by Aubrey Irons
Emma quickly looks at Hunter. “Mr. Ryan, you’re actually just the man I was looking for.”
“Aww, I thought I was special,” Dexter snorts. “She just said the same thing to me.”
Emma flushes red and rolls her eyes before her face goes back her normal all-business look.
“Actually, I do need you both. The Times is here, and they’d like a quick photo op with the two brothers for an article they’re doing on your father.”
“Sounds like fun, right?” Dexter says, rolling his eyes.
Hunter frowns as he looks at his watch. “We’ve got time for that?” Emma looks over her glasses and down her nose at him, and he laughs. “Right, the queen of schedules.” He shoots me a quick look with his back to them. “Duty calls?”
They all turn to leave, and he gives me one last subtle and hidden hand squeeze before they head off to find the Times photographer.
‘Maybe I just like having you all to myself away from all the bullshit of the world.’
It’s a sentiment I feel as well, but there’s another level to the statement that we still don’t talk about. There’s another side to that coin that we’ve been willfully ignoring while this whole thing has gotten totally out of control. And it’s the unspoken part that sends a dull ache through my gut.
The part that says this has to be in the shadows.
We’re not just hiding this away so we don’t have to deal with people’s opinions, we’re hiding it away because it’s a necessity of the lives we lead. And that’s a sad state of affairs, knowing I can’t tell a soul about the man that makes me feel like I’ve never felt before.
I can’t tell a soul about the man I lo—
“I always knew you were damaged.”
The voice from my past, the voice of fear and fury and pain has me gasping as I whirl.
Harry.
Harry the ex from Chicago. Harry the asshole, the cheater, the manipulator.
Harry who hit me.
His hair is a bit shaggier, his pallor a little paler, and his eyes a little more dangerous looking than the last time we spoke; that last time when I was running screaming from him after he’d smacked me across the face.
“Harry?” I say weakly, all strength leaving my voice as my legs suddenly turn to jell-o. “What— how did you get in here?”
He grins this lopsided, sneering grin at me as he pulls a bottle of something out of his jacket pocket and takes a swig as he shrugs.
“Harry,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Harry you shouldn’t be—”
“You know, it’s disgusting,” he says with a sneer, shaking his head at me. His eyes burn into me, the scent of alcohol creeping over me. “But like I said, I knew you were damaged goods.”
“Harry, I don’t know what you—”
“I mean your brother, Maddie?” He snorts out a laugh, “Nice job slumming it.”
“I think you should leave, Harry,” I say, mustering as much strength in my voice as I can.
He grins and shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. You see, we belong together, you and I.”
“I don’t think—”
“You belong to me,” he says darkly, the tone of his voice and leer in his eyes making my skin crawl. “I’m your boyfriend, Maddie, and it’s time for you to quit slutting it up and learn to respect me.”
I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and cold sweat creeping down my spine. Something unseen is pulling at every warning bell I’ve got inside, something that tells me I should run.
I whirl away from him, but his hand on my arm is stronger than I remember as he yanks me back around, almost pulling me off my feet. Out of nowhere, I’m looking right into the blade of a gleaming knife in his hand.
The world sort of fades away around me until it’s just me, Harry, and the knife, alone in the darkness. And suddenly there’s only one thought in my head: I don’t want to die.
Harry grins evilly at me.
“Oh, feel like listening to me now, huh? Feel like showing me a little respect now, is that it? This what it took, babe?”
I can feel my legs start to give out, my blood frozen like ice in my veins as tears start to trickle from my eyes. “Harry—”
“Remember my name, babe,” he says chillingly, and I fall to my knees as he takes a step towards me, the knife glinting wickedly in his hand. “Because I want it to be the last thing you—”
When the hit comes, everything goes into slow motion.
I’m aware of Hunter barreling into me and shoving me aside before he roars as he hurls himself at Harry. I’m aware of falling, and catching myself in the tangles of the curtain backstage, and staggering to my feet just as Hunter connects with Harry.
And then the only thing I’m aware of is the blood, and the knife going flying as the two of them fall to the ground.
I barely notice as Harry scrambles to his feet and starts to run as this utterly silent scream just freezes in my throat. The roar of my own voice chokes in the frozen tightness of my throat as I drop to my knees and grab Hunter into my arms, feeling the entire world shattering around me as my heart starts to—
He’s laughing.
I jerk my eyes up to his face, the tears blurring my vision as I see that strong, cocky, smug grin on his face that I’ve never once been gladder to see.
“Are you—?!” I collapse into him as tears of pure shock and fear and everything start to pour down my face.
“Maddie!” He laughs out, pulling me into him with a small wince. “Maddie, I’m fine, he just winged me.” He nods down to gash across his arm. “I’m fine.”
I choke out a sobbing laugh as I throw my arms around him and squeeze him as hard as I can, like I’m afraid he might fly away if I ever let go. I kiss him, fervently, madly, passionately, his lips searing into mine as I just fall into him, heedless of the world around us.
So heedless, in fact, that I don’t notice the large back wall of the stage that I’ve managed to knock off its base in my tumble. And I’m still lost in him, kissing him like we might blow away in the wind if we move apart, when that very stage wall finally starts to teeter and goes crashing forward into the stage.
Every single pair of eyes belonging to the five thousand members of the press, the public, and my mother immediately land on us. Right there, center stage, wrapped in each other’s arms, with the whole world there to see it.
There’s exactly half a second of stunned silence, before everything just explodes, and just like that, the secret’s out.
Just like that, the entire fucking world is in on my terrible, horrible, dirty little secret.
There’s a rush of screaming questions, camera flashes, and both the press and men in suits with guns drawn racing towards us.
But there, past it all, is my mother; her face drawn, her mouth open, and her head just slowly shaking side to side.
And that’s when I faint, and the nightmare just fade away.
37.
“You know, I sort of thought the White House would be different.
I choke out a laugh and sniff into Jessica’s shoulder. “How so?”
“Oh, less crying, for sure.”
I laugh and squeeze my friend tighter as I try and stop the tears blurring my eyes.
“Hey, hey!” Jess strokes my hair. “You just had some shit, girl, I mean you were attacked.”
“It’s not that…” I mumble out.
It’s the day after the attack, and we’re back in D.C. Back after being whisked away by Secret Service with a jacket over my head, orders barked around me, and a mad SUV drive through San Francisco. Thirty minutes after leaving the lecture hall, my mother and I were back on Air Force one and in the air, leaving the shattered debris of what happened in our wake.
Leaving Hunter.
There was screaming, and threats, and me trying to fight my way back off the plane. But then there was the physician, telling me to be calm, and then injecting me with something that had me slumping in my seat lost in a d
ream state the rest of the trip home.
There wasn’t any screaming after that, only silence and my mother pointedly looking out the window.
Jess gives me a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay, you know.”
“No, Jess, it’s not. I humiliated myself.”
“Nah, you didn’t”
“Are you kidding me? I did! And my mom and everyone else too, and it was all on national television, Jess!”
My friend pulls back from me and rolls her eyes. “Dude, you got saved on national television by your hunky bodyguard. Or ex-bodyguard or whatever.”
“You mean my stepbrother.”
Jess groans. “Do you seriously think anyone cares?”
“Yes?”
“Who? Weirdos and prudes who didn’t and weren’t ever going to vote for your mom anyways? People who you’ll never see, meet, or have anything to do with? C’mon, Mads, what do you care about those people anyways?”
“I’m the weirdo, Jess.”
“Right, yeah, you’re totally weird for being attracted to a guy who looks like Hunter Ryan.” She rolls her eyes again. “So against the grain being into a tall dark and handsome man with a ripped bod and a military record.” She sticks her tongue out at me as I make a face. “Dude, you’re fixating on the wrong part, will you look at the paper today?”
She opens the Post on her phone and shoves it into my hands, and my eyes widen a little at the headline:
‘Hero of the Hour: Decorated Marine Corp Sergeant Saves First Daughter.’
And beneath it is a picture of me, being cradled by a bleeding, grinning Hunter looking every damn inch the “hero of the hour”.
“Yeah, but Jess, this is before they realized who—”
“Ugh, Mads, you’re the worst,” Jess laughs. “Before they realized what, that his dad and your mom like each other which still doesn’t make you related at all?” She snatches her phone back, clicks to something new, and turns it back to me. “Look, dude you’re trending on twitter right now.”
“Huh?” I grab the phone and stare at the screen, scrolling own and feeling the bizarre surreal feeling of it all wash over me as I see hashtags with my name, and Hunter’s, and both together.
“Mads, there are fucking memes about the two of you.”
I groan. “Oh, wonderful.”
“No! Good ones, you moron. Look, did you not watch “Good Morning to the Nation” this morning?
“Oh, yeah, sure, I definitely was watching TV with this all going on.”
Jess gives me another look before she brings up a video clip on my phone and turns it towards me, and my jaw drops.
It’s the same three hosts who interviewed Hunter and I when we were on before, talking animatedly about the whole thing in San Francisco.
“Look,” one of the blonde, peppy hosts is saying. “I’m just saying, can we all just appreciate what an amazing guy Hunter Ryan is?” The whole damn audience goes nuts, cheering and standing and clapping as the hosts beam at the cameras. “I mean, ladies, am I right? When’s the last time you were with a guy that got stabbed for you?”
The crowd whoops and cheers again as one of the other hosts laughs and slaps her knee. “You know, Erica, it was so great to have both him and Madison on before, before they went public I guess we could say. But they were just so lovely, and wow are they adorable together now, huh?”
The crowd whoops and hollers again as the third host shakes her head, laughing. “Joan, you are so right. I mean, their parents getting married and all that just makes it so much more romantic doesn’t it? They’re a like modern day star-crossed lovers.”
Modern day star-crossed lovers?
Jess laughs at the shocked look on my face. “See? I told you, dummy. Look at that shit!” She points as the camera pans out over the studio crowd again, and they’re holding signs with my damn face on them. They’re holding marker and poster-board signs with “Maddie + Hunter” scrawled across them, posters with blown-up shots of that Post picture of me in Hunter’s arms.
“This is…”
“Awesome?”
I bite my lip, feeling the breath catch in my throat.
“Jess, this is incredible, but…” I sigh, feeling the sudden elation start to deflate around me. “He’s gone, Jess. He’s gone, and it’s never going to happen.”
“So you’re just going to give up?”
“I’m not giving up, I just don’t know how this ends well for anyone. There’s no happy ever after for us in this picture, Jess.”
She pulls me into her arms, and I slump into her. “Thank you for being here,” I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut against her shoulder. “And thanks for coming to the stupid press conference tomorrow.”
“Any time, dummy.”
“It’s going to be awful.”
“Well,” she says as she pulls away and arches a brow at me, “we could always go to another party instead.”
I bark out a laugh. “You’re impossible.”
“I know; it’s why you love me,” she says, pulling me into her arms. “Now c’mon, let’s go.”
I frown, “Where are we going?”
“Mads, this place has a like four industrial sized freezers, a movie theatre, and a wine cellar. We’re getting ice cream and a bottle of something expensive and going to watch sappy stupid chick flicks until we puke, okay?”
38.
The three of us stare at each other in the heavy silence of the D.C. hospital room; me alternating between my dad and Eleanor and the two of them exchanging quick looks but mostly just looking at me, slowly shaking their heads.
The aftermath of everything that happened was as chaotic as you can imagine. A scene like that at a public appearance by the President certainly makes for an interesting afternoon.
Secret Service swarmed over us in seconds, pulling us apart, heedless of Maddie screaming to let her go as they covered her with a blanket and their own bodies. Harry got taken down in seconds when a policeman spotted him trying to break out the back door of the venue. I have no idea what they’re going to do with him, but I feel like trying to assassinate the first daughter, that close to the damn President nonetheless, is a great way to visit the east end of Cuba faster than you can say “Guantanamo”.
Me, I got yanked out of there so fast I thought I’d dislocated a shoulder. Medics were all over me, restraining me as I tried to tell them it was just a nick on my arm even though they could see the blood on my chest from the second stab that I know Maddie never saw. It took four of them and a police officer to hold me down and tell me to be still while I fought them to get the fuck back to Maddie.
But it wasn’t going to happen.
Shit like that is exactly what the Service trains for, and they had the building locked down, Harry in cuffs with his face knocked in, and Maddie and her mother two miles away in the blink of an eye.
Dad and Dexter and I took a separate plane back, and two days later, I’m still stuck in the fucking hospital, like some sort of prisoner.
“Where is she?”
My father swears under his breath.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Hunter,” his brow furrows, the anger etched across his face. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to your mother’s offic—”
“She’s not my mother, dad,” I say sharply.
The Major tenses, but Eleanor puts a hand on his arm. I look at her quickly. “No offense.”
“None taken,” she says curtly.
My father shakes his head. “Hunter, what you’ve done—“
“What I did was save Maddie from that luna—”
“I know, I know,” Eleanor says, her face tightening as she steps forward, a look of fear and sadness on her face. “I— we both know you did, Hunter, and I can’t tell you how thankful I am for that. I can’t begin to thank you enough.”
She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, and when she looks back at me, she’s back to the strong, confident Eleanor Adams who swept the election. The bold, independent, powerf
ul leader of the free world.
“Is it true? About you and Madison?”
I say nothing.
“Son,” my father says sharply.
Fuck this.
“Yes, it’s true.”
Dad swears sharply and whirls, pacing towards the window shaking his head. Eleanor just nods her head quickly.
“Okay, that’s okay. It’s still early, we can get PR all over this.” She’s nodding to herself, as if already rehearsing the speech she’s going to give. “We can fix this, and stop it before—”
“Where is she?” I say louder, cutting her off.
“Hunter,” Eleanor says, her eyes burning right into mine, her tone polished and crisp. “As I said, I’m forever grateful for what you did today. You’re the hero, and that’s exactly how we’re going to spin this.”
“Where’s—”
“Hunter, you know I can’t let you near my daughter again,” she says quietly, and it’s like getting stabbed all over again.
Because right then, the other shoe that I’ve been pretending was never going to drop finally does, and it feels like a fucking piano just landed on my chest.
It all comes together right there in that moment in the hospital bed; why I didn’t think when I threw myself between Maddie and that piece of shit with the knife — I just did. It’s why the thought of harm coming to her brings up every fighting animal instinct inside of me, and it’s why being kept away from her right now is tearing me apart.
Yeah, we’ve been fooling ourselves into thinking this was something it wasn’t for far too long, except we’ve had it all wrong.
We’ve been worried about the whole world finding out about us, when we should’ve been more worried about what happened when we found out about us. Because I’m pretty sure we never stopped to think about the consequences of what might happen if we both just woke the fuck up and realized what this whole “sordid, illicit affair” actually was.
Because I just did.
