by B Ivy Woods
Flint nodded and some relief surged through her bones. At least he understood what she meant. “Let’s walk over to the drink table and get you a glass of wine. There also might be some appetizers you can snack on while we’re over there too,” he said.
Rae smiled at him as he led her over to the drink table. He handed her a glass of red wine while he grabbed a beer. She smiled at his selection and took a sip. The cabernet sauvignon swished around in her mouth before going down. She had had better.
“Flint!”
The couple turned around and eyed the person who had called Flint’s name. A balding man in his fifties came up to them with a big smile on his face. He looked unkempt, but Rae attributed that to a long day at the office.
“Good job on working that Sanford case.”
“Thanks, man,” Flint said as he shook his hand.
“Who is this beautiful woman?”
Rae raised an eyebrow at him.
“Rae, this is Steve, my coworker. Steve, this is my…girlfriend, Rae.”
Rae caught herself before her face gave her feelings away. She knew it should annoy her that he put a label on them without discussing it with her first, but she kind of liked it. Still, they should discuss this when they were alone.
“It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” And just like that, he wasn’t staring at her like a cat in heat. Maybe that’s why Flint called her his girlfriend. Still, he shouldn’t have felt the need to “save” her at all unless they had spoken about it first.
Rae kept a polite smile on her face during their exchange and was happy when Steve shook both of their hands and stalked off to talk to someone else.
“Well, that wasn’t awkward at all.”
“Sorry about that.”
“What was up with that whole ‘this is my girlfriend’ thing?”
“Well—”
“Flint!”
“Here we go again,” muttered Rae when she spun around to face whoever had called Flint. She was floored by who she saw just several feet away.
“You didn’t tell me your parents would be here?!” she whispered with a big smile on her face. Memories of the times she spent with his parents floated back into her mind.
“I didn’t know they would be here either. If I did, I would have warned you, believe me.”
“Um, why did I need a warning to—”
“Flint, there you are. We’ve been looking all over for you,” Gladys West said as she and her husband approached the unsuspecting couple. Rae couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Been right here just about the whole time. Mom and Dad, I think you remember Rae.”
Gladys looked at Rae in puzzlement before her face went blank. “Ah, yes. You two dated a few years ago. It’s lovely to see you again.” Gladys turned back toward her son.
Flint’s father, Terrance “Terry” West, smiled at Rae and stuck his hand out to shake hers. “It’s great to see you again.”
“Likewise,” she said as she brought her hand back to rest on her waist. She couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing here.
“What are you guys doing here?” And there was Flint, asking the question of the decade.
Gladys looked at her son and grabbed his arm. “You didn’t know we knew the congressman? We were invited by him personally. I swore I told you we were coming.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I wanted to make sure you met some key people here tonight and to let you know that we had a seat at one of the head tables for you.” She glanced at Rae. “Rae, dear. I’m sure we can add an extra chair for you. Let me find Betty—”
“That’s okay, Mom. We can sit with the firm.”
But Gladys wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Dear, it would be better if you sat near the front. The adjustments would only take a second.” And before Flint could stop her, she was walking off to find who Rae assumed to be Betty.
“You know, once your mother gets her mind set on something, it will take an act of God to change her mind.”
Flint shook his head and Rae snorted. Both West men turned to her, and she felt her cheeks grow warm. She would pick now to snort. Insert mental facepalm.
Terry chuckled before he said, “Ready to meet some bigwigs?”
Flint let out a deep sigh and said, “I guess so.”
Rae looked up and saw that Gladys was waving them over from another corner of the room. She pointed her out to Terry and Flint, and the three of them made their way over to Gladys.
“We’ll be sitting at table three, which is almost in front of the stage.” Flint placed his hand on Rae’s lower back as the trio headed to their table. They found their seats and sat down for the ceremony.
And that’s when things got awkward for Rae. Flint was getting pulled in so many directions that she couldn’t speak to him. And when she could, they had to remain quiet because someone was talking on the stage. A few of the people that came over to speak to Flint ended up talking to her, so Rae didn’t feel as lonely, but it was awkward. Rae felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she looked up and found eyes the same color as Flint’s staring down at her.
“This is what it’s going to be like, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gladys sighed as if impatient with Rae’s question before continuing, “Flint’s life. This is how it’s going to be. He will stay out late at events, meeting a ton of people, and working way longer hours than ever before.”
“Allow me to be blunt, but I have no idea what in the world you’re talking about.”
Gladys shook her head. “You’ll see soon enough.” She gave Rae a smile that didn’t reach her eyes before she went back to her seat on the other side of her husband. Stunned, Rae turned her attention back to the stage as Rep. Clarkson walked to the podium.
13
When the event was over, Rae could have kicked her heels together and twirled around. When they exited the building, the sun had set and was casting a warm glow over the government buildings in Federal Triangle. Flint had insisted on driving her home, and the two had walked to the parking garage where his car was.
“I can’t believe you drove to DC on a weekday.”
“I know. I had some errands to run, so I figured, why not?”
“Yuck. But rush hour traffic sucks?” Rae shivered at the thought and was thankful it was later in the evening. She hoped it would take no time for them to get to Arlington.
Once they were seated in his car, the couple buckled their seat belts, and Flint typed Rae’s address into his GPS before he started the drive.
“So, what did you think of tonight?”
Gladys’s comments to Rae floated up to the front of her mind. Was this a test?
“It was fine.”
Flint chuckled. “No. You and I both know it wasn’t. I hardly saw you once we hit table three.”
“True, but I understood that you needed to network and talk to people. It was fine.”
“I’m sorry about that, by the way. I didn’t expect to have my time monopolized. If I thought that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have invited you.”
Rae turned in her seat to look at Flint. “What do you mean you wouldn’t have invited me?”
“I didn’t get to spend much time with you, so it wouldn’t have made sense to invite you to this event.”
“What? You need to spend every waking moment with me when we’re together? I was happy to go with you and support your career, even if we didn’t spend as much time together as we would have liked. It was a professional event for work. I understand that you were getting pulled in multiple directions. Nothing more and nothing less.” Why were they even having this conversation? Although she felt better about things since their outing, this all seemed a bit much for two people who weren’t dating.
Flint was silent for a few moments, but Rae could see him tighten his grip on the steering wheel before loosening it. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight.”
“I know,” wh
ispered Rae as she stared out of the window. This discussion was not going how she’d expected either. Flint gently grabbed Rae’s hand and squeezed it in a way she assumed further solidified his apology. She placed her other hand on top of his.
“Can we talk about something else?” Rae turned to look out the window.
“That sounds like a good idea.”
Rae laughed under her breath. She saw that Flint was looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“I’m your girlfriend?” Might as well rip the Band-Aid off at this point.
“I— Um— I couldn’t think of another way to describe our relationship.”
“Friendship would have sufficed.” She was going to drag this out for as long as possible.
“I thought that would be weird.”
“As weird as calling someone your girlfriend, who isn’t?”
Flint didn’t have a response for that and it took everything in Rae to not laugh out loud. “Mr. Calm and Collected” was stuttering and speechless. The rarity of this moment was big enough that it should be in the record books. Rae spoke up since Flint had added nothing else to the conversation.
“Is that something you wanted to talk about?”
“Huh?” Flint tightened his grip on the wheel as they cruised through DC.
“Did you want to talk about being exclusive?”
“Is that something you wanted to talk about?”
“Don’t answer my question with a question.” That earned Rae a nervous giggle.
“I would like to date you. Exclusively.”
“Same. See? That wasn’t so hard.”
“So you just tortured me to…torture me?”
“Uh-huh.”
Flint shook his head and Rae gave him a big smile.
“You do realize that we’re technically ‘exclusive’ without having been on a proper date, right?”
Rae could see the wheels in Flint’s head turning. He stole a glance at Rae before his eyes focused back on the road. “Technically, the drink for old times’ sake outing was a date.”
“No, it wasn’t. And do you really want to count that?”
“Good point. I’m hoping to remedy that soon, but both of our schedules have been hectic. I was hoping to take you out on Saturday or Sunday if you were free? And potentially dinner on one of the other days if you wanted to?”
“Isn’t that a lot for one weekend?”
“When has that ever been a problem?
“Touché.” Rae got the word out before she burst out laughing and shook her head. After all, they were picking up where they left off. “We’re ridiculous. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea, though.”
“It doesn’t sound like a bad idea? Oh, how you wound me.” Rae’s giggles continued at Flint’s antics.
She sobered up as she thought about the next thing she wanted to ask him. “So, your mom talked to me a bit during the ceremony.”
Rae noticed his hands tightened again around the steering wheel. An interesting response to bringing up his mother.
“How’d that go?”
“She said some things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Go on.”
“She mentioned I should get used to you being at events like this, late into the evening and meeting and talking to all kinds of people. I’m confused about why this is an issue since you kind of do this already?” Rae yawned after she finished her question.
Flint paused for a second before he said, “Yeah, I’m not sure what she’s alluding to. Getting tired over there?”
“I guess so. I hadn’t realized I was until just now. I guess it has been a long day today.” Rae noticed he changed the subject and thought about pressing him on it.
“That it has been. You can close your eyes if you want, and I’ll wake you up when we’re outside of your apartment.”
“That’s okay,” Rae said as she yawned again.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Nope.”
That earned Rae another chuckle from Flint.
“What are you up to the weekend after this one?”
Rae scrolled through her schedule in her head, hoping she wasn’t forgetting anything. “I don’t think I’m doing anything that weekend. Why?”
“I wanted to take you somewhere. Thought I would ask now versus last minute like this was.”
This brought back memories of when he took her kayaking on the Potomac several years ago. “Are you going to tell me where?”
Rae could see Flint debating with himself in his head. “Yeah, I guess I can.”
“That is preferred over here, too, thanks.” Rae hated most surprises and wanted to be able to prepare for anything that Flint had planned. That fed into her type-A personality.
“I wanted to take you with me to volunteer at Homes for Vets.”
“Oh, the organization you cofounded to help combat the issue of veteran homelessness.”
Flint winced at her comment. “I should have mentioned something about it before, huh?”
“Yep.”
“So, you read the article about me in Arlington Today.”
Rae repeated her answer.
“Well, is there anything else you want to know because of the article?”
“Running for Congress, huh?”
The sudden jerk of the car caused Rae to look over at Flint. She noticed that he had slightly paled, and he’d tightened his grip on the steering wheel again.
“I am not running for Congress as of now. There isn’t an open seat for me to even consider running for.”
Rae let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Would you run if a seat opened up?”
Flint hesitated before responding, “I’m not sure if I’m honest.”
“Huh.”
“What does that mean?”
“Would you talk to me before you decided to run?”
“Answering a question with a question?”
“Touché.”
“But to answer your question, I would, without a doubt, talk to you before deciding to make a run for Congress. It would affect both of our lives if we kept dating.”
The “if” in his statement made Rae’s heart skip a beat. Was there a doubt that they would stay together this time around? She guessed it was better to be a realist.
“That was a bit of an emphasis on if.”
“Rae, it meant nothing. Please don’t read into it.”
To prevent another argument, Rae didn’t respond. This was a conversation they could pick up at another time. But she had her reservations about him running for Congress. Would her life then be front-page news? How would this strain their relationship? Is this what his mother was alluding to at the reception? Rae had way more questions, and if she were to be honest, she wasn’t sure if she was ready for the answers.
Rae and Flint pulled up to Rae’s apartment, where the two sat in the car in silence.
She yawned once more. “I guess I’ll see you soon?” Rae said, facing him as he turned off the car’s engine. She didn’t know what else to say in fear that it would lead to them nitpicking each other once more.
“Sounds good,” he said. But that was it. He didn’t reach for her or make motions to get out of his seat to open her door. Or ask her if she wanted to continue talking to him about the things they were debating earlier. A pit had formed in her stomach at the thought of what this might mean for them, but she tried to shrug it off. She nodded her head before unbuckling her seat belt and opening her car door.
Rae got out of the car before closing the car door. She refused to look back as she walked up the pathway to her apartment. Rae hoped she had grabbed all of her things because there was no way she was stopping to see if she had. A few seconds went by before she heard someone call her name. When she turned around, an arm flew around her back and two warm, soft lips fell on hers. Flint.
Startled by the sudden attack on her senses, Rae let Flint deepen the kiss a
s his tongue stroked her lips, begging for entry. When she let him in, her senses went into overdrive. Never in a million years would she have suspected that she would make out with Flint in front of her apartment like two high school teens kissing underneath the bleachers when they should have been in fourth-period chemistry. Oh, but chemistry they had. Without a doubt, they had plenty of it. But chemistry couldn’t be the answer to all of their problems, could it?
14
Rae whipped into her house like a tornado and slammed the door behind her. She was running late. Very late.
Work had delayed her from getting home when she thought she would. Rae and Danielle were pulled in several directions during the workday and were in meetings for most of the day. The meetings meant the things she was supposed to do at her desk got pushed back until she could finally sit down close to the end of the day and start them. And now she was rushing around trying to prepare dinner for Flint on this supposedly quiet Friday night. Except it wasn’t and everything was going wrong. She had stubbed her toe twice, running past her bed and had almost tripped when gathering ingredients for dinner. After washing her hands, she took out the veggies she knew she needed to chop and got to work.
“If I make it out of this alive, it will be a miracle,” she muttered as she started prepping the ingredients. She rewashed her hands and checked her phone.
“Shit,” Rae said as she looked down at herself. She had worn simple black slacks and a white button-down shirt with her hair in a haphazard ponytail because she had been running late this morning. Rae panicked for several seconds as she tried to figure out what she should do first. She hurried back into the kitchen and continued prepping the food. While she was cutting the mushrooms, she noticed a stain on her white blouse. Rae set the knife down on the cutting board, rewashed her hands, and then examined the stain. It was dry, which told her the stain had been there for hours.
Rae threw her head back and groaned at the ceiling in frustration. To make matters worse, the doorbell rang. She stomped over to the front door, and the universe had to deliver the final nail in the coffin when she tripped over the heels she’d kicked off when she got home. She swung open the door, leveling Flint with a look, daring him to say something wrong.
