Jay heard Jack say “All clear” into the comm unit in the sleeve of his jacket and he closed his eyes. Bracing himself.

He remembered, in the split second after Jack said those words when he’d first stared bracing himself to see her.

College probably. Ethics and Policy class.

The one they’d had with Ben.

The Monday after the party when she’d made her feelings clear.

When she chose Ben.

That was the day he started bracing himself. Started trying to protect his pride. His heart.

He smelled her perfume, felt her in the movement of air at his shoulder. The ripple of awareness over his skin.

“I’ll have whatever he’s having,” she said to Lloyd and sat down.

On the far side of the bar there was a murmur of recognition but that was all. The Lloyd’s clientele was not particularly interested in the female candidate for governor of New York.

He was interested. And thanks to the shots and the blood-pumping violence of the day, he was particularly interested in the female candidate for governor of New York.

He took her in in pieces. A small treat for a shit day.

It might, he thought, be the very last time. Melodramatic, but whatever.

He looked at her hands. Her right hand, folded over her left. She didn’t wear her ring anymore, hadn’t for at least three years. The nails were trim and clean. She used to bite her thumbnail down to the quick, a bad habit that got ironed out when Ben became mayor.

She was wearing her favorite red suit. The one with the thin black belt.

It was Jay’s favorite, too. Because it was sexy. The best kind of sexy. Restrained. Polished. He was wound up, so he imagined, for just a moment, slipping that black belt loose. Undoing those buttons down the front. Revealing what it was Maggie wore under the sexy jacket.

Of course she would be wearing that suit today.

“This looks like your kind of place,” Maggie said, touching her fingertips to the tacky wood. “You always liked a sticky bar.”

“Used to be your kind of place, too,” he said and sipped his beer. The drinks had gone right to his head. And he was going to be stupid, he could feel it.

“A million years ago,” she said quietly.

She titled the bottle of beer to her lips.

“You’re supposed to do the shot first.”

“I know what you’re supposed to do. But it’s not quite what I should do, is it?”

“No one’s watching.”

He sensed more than saw her glance around, confirming that no one at Lloyd’s had their phone out, directed toward her. No one was looking at them out of the corner of their eye. The folks at Lloyd’s had their own troubles.

Quickly, she downed the shot.

“Oh my,” she breathed, and he smiled before he could stop himself.

“You going to look at me?” Maggie asked.

I am. I’m just…bracing myself.

Jay didn’t say that, but he did swivel on his stool to face her.

Maggie Perkins.

Candidate.

Former First Lady of New York City.

His best friend.

The love of his goddamned life.

She looked tired. Everyone looked tired. The election was days away.

But she was still so beautiful. Her skin was clear, her blue eyes bright, her brown hair coming loose in pieces around her face. When he’d met her she wore glasses and had a slight underbite, but all of that had been fixed when Ben started becoming a political sweetheart. Like the nail biting. And the dive-bar loving.

But she still had her round cheeks and the quiet, thoughtful intelligence that illuminated her entire being. It was tempered now, sharper since she took up the mantle of public service.

She was statuesque, tall and broad shouldered. Maggie looked like a woman you could trust. Put your faith in. She looked strong and capable and smart. Kind.

Beautiful. So damn beautiful she broke his heart.

“How was the dinner?” he asked.

“I’m not here to talk about the dinner.”

“Humor me.”

“You don’t care about the dinner.”

“I care about the Longshoremen’s Union.”

“I have their support. Sean Peace will make a statement tomorrow.”

He exhaled. That was good. That was really good.

“Jay,” she said. Her voice still carried a little of the Lackawanna accent when she got tired. Or frustrated. Or was letting her hair down.

She was currently doing all three.

“Yeah.”

“I have to fire you.”

“Yeah.”

He drained the last of his beer, and since Lloyd was at the far end of the bar, Jay just reached over it, opened the fridge, and pulled out whatever bottle was on the top shelf.

“I have to make a statement saying I disagree with your actions. That there’s no place in my campaign for violence.”

“Yeah.”

“Jay. I have to denounce you.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

He swallowed. Shrugged. “Yeah.”

“This isn’t funny, Jay,” she snapped, and he had to look away. She was getting angry, and she was so fucking beautiful when she was angry. Lit up on the inside.

“I’m not laughing. Of course you have to fire me. I’m not sure what else there is to say.”

“Jay,” she sighed. “Why? Why did you hit him?”

“I think the question is, why didn’t I hit him five months ago, after the comment he made about how if you’d had children you wouldn’t be trying to do a man’s job.”

“That was a stupid comment, but it worked in our favor, remember? Our numbers with women skyrocketed. You were thrilled when he said that.”

He had been. He’d been thrilled. Thrilled that someone had said something so backward he could use it. Jesus. He was part of the problem, too.

“Because I couldn’t….” He shook his head. The anger he swallowed on a regular basis was not going down so easy tonight. “Because the guy should be punched. Because he should have been punched a long time ago. Probably in fifth grade. Jesus, I wish I knew that shit in fifth grade.”

“But we’ve been over this. Our strategy—”

Jay swiveled on his stool again, his knees touching her thigh, and because he was getting drunk, and he was getting fired, and he was actually burning up with this constant goddamn fever for her, he didn’t shift away.

He left his knees there, against her thigh.

And she didn’t shift away, and he felt like a college freshman again, wondering if she was doing it on purpose. If she even noticed he was touching her. If she was letting him touch her because she wanted to touch him, too.

He used to make himself crazy thinking this nonsense.

“The shit that man says about you, that he says about women everywhere, that he says about immigrants and refugees and African-Americans and Mexicans, those code words and dog whistles, those barely veiled threats. The misogyny and the racism and the fucking white elitist bullshit…I couldn’t take it. Not one second more.”

“We effect more change in positions of power, you know that.”

“A punch in the face effects change, too.”

“Short-term—”

“I don’t know. I think I busted his nose.”

“Jay—”

“There’s a war out there, Maggie,” Jay said. “A war on women—”

He stopped himself, because he didn’t want to be the asshole who explained what was happening to women to a woman on the front lines of it.

“Sorry,” he breathed.

“I know.”

He let out a breath. “I don’t know how it happened,” Jay said. “How those guys got equal airtime. They got a platform, and we all had to debate their point of view like it has merit. Maybe if some of the good guys punched more bad guys we wouldn’t be here.”

“That’s a simple point of view, Jay.”

“I’m a simple man, Maggie.”

Jay smiled at her, and it took a second—because she was pissed and she had every right to be—but finally she smiled back, and she was no longer his boss. No longer the candidate.

She was Maggie.

“It was glorious,” she said, and Jay laughed. “I mean, I thought Wolf Blitzer was going to swallow his tongue.”

“Serves him right, having those assholes on his roundtable.”

“We should have pulled you off the pundit circuit a long time ago.”

“Yeah, probably. Has Katie made a statement?”

Maggie nodded. “I’m going on the morning shows to talk about it.”

“Well, feel free to use my line about how more good guys should punch more bad guys.”

“I will not be using that line.”

“Right. Use the one about how you don’t condone violence. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I lost my shit and now you have to deal with it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her hand covering his. He looked at their hands and tried, with a skill carefully honed over all these years, to not feel her touch. Maggie was a toucher. A hugger. She sometimes held his hand as they talked.

Voters loved it. Staffers loved it. Everyone loved it.

He felt like he was dying every time she did it.

And now, his defenses were scrambled. Ruined. And he felt her touch all over his body.

“I have been careless with you,” she said. He barely managed not to flinch.

“It’s not your fault,” Jay said and pulled his hand away, wrapping his fingers around the beer bottle. “I was always the best choice for those shit shows, until I wasn’t. We all know it.”

“Daphne polled,” she said.

He closed his eyes. This is what he was really scared of. He could handle losing his job. The inevitable lawsuit Bishop would cook up. Even a little jail time. He could handle all that.

Hurting her campaign would break his heart, though. She was ahead in the polls, but 2016 had wreaked havoc with everyone’s confidence in the polls.

“The people who don’t like me,” she said, “really don’t like me now.”

“Maggie,” he sighed. “I’m so sorry. I am—”

“The people who like me, they like me a lot more. And the undecideds…they’re leaning my way.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not kidding.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Their eyes caught and he couldn’t look away. Her mascara still clung to the tips of her eyelashes, making her blue eyes bluer.

“Ben would have loved that,” she whispered.

A complicated sorrow lanced him, tore right through him. Sorrow because he missed Ben. And because she missed Ben, and any pain of hers was a pain of his.

But the fact that she missed Ben hurt him as a man, too.

Not that there was any competition. He couldn’t win against Ben when the man was alive. But dead? Forget it.

Maybe, he thought, this would be for the best. Maybe he could finally move on.

He wasn’t a man who went looking for a bright side, but this seemed true.

He’d dated over the years. He’d even been engaged. But Sophie had eventually caught on to the fact that, even though he tried, he could never love her like she deserved, and she’d broken everything off.

“Yeah,” Jay said. “He would have.”

But that was also complicated—if Ben were still alive, Maggie wouldn’t be running. Ben would be running, he’d probably already have been governor and would be looking toward the White House.

If Ben were alive, none of this…none of this would be happening.

Fuck cancer.

“Bishop is going to come at you with a lawsuit.”

“Too bad every person I know is a lawyer.”

Maggie smiled. “Yes. Too bad.”

“You can have Toby replace me. He’s ready—”

“There’s no replacing you.”

“Of course there is. And Toby—”

“We’ll hire you as a consultant, and you can go on vacation for a week, and when you come back—”

“No.”

“What?”

He shook his head, because he wasn’t sure if he had the strength to say it again. He’d never said no to Maggie. Not once. Well, as her campaign manager, he said no plenty. But as a friend, a man…never.

“Jay,” she said. “Look at me.”

And because he didn’t say no to her, ever, he couldn’t do this and look at her at the same time. “I think…I think it’s time I left. This is a good out.”

“A good out?”

“An excellent exit.”

“This isn’t funny. I don’t know why you insist on making jokes when things aren’t funny.”

“I don’t know why you insist on not laughing at them.”

“Jay, why do you want to leave?” she asked, and he could hear the rising tide of fear in her voice. Of worry. He was silent because he didn’t know what to say. Because the truth was unspeakable. And he didn’t want to lie to her. He lived a lie as her friend. He couldn’t tell her lies, too.

“Is it something I’ve done?” she asked in a careful, quiet voice.

He laughed, though nothing was funny.

“Then what?” she demanded, and he sipped his beer. “You know I hate it when you’re like this, Jay. When you go all silent and still. I know you better than I know anyone on this planet, but when you do this, when you lock yourself away like this, I don’t know what you’re thinking. I don’t know who you are!”

I’m Jay Schulman, the man who has loved you his whole life. And I am silent because what I want to say will ruin everything.

He tried to think of some lie. Something that wouldn’t hurt and at the same time wouldn’t make her ask any more questions. Though…that was next to impossible.

Maggie always had questions.

“I just can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what? Politics? The campaign? You need a break?”

“You,” he whispered, the word leaving his body like a gasp. “I can’t be around you anymore.”

He felt her sit back. He felt the pull of air she dragged in, taking all the oxygen in the room with her.

There, he thought, for better or worse, it was out there. He’d said it.

“Lloyd,” he yelled. “We need another round.”