it. I shrugged. “It’s now, late tonight, or the crack of dawn tomorrow. Your call. Just depends on if you want to deal with me precoffee or not.” I raised an eyebrow.
Please, Jesse. We need to do this now.
He swallowed hard. Finally he nodded. “Sure. All right.” To Ranya, he said, “We’ll see you in the lobby at six thirty?”
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Assuming you two are dressed and ready by then.” A look of horror flickered across her expression, and she locked eyes with Jesse for a second. Then she quickly cleared her throat. “Well, I mean…” Her gaze darted back and forth between us. Finally she just shook her head. “Just get yourselves put together. Both of you. Okay?”
