The day had been long, but all of us were exhilarated as we crowded out of the arena toward the waiting motorcade. The staff were talking a mile a minute and all at once, we could still hear the shouts and cheers of ongoing games inside, and the cars were gleaming in the last of the sunlight.
I remember that part very well: in this sea of aural and visual overstimulation, those slick black vehicles, shining Cadillacs and Suburbans, caught my attention. They awaited us like they always did, cool and armored, the vehicular versions of the Secret Service agents themselves, in their dark suits against a backdrop of brightly colored shorts and T-shirts.
Days like those were always extra rough on the Secret Service, who loathed crowds and open-air events. No matter how many metal detectors they installed, or how long we kept people waiting to get in, they never felt we were safe enough. I remember thinking that I should have the chefs send something nice down when we finally made it home.
That’s when it happened. Gunshots. I was being forcibly dragged into one of those gleaming limousines before I fully registered it. I didn’t even have time to think Oh shit before I was slammed to the seat with Ram on top of me, shouting into his radio that he had POTUS, POTUS was in The Beast, go, go, go, GO!
I was disoriented for a moment, almost as if I was underwater, not quite sure which way was up. Sounds were too loud but also muffled, adrenaline was pumping through my system, but beyond all that was Ram, his familiar smell, his voice.
Then he was kissing me, and I was kissing him, and both of us were grabbing at each other, breaking apart to murmur “Are you hurt? Are you okay?” (me) and “Do you feel any pain? Were you hit?” (him).
“I’m fine, but—” I shoved his jacket open, heedless of the two agents now gaping at us from across the car. “What about you?”
“I’m not bleeding.” His hands roamed over me, back and front, up into my hair, eyes tracking and scanning. “I don’t think you are. This damn red dirt. You aren’t in pain? You didn’t feel anything?”
“Just you dragging me like a sack of potatoes and throwing me in the car.” I pulled him down, kissing him, keeping him close for a long moment.
Our first kisses, with witnesses, both of us worried the other had been shot.
“We should…” he trailed off. “Oh, fuck it. Christ, I thought you’d been hit for a minute there.” His hand wove into my hair again, this time to hold me in place while he kissed me.
Sometimes you kiss a man. Sometimes the kiss goes both ways. And sometimes you close your eyes, ignore the federal agents watching, and let yourself be kissed.
At least for a moment. Then, if you’re the president, you remember you have a job. “I need updates on what the hell just happened, and if anyone’s hurt. Also, can I get up now?”
“No. And you’re never leaving the White House again.”
One of the other agents—Courtney, my running buddy, who’d been quietly talking into her radio—cleared her throat. “Uh, Ram?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know.” He kissed me once more, than pulled me up. “I’m sorry.”
I socked him in the arm. “For kissing me? Because I will have you fired for saying that, Agent Ruiz.”
“Not that. Never that. But I’m about to leave you with a gap in your protection detail, ma’am.” He tuned in to his radio and asked for a sit rep.
The radio chatter intensified. The shooter was dead, one intern was hit, in stable condition, and miraculously no one else was injured. I made a mental note to have Jules get me the intern’s family on the phone when we were back at the office.
No groups yet claimed responsibility, but the chatter was all domestic. Maybe it’s the patriot in me, but I’d always rather be shot at by my own people than someone else’s. There’s something that feels oddly validating about inspiring that kind of passion in the electorate.
Ram would probably (vehemently) disagree.
Once I was sure the logistics were being handled (not by me, trapped and communications-less in the back of a car speeding toward the White House), I replayed what he’d said. He was leaving a gap in my detail? Surely the other agents wouldn’t rat him out? It had been a couple of kisses in a moment of stress, not a plot to take down the government. Though Ram was probably one of those highly ethical sorts who believed in confession and the truth setting one free.
It was hardly credible that he’d lived in DC for most of his life.
At one point during the ride back he briefly squeezed my leg where I still sat close to him. Otherwise we didn’t speak, and once they’d secured me in one of the conference rooms (no windows), the details switched out and I didn’t see him again that night.
It was chaotic and a bit nightmarish. Film of the press conference I gave to reassure everyone that I was alive and well showed a version of me who looked five years older than the footage from the event a few hours before. My eyes were round and hunted, my skin was pale. My gaze shifted restlessly over the room without stopping, but my voice was steady.
The whole thing is a blur in my memory. As are the next few hours. I was debriefed by Trevor Pia (who didn’t mention Ram, or look at me as if he knew what had happened in the car). “Homegrown militia-types” were responsible. All agencies were gathering intel and tracking leads. Nothing to see here.
I snapped at him that if he was about to tell me not to worry my pretty little head about it, we were going to have a problem.
He’d only nodded and said, “Ma’am, it’s the job of my agency and every other federal agency to catch the people who did this. It’s your job to keep the entire country calm and functional, and get everything back to normal as quickly as possible. I got the easy end of the stick there, you notice?”
I hadn’t quite laughed—hadn’t had it in me—but I’d managed to stand down.
Jules waited until he left before hugging me and whispering, “You did good, Madam President.”
“I kissed Ram,” I whispered back.
She glanced around like we were sharing classified documents. “You. Did. Not.”
“Is there any way—I mean, would you—I would ask, but I don’t want to draw attention to myself and I’d like to know that he’s—that he’s gone home, or if he’s still here, or—” I broke off and sank down on the sofa. “He kissed me, too. It was mutual. I didn’t just maul him.”
“Obviously. Are you…okay?”
“Yes. Well. Mostly. I’d be more okay if I had a cell phone and could just call him. What’s that Truman line? That the White House is the finest jail in the world?”
“And Martha Washington considered herself a state prisoner of her husband’s administration.” She raised her eyebrows. “Well? What’s with you and Ram, anyway? I assume this started around last Thanksgiving?”
“What started? There is no this. We just…in the heat of the moment…and I thought he might have been hurt…”
“Wait. You mean…you never kissed before?”
I shook my head, growing more numb by the second.
“Oh boy.” Jules leaned back against the desk. “Damn. What’re you gonna do?”
“Nothing. What can I do? I guess I’ll just…see him at work.”
“Yeah. I guess. Though that seems really dissatisfying if you don’t mind me saying so, ma’am.”
“Really dissatisfying,” I echoed. “You want dinner? Is it still dinner if it’s midnight and someone tried to kill you earlier?”
She glanced at her watch. I knew that look. She would say yes because that’s what you say when the president asks you to dinner, but if we were just friends she would have said No, thank you. It’s a late night and I’d rather to go home.
“You know, on second thought, I think my stomach is too unsettled to eat,” I said. “You should head home. Tomorrow’s going to start early enough as it is.”
“Are you sure? You should eat something…”
I waved her off. “I’m good. Maybe I’ll grab a piece of toast.”
She only hesitated anot
her moment. “But you are going to the residence, aren’t you?”
“Directly.”
“Okay, then.”
I gathered up my normal stack of things to read, with the first early reports about the shooting on top, and vacated the Oval under my chief of staff’s watchful eyes.
12
Ram wasn’t on the detail the next morning as I walked over to the West Wing. But Trevor Pia was waiting outside for me, expression inscrutable.
“You just lost me one of my senior agents, ma’am.”
What the hell did that mean? I pretended to check my watch. “I did? I must have gotten up very early this morning to have accomplished so much before even getting to work.”
“Madam President, I’d like to introduce you to Agent Ruiz’s replacement.” But he didn’t move out of the way of the door. “And for whatever it’s worth, Ruiz is a good guy. If you ever need anything from me—I have your back.”
I wanted to ask what he was talking about, but he was apparently done. He introduced me to an impossibly young-looking agent called Manuel Clarke then excused himself.
I had about seven seconds alone in the Oval before Jules knocked from her side and my assistant knocked from the outer office. Ram was gone? Trevor had my back? I couldn’t decide what all that meant, but there was at least a chance it wasn’t bad news.
The day swept me up and I didn’t have the energy to think about anything but the shooting and our response and the politics of attempted assassination until much, much later.
In the end it was Rubin who got word to my assistant that Ram Ruiz needed a meeting. The word conspiracy is strong, but it was no casual thing, this combining of powerful administrative forces to carve five minutes out of my afternoon. Jules probably had a part as well.
All I know is I had just hung up from a phone call with the Canadian PM—who’d called with her best wishes, and also a memorable off-color joke that brightened my day—when my assistant knocked and announced “Agent Ruiz to see you, ma’am.”
I was on my feet in a moment, locked onto the doorway where Ram, turned out in his dress blues, stepped through.
The door shut.
Both of us hesitated. Me, behind my desk. He, just inside the door.
“Madam President.”
“You quit your job.”
An almost-smile, a barely perceptible twitch of his lips. “Asked for reassignment, technically.”
“To where? You know, I have some juice with the higher-ups, if you need a little extra boost.”
“I think I’ll be okay. And I’ve been thinking of maybe switching it up.”
This was ridiculous. I came out from behind my desk and gestured to the sofas. “FBI?”
“Might get out of law enforcement. I keep thinking about going into teaching.”
We sat down with considerable space between us, both half turned toward the other. “You would be an incredible teacher. What age group?”
“High school, I think.”
“It’d be a loss to the Secret Service, but a great gain to the schools.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
There were moments in the Oval Office when I could almost feel the pressure of the outside world pushing in on all the walls, windows and doors bowing inward, as if the air itself became charged.
We only had a couple of minutes. I knew that. It didn’t seem like nearly enough.
I held out a hand. “I hope this isn’t because of a few kisses in the back of a limousine when someone was trying to kill us.”
His fingers closed in over mine and squeezed. “They were really only trying to kill you.”
We’d spent an astounding amount of time together over the years, but I’d never had the luxury of this: just looking at him, face to face, without any reason other than I wanted to. Light brown skin, clean shaven, dark eyebrows. A sense of kindness around his eyes, generosity in the curve of his lips.
I had no idea what we could possibly do with this tiny sliver of time left to us and the world pressing ever closer, so I said what I would have said if we were simply coworkers who were attracted to each other. “You are a handsome man, Ram Ruiz.” And held my breath.
He smiled. “Thank you, ma’am. I guess that means you won’t be offended if I ask you out?”
“As long as you don’t use ‘ma’am’ when you’re doing it.”
“Never. And I’m actually asking you in. Would you mind if we had dinner at the residence? It’s not as flashy as The Monocle, but it’s a lot easier to secure.”
“To say nothing of being incredibly close to a host of available private bedrooms,” I added, then nearly bit through my tongue. You did not just say that out loud.
He burst into a surprised, delighted laugh. “I was planning to be a gentleman. At least for our first date.”
“Oh, I haven’t gotten laid in years. You may have to drop the gentleman thing.”
A knock, but the door only opened a crack. (We dropped hands, to my immediate regret.) “Ma’am?”
“Give me three more minutes,” I called.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My poor staff. It’s the Speaker of the House out there right now I’m asking them to hold off. Hey, that reminds me—are you even a democrat?”
He smirked. “I don’t kiss and tell my political affiliation. I grew up in this town.”
“Hm. We’ll see what I can get out of you at this dinner, then. I’m told I can be very persuasive.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He smoothed his trousers over his thighs. “I should go.”
“Not until we decide on this date. My schedule is…”
“Impossible?”
“Challenging,” I settled on. “But if you can go late enough, I can commit—pending international incidents and domestic crises.”
“Tell me the time and day two weeks from now that will work for you and I’ll be there.” He offered a rueful shrug. “It’s time for me to resign. I thought about it all day after talking to my boss last night, but I don’t want a transfer somewhere else. I want to be around here. I want something more stable.”
“So you asked out the president? I’m not sure that’s in your best interest.”
“I’m willing to give it a shot.”
Another knock.
“It’s Monday,” I said. “Tuesday, two weeks from tomorrow, eleven p.m. at the residence.”
“It’s a date.”
Both of us stood. On impulse, I reached out for him. We kissed quickly, the kind of goodbye kiss that shouldn’t have sent an anticipatory shiver down my spine, but did. I showed him out the second door before straightening my blouse, taking a deep breath, and calling, “Yes?”
Tuesday. Two weeks. A date.
13
Arranging a date in the White House residence is both easier and more complex than you’d think. The Secret Service was genuinely grateful I planned to stay on the grounds—no scouting necessary, no phone calls to management, no clearing a restaurant for me. They were also plenty relieved that my date was one of their own, and thus didn’t require a thorough background check. Whatever smirking occurred, and I have no doubt it did, was not in my presence.
On the other hand, I think the entire thing caused a certain amount of strife in the kitchen. I would have been happy with Kraft mac and cheese and a couple of beers, but we ended up with actual courses and servers.
Not, to my relief, Elena. When I mentioned this to Ram, he shook his head.
“I forbade her. I can’t have a date in front of my sister.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You…forbade her? How’d that go for you?”
“Okay, I tried forbidding her, and when she laughed at that, I bribed her. Which reminds me, do you have any events coming up you’re planning to invite bell hooks to?”
“I’ll start planning one immediately.”
His eyes twinkled. “I’d appreciate it.”
As strange as it was to have Ram in my dining room (and they’d set us at the en
ds of the table, which considering no one else was there made for overly formal and slightly awkward conversation), it also felt bizarrely normal talking to him without the trappings of work between us. He loved Gabriel Garcia Marquez and William Faulkner. He’d never seen Casablanca. He’d wanted to be a professional gamer as a teenager.
I would have preferred to dip below the surface of all these getting-to-know-you questions, especially considering how long we’d known each other, but it was hard to relax with people in and out. I’d mostly gotten used to the butlers and ushers and maids in my daily life. Eating with Ram in the dining room made it all so much more blatant.
Usually the residence staff felt as invisible as they could feel—by design, because they wanted to be invisible—but tonight it was impossible to escape the knowledge that many eyes and ears beheld us.
“I’m finding it hard to relax,” I confessed.
“I’m sorry—is it too soon? Should I not be here?”
It took me an entire thirty seconds to work out what he meant. “Oh, god no. No, I mean we’re surrounded by people. I feel much more conspicuous here than I would have in a restaurant.”
“I’d never be able to relax in a restaurant, but I get what you mean.” He’d worn a gray shirt with an indigo tie. I noticed he’d gotten something on the tie, but I was too far away to flirtatiously draw attention to it.
Too far away. That was part of the problem. The other was all the people.
I could do something about one of those things. And I could take a stab at the other.
I leaned forward. “I have an idea. You game?”
“You look like you’re up to no good.”
“I’m definitely up to no good. The question is—are you game?”
Ram nodded. “Let’s do it.”
I gestured to one of the two butlers, Mr. Theodore, who approached. “I’d like dessert brought down to the cabana. We’re going for a swim.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
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