Sugar & Ice

by Brooklyn Wallace

  My heart skipped a beat. I felt fourteen again, happy that a pretty girl was giving me the time of day. “Are you sure?”

  She waved me off with a flick of her blue-painted nails. “They’ll live. Whenever the tiniest thing goes wrong and I’m not around, they hit the Bat-Signal. I can fix a tiny little budgeting concern over the phone. Hell, I can fix it in my sleep.”

  “You sure it has nothing to do with the company you’re keeping?” I teased, heart cautiously full. “Or the popcorn?”

  “The popcorn, yes.” She tossed a kernel in her mouth for emphasis. Then she leaned in and kissed me, letting me taste the sweet caramel on her lips. When she pulled away, she was smiling. “Besides, I have to see how tiny Kate Middleton’s up to. And what about not-Forest Whitaker?”

  My lips tugged into a dopey grin. “I’m upset I knew exactly who you’re talking about.”

  Eight

  Gwen

  “Mrs. Crawford? Mr. Crawford will see you now.”

  “Julia, I’ve told you, it’s Ms. Crawford. Or, better yet, ‘Gwen’ is fine.”

  Julie smiled apologetically. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Crawford. Just a little slip-up. You know how it is.”

  There was no way it had slipped her mind. Any time I was forced to visit Dick Crawford in his offsite office, it “slipped” his secretary’s mind that I was Ms. now, not a Mrs. It had been “slipping her mind” for the past five years.

  Jeffrey would say I was paranoid, but I was convinced Dick had something to do with that.

  I rapped my knuckles in a courtesy knock, but didn’t wait for permission to walk in. Dick was hunched over his computer, hunting-and-pecking on his ancient keyboard. He didn’t look up, even when I walked around to the front of his desk. Seconds ticked by without either of us saying anything. A battle of wills already, and it wasn’t even noon.

  “You know, sometimes I really miss the days of paper-and-ink campaigning,” he said. “Canvassing neighborhoods and meeting the people rather than liking their profiles and tweeting them.”

  “You’re campaigning again? Jeffrey hadn’t mentioned.”

  “I’m doing a little consulting on Luis Cibrian’s reelection. Between you and me, the high-priced consulting team he bought costing him big time. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned campaigning, huh?” He looked up and gave me a smile. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

  Ignoring the implication that I would ever run to him for something I hypothetically wouldn’t be able to handle, I pulled a stack of papers from my purse and tossed it on his desk. “You asked for a breakdown of our fundraising finances and expenses so far.”

  He picked up the papers and thumbed through them. “Why didn’t you just send the girl to do it?”

  Because “the girl” finds you to be equal parts intimidating and infuriating, and I’m not cruel enough to subject her to you. “Our interns are busy with other tasks. Why do you want to know these numbers?”

  He made a thoughtful noise as he scanned a page. “Just doing a little research. Nothing concerning.”

  Nothing that concerned me in my own campaign. Right.

  I tapped my fingers against the only spot on the desk not cluttered with papers and manila folders. “We’ve kept well within budget. We have fewer donors than last election, but that’s to be expected.”

  Dick didn’t look up from the file, but was kind enough to give a noncommittal grunt. The whirring of his ancient computer and the hiss of the A/C accented the silence between us as he continued to flick through pages and grunt thoughtfully.

  Making a show shouldering my bag, I said, “Right, so, if you have any questions—”

  “Whoa, whoa. Where’s the fire?” Dick cocked an eyebrow. “Since you’re here instead of the girl, I assumed we could pore over this together.”

  “Oh, I actually have a prior engagement to get to. You were just on my way.”

  “All right, but since you’re here, what’s this bit here about the Montgomery commission?”

  I explained the report succinctly, only for him to counter about us overpaying. I should have known it was only an opening for him to lecture me about my damn job.

  Too tired and in too big a hurry to argue for once, I merely nodded and hummed occasionally as I scrolled through my phone. A text message from Jackie sent twenty minutes ago displayed on my screen.

  Jackie: u coming soon? i managed to snag our booth but some dolly parton-types are eyeing it. place it packed.

  My heart did a ridiculous schoolgirl flutter at our booth. An innocuous term with probably no real thought or intent behind it, but I could practically hear the screech of a U-Haul truck behind me.

  I’m on my way, but it might me a while. I texted back. I’m dealing with a mess.

  Jackie: oh no r you still with daddy-in-law dearest?

  Bingo.

  “I hope those are poll numbers you’re looking at.”

  Dick’s gaze was equal parts teasing and something else I didn’t want to bother deciphering. I pocketed my phone and gave him a cordial smile.

  “If you have any questions about that, just email me,” I said. “Otherwise, you can save them for our next meeting.”

  “Gwendolyn—”

  I gave him a quick wave as I walked out of the office, not bothering to look back. Julia flashed me a polite smile on my way out.

  “Have a good day, Mrs. Crawford!”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know how to play basketball?”

  “I mean I don’t know how to play basketball.”

  “Like, you don’t know the rules, or you can’t physically get your body to play . . .?”

  “Yes. Yes to both.”

  Jackie crowded me against the brick wall of the storefront with an awning we were hiding under to shield ourselves from the rain while we waited for a Lyft. It had been my idea to go from the Rose back to her place, to which she’d readily agreed. That was before it started raining pure buckets. If I were a stronger woman I might have suggested we go back to the club until the rain died down. Unfortunately, I was a very, very weak woman when it came to the prospect of Jackie’s fingers.

  “Didn’t you say you used to casually watch the league?”

  I ran my fingers up the lapel of her jacket and quirked an eyebrow. “Who says I was watching for the game?”

  She shook her head in mock exasperation, but her lips twitched up just so.

  “Maybe we should have a little one-on-one sometime?” she joked. “I’d love to see how those hips move on the court.”

  “Shut up.”

  She laughed. “I bet you’ve got a mean granny shot, babe.”

  “Shut up.” She only laughed harder. “I’d like to see you run a successful reelection campaign.”

  “I bet I could give it the old college try.” She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “‘The senator has no recollection of the event in question.’ How’d I do?”

  I snorted. “No too shabby, but there’s more to being a campaign manager than downplaying scandals.”

  “Oh, right. There’s also dinners and paperwork and hanging out with Daddy Warbucks, right?”

  I flicked her lightly on the chin and she moaned in exaggerated pain. “You’re not wrong, but I’m not happy about that.”

  “God, is that really what you do?”

  “Most of the time? Unfortunately. Luckily, I’ve never had to cover up a dead mistress, or a secret family, so that’s a plus.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe this is what you do and it doesn’t even make you happy.”

  I laughed. The mere idea of campaign work making me happy was bizarre. “It’s not about being happy.”

  “I know, I know. You’re good at this hellish shit, that’s why you do it.”

  Frowning in thought, I traced the dip of her throat with my fingernail and relished in watching her shudder. “Not that. I mean, not just that—I am good at this hellish shit. But it used to make me happy. But that was back when
everything was new and exciting. I’ve been in this game for a while, so that spark is gone. Didn’t you feel the same way after your first few games?”

  She laughed, surprised. “No. Never. Every single game was like being alive for the first time.”

  My chest seized at the wistful, quietly anguished look that passed over her face before she shook herself back into a playful grin.

  She cleared her throat and knocked her bony knee against my thigh.“All right, World’s Greatest Campaign Manager. If it’s not about happiness for you, then what is it about?”

  “Winning,” I said, because it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  Jackie’s expression told me she didn’t think so. “You sound a lot like me.”

  Before I could decipher what that meant, a commotion across the street turned both our heads. I recognized councilman Christopher Cavanaugh’s signature tilted trilby before I even saw his face. Not that it was easy to see his face, what with the small riot of reporters circling him like wolves on wounded prey.

  “Oh, god,” I said. “Four o’clock.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Christine Cavanaugh. She’s running for June Price’s old seat. Got herself on the front page after getting caught with her hand down a page’s pants. Mr. Cavanaugh was not pleased.”

  “Oh.”

  Christine looked absolutely furious under the protective cover of her umbrella, an angry red dot in a sea of drenched, camo-black photographers. Her mouth flew a mile a minute, and while I couldn’t hear what she was saying, I knew somewhere, her campaign manager was having a long, solemn drink.

  I sighed. “I do not envy her staff.”

  “What’s going to happen to her?” Jackie asked softly. I couldn’t read her expression with her head turned, eyes transfixed on the implosion-in-progress. “When athletes have cheating scandals, it goes away pretty quick. Lorne has washed more clients than the mafia washes money.”

  “Depends, really. For every Bill Clinton with a comeback kid story, there’s a congressman with a mistress in Appalachia who gets booted out of office. That’s when the vultures—” she gestures toward the press “swoop in.”

  Bystanders started to take note of the scene, slowing on the sidewalk to watch this trainwreck in slow-motion. People ducked under awnings and umbrellas were locked in on the scene, interest and bloodthirst piqued.

  Next to me, I felt Jackie’s entire body go rigid. At the same time, her fingers went slack in my hand until it wasn’t so much us holding hands as it was me grasping hers.

  I turned to her with a frown. “Are you okay?

  “I’m fine,” she said, high and reedy. “Can we go?”

  “The car isn’t here yet—”

  “That’s okay, we can cancel. It’ll only be a five-dollar charge, I won’t go broke,” she joked weakly, tugging on my hand as she started to walk away.

  A protest sat on my lips, but then I caught the barely concealed discomfort contorting her features. I relented and allowed myself to be pulled from the dry safety of the awning and out into the muggy spray of the world.

  Later, in the warmth and cover of my apartment, curled up on my too-small loveseat that forced her nearly into my lap, I asked, “You wanna tell me what that was about?”

  Her lips dragged across my ear and made my spine tingle. Her palms, wide, with fingers long and delicate, traced nonsense symbols in my skin under the threadbare shirt I had changed into, dipping lower and lower on each gentle curl.

  “Nothing,” she murmured as she brushed my inner thigh before trailing back up my sides. “Has anyone told you how hot you look in this shirt?”

  “You have. Several times, in fact. Now stop trying to change the subject.”

  She groaned in protest, fingers stilling against me. “It was nothing. I’m fine now.”

  The restrained tension in her voice told me there was more she wanted to say, so I kept quiet and placed my hands over her own, coaxing them back into mapping the planes of my skin.

  She sighed heavily. “It really was nothing, just . . . that, back there. That was hard to watch.”

  “Didn’t take you for a Cavanaugh fan. You know she’s from Texas originally, right? Mavericks fan.”

  “Gross.” She smiled slightly. “No, it’s nothing like that. I’ve been there, you know? With the bad press and the—the stares, and the disapproving headshakes shit. It fucks you up.”

  I craned my neck so I could look up at her. “Your situation is nothing like hers, Jackie,” I said firmly.

  “No, no. I know that. She’s a jerk. She cheated on her husband, right? Not to mention how creepy it is to hit on an intern. So, she deserves it, no doubt about it. I just . . .”

  Her face pinched as she trailed off, looking unsure of her own discomfort. Doubting whether what made her feel bad was worth someone else’s attention. That ingrained self-deprecation and uncertainty was heartbreaking, especially now that I had seen her at her happiest.

  I had promised myself I would never go prying into her old life, and if I awarded myself the privilege of loopholes, I technically hadn’t. What I’d found wasn’t the TMZ articles or the sports gossip sites, but throwback videos of her on the court: Jackie, ponytail bouncing, dominating the court like she was put on God’s green earth to do just that. Taking trick shots and taunting and, yes, being a bit of a ball hog, but also being alive and full of energy like I’d never seen her before. My heart had fluttered like an admiring fan’s despite the video being four years ago and the real deal not a phone call away.

  Here, sitting underneath feet-foot-eleven-inches of gentleness and quiet, my heart fluttered just the same, quick and light and terrifying.

  “It felt familiar, you know? Watching that happen. I remember that feeling, of being in the middle of those reporters why everyone asked me what I was going to do now, how I was going to handle pushing myself so hard I ruined a perfect season, how it felt to know my teammates didn’t even show up at the hospital for me. Fuck, it wasn’t even me this happened to today and I still locked up. I don’t ever want to feel like that again. After everything that’s happened, that’s the one thing I know.”

  “Then I won’t let you.”

  The moment those words were out of my mouth, I knew there was no way I could promise that. She was an adult, and the world was a big, scary, awful place. I knew that firsthand. My job was to keep the bad stuff away from Jeffrey, and I couldn’t even make sure of that one hundred percent of the time. There was no way I could protect Jackie from hurt, but looking at the shadow of fear and self-doubt etched into her smooth features made me want to try anyway.

  “You can’t do that.” She laughed softly. Her expression relaxed into that familiar secret smile, the one I stupidly liked to think was just for me.

  “Maybe, but I can certainly try.”

  She spun around until she was straddling me. The fit was tight in the awkward slope of the chair, but the heat in her eyes told me she either hadn’t noticed, or just didn’t care.

  She bent down and hovered just above my lips. Teasing, always teasing, even as she made herself as available to me as she could. A mess of contradictions, a dash of salt with a spoonful sugar. I wanted all of it.

  “You’re too good to me,” she whispered so that her breath kissed my lips.

  By the time we had called down a different Lyft, four blocks away from where we were originally supposed to be picked up, we had both been drenched to the bone. Now, Jackie was wearing my old UCLA shirt, soft and thin with wear. It hung like a sheet on her thin frame, but instead of looking comically out of place, she looked deliciously disheveled.

  I ran my tongue over her collarbone and nipped at the heated skin there. I teased my fingers up her shirt to playfully pinch her nipple between my fingers.

  She gasped, her hold on me tightening. “If you’re gonna be protecting me, maybe I should be protecting you, too.”

  The disbelieving snort I attempted cut off into a moan as her blunt nails
grazed my clit over the thin fabric of my panties.

  “Is that so?” I choked out on a half moan.

  She hummed an affirmative. By now she was back in control, turning around to renew her efforts against my clit. “You don't think so?”

  The arms of the chair and her weight on me made it impossible to widen my legs, so i was forced to stay still as I got wetter and wetter, hotter and hotter.

  “And what do I need protecting from?” I pinched her nipple in weak retaliation, but she only grinned.

  “Your father-in-law,” she said in mock contemplation. “Mad constituents. I could bring you your coffee. Protect you from crashing.”

  She bent and grazed her teeth against my pulse point. When her fingers slipped past my panties to circle around my slick clit, I cried out, any witty retort dying on my lips. Her fingers teased my opening as her thumb continued its delicate assault on my clit. Fuck, she was good. She played with my body like it was the chords to a song she knew by heart, and all I could do was sit and take it and beg her for more.

  “Please,” I gasped when she sank two fingers into me to the knuckle.

  “Please.”

  Her dark chuckle vibrated my chest and radiated through me. Just as my orgasm hit, she placed a kiss on the shell of my ear and whispered, “Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna protect you, too.”

  I grabbed her face in my hands and crashed our lips together. To make her shut up. To make her never stop. I rode out the shocks pulsing through me, riding her hand until it felt like I had nothing left to give.

  She pulled back from the kiss with a wet smack and a giggle. That giggle avalanched into a laugh until she was laughing right in my face, forehead pressed up against mine. I scowled, but that only made her laugh harder. Before I knew what was happening, I was laughing too, sharing in her giddiness without knowing the joke.

  She made me feel silly and stupid. I loved it. I loved it so much I thought I was going to burst with it.