by L. A. Witt
“Oh, God in heaven.” He grinned and swirled his drink like a glass of wine. “You’re not in love, are you?”
I laughed again, though it took a hell of a lot more effort this time. “No, no, nothing like that.”
“Okay, then what is it like?” He inclined his head. “And don’t even try to bullshit me, Anthony Hunter. I know you, and not just in the Biblical sense.”
I glanced around the room, certain everyone within a five-mile radius had heard the comment. “Must you?” I growled.
“Yes.” He set his glass on the table and folded his arms behind it. “Now spill the detes or I’ll say it even louder.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you, you know that?”
“I should certainly hope not,” he said. “Come on. Tell me. How ‘not serious’ is this?”
“Well, I mean…it’s…” I know how to talk. I swear I do. “How serious can it be when I’m not out to most of the people in my life?”
Slade shrugged, letting his gaze drift around the room. “Depends. I can’t imagine not being out, but if I had some reason to be closeted, and some guy came along who I wanted to be with no matter what anyone, including myself, thought…” Another shrug and he slid his gaze back to meet mine. “Then I suppose I could make do.”
I swallowed.
“So.” He tilted his head. “How serious is it?”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Well, Anthony?
“Okay, okay.” Slade patted the table with his palm. “Easier question. We’ll work up to that.” He winked, and I had no doubt he fully intended to get that answer out of me before happy hour was over. “What made you want him in the first place?”
“And you think that’s an easier question?”
He laughed. “Well, you’re so methodical and precise about everything. I figured you could nail down the exact moment you realized you wanted to, well, nail him down, and the exact reason. Every man you’ve ever dated, you’ve been all ‘I saw him at whatever club, and he had those jeans on, and I knew I had to have him’ or ‘he said he liked whatever god-awful band, and that was all she wrote.’ So I’m assuming our mystery lad had a similar moment?”
Goddamn it, this man knew me entirely too well. Chewing my lip, I ran through how things had started out with Jesse. Was there a moment like that? When the light came on and I just knew? Maybe when I watched him and Simone during the photo shoot and interview? When we talked for the first time? During his press conference? Of course I’d realized I wanted him during each of those moments. Or that I was strongly attracted to him, anyway. But it was never a surprise. Never a startling moment of clarity when truth smacked me upside the head and told me something I didn’t know. Each of those moments just reinforced something that was already there, like my desire for Jesse was, even before I was consciously aware of it, innate.
I stared at the table between us, resisting the urge to drum my fingers. “It’s funny, I really can’t remember.” I looked at Slade through my lashes. “It’s not like I can point to any one thing and say I want him because of this, or I want him because of that. I just…do. And have since the beginning.”
Slade blinked. “Wow, Anthony.”
“What?”
“I’ve known you a long, long time,” he said, “and I have never seen you smile like that while you’re talking about a man.” Before I could deny it, he added, “You’re practically swooning, mi amigo.”
“No, I’m not.” I paused. “Am I?”
He laughed and nodded. “Uh yeah. You so are.” He raised his glass in a mock toast. “Props to him, whoever he is. Any man who can tie you down during an election…” He finished the thought with a subtle tilt of his glass, then took a drink.
“Yeah, about that,” I muttered. “Dating during an election always works out so well.” Especially when I’m fucking the candidate of all people. At that thought, the flicker of some sexy naked memory or another of Jesse sent a shiver down my spine.
“And yet,” Slade said, “here you are. Dating during an election.”
“No kidding.” I folded my arms on the table behind my beer bottle. “And you know, I keep thinking there’s a million reasons he and I shouldn’t be together—”
“God, you always were such a romantic, Anthony.”
I laughed. “Always a pessimist. You know me.”
“Uh-huh. I certainly do. Anyway, go on.”
“Right. So there’s a million reasons we shouldn’t be together, but when we’re actually, you know, together…” I trailed off, tapping my fingers on my elbow as I searched for the words. “I just can’t think of a reason not to be.”
“He’s that good in bed?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course. That’s it.”
“So he isn’t that good?”
“Trust me, he is that good.” I shivered and, more to myself than anyone, added, “He definitely is.”
“And why on earth shouldn’t you be together, then?”
“Well, you know.” I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. “My job. I’m traveling all the time. I live in hotels more than my own house during a campaign. I mean, you know what it’s like being with someone in my line of work.”
“Ooh yeah. I do.” He grimaced as he reached for his martini. “Do I ever.” He brought the glass to his lips but paused before taking a drink. “But you and I were never all swoony over each other like you so obviously are.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you swooning over him,” he said matter-of-factly. He drained his drink, then gestured with the empty glass, probably catching the attention of the waiter and no doubt upping the tab by another twelve bucks. Apparently satisfied he wouldn’t die of thirst, Slade looked at me. “Oh, don’t even try it, Hunter. I see right through you.”
“Then you’re seeing something I don’t,” I muttered into my beer bottle.
“Liar.”
“What makes you say that?”
He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but the waiter appeared with a fresh martini. Slade thanked him, took a sip, and when we were alone once more, said, “Honestly? Because you’re balls-deep in this campaign, and you’re still seeing him.”
“You and I dated during one of Roger Cameron’s campaigns,” I said, gesturing casually with my beer bottle.
“And Roger Cameron was a shoo-in running against some idiot ass pickle who didn’t stand a chance against him,” Slade said. “You had to work at getting him elected like I had to work at getting you—”
“Slade.” I shot him a “would you keep your voice down” look.
Dropping to a whisper, he said, “You had to work at getting him elected like I had to work at getting you off. You could’ve done it with your eyes closed and a hand tied behind your back. But this kid?” He shook his head and waved with his drink. “No. I know you. You’re running an unproven horse, which means you just barely have time for happy hour with the likes of me, never mind an actual relationship, which means he’s either extremely low maintenance or he’s seriously special.” Winking, he added, “I vote seriously special.”
I dropped my gaze into my beer bottle and had no doubt the rush of heat to my face lit up my cheeks again and undermined any excuse or alibi I might have thought of.
“We have a consensus, do we?” Slade asked with a grin in his voice.
I couldn’t make myself meet his eyes, especially not as the warmth in my face intensified. I ran my thumbnail along the label on my beer bottle, slicing through the adhesive and freeing the edge so I could play with it.
And whether it was because I’d been dying to tell someone all this time, or because Slade had broken some dam I didn’t even know existed, when the words came, I didn’t—couldn’t—even try to stop them.
“I don’t know, it’s weird. I tell myself this is too much headache, and I think it’s a bad idea. All the time. I have this conversation with myself all. The. Time.” I pushed my thumb under the loosen
ed label, concentrating on peeling paper from glass instead of meeting my ex-boyfriend’s scrutiny. “But then we get each other alone, and…” And it all makes sense. And it’s perfect. And no amount of self-lecturing comes close to telling myself there’s any reason I shouldn’t do this. “We get each other alone, and I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else. But then when we’re around other people, people who don’t know we’re together, sometimes I look at him and I…” I paused, releasing a breath as goose bumps rose on my arms. “God, I can’t even breathe. He just has this…this…” I made a sharp, frustrated gesture in the air. “Something about him.”
“Something about him?” Slade’s voice startled me, like I’d forgotten he was even here. When I met his eyes, he grinned over the rim of his martini glass. “Oh, I don’t think it’s something about him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sweetheart, it’s you. Or rather, what he’s doing to you.”
“Meaning?”
My ex smiled. “He’s got you tripping over your own feet, Anthony. Like no man I have ever seen before. It’s something about him, all right, but it’s you and the way you feel about him that’s got you stumbling and stuttering.”
I took a long drink of beer. Rolled it around in my mouth. Ignored my pounding heart. Wondered when the hell this had happened. When and how and…
I swallowed the beer and closed my eyes. No wonder I’d needed to get away from Jesse for an hour or two. I’d needed a little while to get my feet back under me, and just thinking about him and talking about him, I still hadn’t regained any sense of balance. And as much as I enjoyed Slade’s company, I caught myself craving Jesse’s presence. Even if we couldn’t touch or look at each other like we meant it or admit we’d ever been anything other than platonic and professional, being around him made sense. It worked. Blood pressure be damned, I wanted to be sitting in a bar with Jesse, bantering over drinks like it didn’t matter who noticed.
My gut sank as I glanced around the room. God, what I wouldn’t have given to be able to be with Jesse like this. Out in public, right in view of anyone who cared to look, without dodging cameras or worrying about images. Even if someone bothered to whisper behind their hand or quietly wonder if the two men at this table were together…you know, like together, their speculation wouldn’t go beyond their own conversation. By the time they left and went back to their lives outside this restaurant, we’d be forgotten. Blessed by the discretion that comes with anonymity.
Between now and the end of the election, there was no way in hell Jesse and I could do this. And after the election, then what? Even after he was divorced, as long as he had a career in politics, our relationship demanded a certain level of secrecy.
“Fun secret to keep, isn’t it?” he’d asked the night I brought up being a skeleton in someone’s closet.
“Ooh, yeah,” I’d said, rolling my eyes. “Loads of fun. That’s part of why I’ve been single for so long. When you work in or around politics, it’s usually advisable to keep things like this under the radar, and most guys get tired of being another man’s dirty secret. Believe me, that novelty wears off quick.”
And when Jesse flinched, so had I.
“That’s not what I meant,” I’d said.
“Still, we can’t exactly broadcast this. If you want to jump ship before—”
I’d cut him off with a kiss, and when we broke away, I’d whispered, “The only problem I’m going to have with keeping this quiet is making sure no one hears me when you make me come.”
I meant it. Every word of it. But sitting here in a sparsely crowded bar with Slade, anonymous and unnoticed, I couldn’t quite muster the enthusiasm I’d put behind the words that night.
“Hey. Hunter.” Slade waved a hand in front of my face, and I jumped.
“Huh?” I shook my head. “Shit, sorry. I spaced out, I guess.”
He smiled. “Can’t imagine why. You’re so adorable when you’re in love, you know that?”
I laughed, but it took effort. A lot of effort. Just breathing took a hell of a lot of effort when my thoughts weighed down on my lungs like this. “Yeah, well.” I shrugged and reached for my beer. “Guess we’ll see how things go with him. So what’s new with you, besides getting your hands on Eric Grove?”
Slade mercifully went with the subject change, and for at least a little while, I could breathe.
Chapter Twenty
Jesse
“You are so fucking cute when you’re jealous.”
I glared at Ranya. “Jealous? What are you talking about?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “So I’m just imagining that scowl? And it’s just coincidentally occurring while you’re thinking about your man sharing drinks with another man a few blocks away?”
I gritted my teeth and tried not to think about Anthony and Slade hunched over beers and their history. And I tried not to think about the fact that we had never really laid down any kind of parameters for our relationship. Sex, of course. A lot of sex. But monogamy? Shit, I was married. Not actively, but married nonetheless, and neither Anthony nor I had ever said anything about not sleeping with anyone else. And so I tried not to think about the hotels between here and wherever those two were, and all the things he could do with a clear conscience, and how much they’d probably already done in a past life, and okay, so maybe I was a little bit fucking jealous.
I ran my fingertip up and down the stem of my wineglass. “Fine. But don’t tell me you wouldn’t be jealous right about now.”
She shrugged. “Of course I would. Never said I wouldn’t.”
“Think Slade’s really an ‘old friend’?”
“If by ‘old friend’ he means ex-boyfriend, sure.”
I pursed my lips. As I picked up my wineglass, though, I rolled my shoulders to break up some of the tension that had been accumulating since I’d lost sight of Anthony and Slade. “Well, they obviously get along. Must not have been a bad breakup.”
Ranya nodded. “I’ve always admired people who get along so well with their exes.”
“You’re not friends with any of yours?”
“Oh my fucking God, no. There’s a reason we’re not together anymore, you know.”
“Yeah, but sometimes things just don’t work out romantically,” I said. “Doesn’t mean you can’t be friends.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that at all. It’s just that when mine don’t work out romantically, they do so in the same way shotgun blasts don’t work out well with human flesh.”
I laughed. “Such a way with words, my dear.”
“It’s true, though. My breakups are always cataclysmic. You should have seen how things went down with my ex-fiancé.” She grimaced.
“I don’t even want to know.”
“No, you don’t. Trust me, he and I are not on speaking terms anymore.”
“Yeah, well, here’s hoping I can at least stay on speaking terms with my ex-wife,” I said. “Maybe not as friendly as them”—my, my, how one word could taste so sour—“but speaking terms.”
Ranya’s lips thinned, and she stared into her drink.
I ran my fingertip around the rim of my glass. “Something wrong?”
For a moment, she didn’t speak. The crevices between her eyebrows deepened, and the silence went on. I chewed the inside of my cheek, not sure if I wanted to prod her to say what was on her mind or let her keep it unspoken as long as she needed to.
Finally she folded her hands behind her glass and looked at me. Her expression was unusually serious, completely devoid of the mischievous spark that had, I thought, taken up permanent residence in her eyes.
“I sincerely hope you and Simone stay on speaking terms,” she said softly. “At the very least, you two have a friendship that most people would kill for.”
I swallowed. “But…?”
“But…” She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. “And maybe I’m out of line for saying this, but the way things are going, you’re seriously asking to l
ose both Simone and Anthony.”
Ice crackled along my nerve endings. “Is that right?”
She nodded. “Honestly, I think you guys—all of you—are heading for something catastrophic.”
“In what way?”
“You’ve got, well, what you and Anthony have going on,” she said, ticking off the point on her fingers. “Then there’s Simone. She’s your wife, she knows the truth about you, and she’s fucking miserable.”
My stomach tried to jump into my throat. “As much as she insists she’s not.”
“Honey, you’ve been married long enough to know that when a woman says ‘I’m fine,’ she’s not.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed. “But with her, I…” I exhaled hard and shook my head. “I just don’t know. But we’ve been through that.”
“We have,” she said with a nod. “So there’s your relationship, your marriage, whatever’s going on with her and Dean—”
“You think she and Dean are really—”
“If those two aren’t together,” she said, “I will become a vegetarian and take up smoking.”
I blinked.
“Call it woman’s intuition.” Her tone and expression turned serious again. “But yes, there is definitely something going on there. So with all that shit going on, plus the election, plus the media’s obsession with celebrities and who they’re doing…Jesse, sweetie, this is not going to end well at all.”
I forced out a breath and sat back in my chair, letting my head fall back. “I don’t imagine it will. I’m just not sure what to do about it without making things worse.”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” she said, almost whispering.
“I guess it would simplify things if Anthony and I called it—”
“Oh, don’t even.”
“What?”
She laughed. “Jesse, I know you. You’d quit this election and become a hard-core Republican before you called it quits with Anthony.”
“Even if that’s the best solution?”
“Best for your campaign, maybe,” she said with a shrug. “But we’ve all seen what happens when you two try to break up.”
