A month and a half after I almost asked Jaimie to invite me up to her room during that crazy storm, I’m enjoying a drink with two of my four cousins who live here in Savannah — Jordan and Jocelyn. I hardly get to see them now that we’re all grown up and have busy lives, and I’m thoroughly enjoying their company.

We’re sitting on the bar patio of The Bohemian Hotel where I’m staying. An unexpectedly warm breeze wraps around us as we talk and we’ve all expressed gratitude for the weather’s change of heart. In Georgia you just never know how it’s going to be. Add the river lapping away to our right, and it could have been very cold indeed.

Dressed in a navy blue dress and looking beautiful, my only female cousin asks me, “How are you feeling now that you’ve been on the campaign trail for so long?”

“I should be tired. The short spurts of time spent home between speeches have been filled with long hours at the office and little sleep. I still feel energized though. I guess the old saying is true: when you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life.”

“You ready for tomorrow?” Jocelyn asks, leaning forward.

Jordan’s smirk contorts into a sneer, “He’s had enough reporters hounding him without you treating him like a subject and not our cousin.”

She smacks her brother’s shoulder. “Leave me alone, jerk. It’s what I do for a living! You think I can just turn it off when I have as interesting a subject as Justin’s inevitable rise to The White House sitting right in front of me?”

On a chuckle, I assure her, “I will never run for President.”

“No?” she asks, pretty brown eyebrows raised. She is exactly what you’d imagine when thinking of a T.V. host at your local news channel, though her specialty is entertainment.

Aunt Anna is my mother’s sister and all four of my cousins have inherited the brown hair and warm brown eyes of that bloodline.

Only our youngest brothers, Jake and Jeremy, inherited it in our family. Jaxson’s sandy-brown hair and dark green eyes are inarguably a blend of Mom and Dad. Only Jett and us twins have just his blonde coloring – no sign of Mom.

“I’d rather just work for Georgia.”

With a knowing smirk, Jocelyn offers, “You might find that people will want you higher up as time goes on.”

Jordan asks with complete seriousness, “Higher as in stoned?”

Jocelyn cuts an incredulous look to him. “No! Justin doesn’t smoke pot! That’s not what I meant.”

“Joss, you’re so easy to fuck with.”

She stares at him, realizing he’s just being a brother. “When are you going to grow up?”

“Never,” he smiles, white teeth blazing. Raking his fingers through thick, wavy dark hair he says, “I strongly advise against it. Justin, you can put that in your speech. I won’t demand credit.”

“Who says I don’t get high?”

They both go blank. “Do you?”

“No,” I smirk.

“God, when can we order? This is stupid.” Jocelyn waves a girl to us. “We need to order please! What do you jerks feel like drinking tonight?”

I lean back in my chair. “Why don’t you just tell us what we’re drinking?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Okay.” Turning to the sweet-looking waitress, she announces, “We’ll have three Chopin vodka martinis, very dirty and very chilled. We want them shaken until the vodka crystalizes on top of the glass. I’ll return it if I don’t see crystals. Got it?”

“Uh huh,” the girl nods.

“And tell them not to add the olive juice afterward. I want it shaken with the vodka from the start.” The girl nods again. Jocelyn waves her off, “Great. Now go,” and turns to us without awareness that she’s kind of a bitch. It always makes me laugh.

I can still picture her when we were kids. “You’re the pirate, Justin. And you’re going to run to the fountain where I’ll be hiding the treasure with Jake. Then Jason – you’re going to be a whale who jumps out of the ocean and saves us just in time. Got it?”

Jordan’s eyes lock onto someone behind me who, from the look on his face, is a woman he finds very attractive. “Uh…wow. Guys, I might have to say goodbye sooner than I thought.”

Jocelyn sees what he’s looking at and hits him again. “You just got here. This isn’t about you. It’s about Justin and his accomplishment.”

“I’ll be there when he gives his speech tomorrow.” Glancing to me, Jordan bucks his chin. “Hey, you won’t fault me if I get a little distracted, will ya? Take a look at her! I think you’ll give me a pass this time.”

“Jordan you have my full permission to tap whatever ass you find worthy,” I smirk, turning in my chair to see who’s got him hot. My amused gaze locks with Jaimie Rothdale’s smoky-eyes.

I almost crack the arm of my chair I squeeze it so hard.

She stiffens with the same question I’m asking myself, in her eyes: Are you staying in this hotel? After a crackling beat, her eyelashes flutter away from me. She turns and gracefully slides onto a seat at the bar, in a dress meant for cocktails. As in cock and tail.

My jaw won’t stop twitching as my teeth grind together. Growling like some kind of animal I turn around in my chair.

Jordan smirks, “Friend of yours?”

“She’s the Senator’s daughter.”

What the fuck is she wearing that for?

Is she trying to get laid?

Jordan glances over to Jaimie and says, “You’re shitting me. Well, I can’t exactly nail the daughter of your competition.” He relaxes into his chair. “Unless you want me to gather Intel for you.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Jocelyn’s brown eyes are still narrowed on Jaimie. “If anyone should get Intel, Justin, it’s you. She’s gorgeous.”

I’m sneering as I chuckle. “She is that. And smart. And funny. And in my way. But why don’t you give it a try? You’re into women, aren’t you?”

Rolling her eyes Jocelyn sighs, “I wish. It would make my life so much easier.”

My head is somewhere else as I stare at the river. “I don’t think being gay is easy. Even in this day and age they’re too often treated like—”

“—I was kidding!”

Jordan laughs, “Look at you! I thought you were a Republican.”

Coming back to the present moment, I correct him. “I’m a Liberal Republican, part of the new world where I want to defend our country and help the people in it.”

The cocktail waitress suspends our conversation by arriving with carefully balanced martinis on a small tray. Pointing behind his sister’s back as she eyes the girl, Jordan mouths to me, Watch this.

Standing up and towering over her, Jocelyn checks out the tray. She cocks an eyebrow with appreciation. “They’re crystallized! And you didn’t spill a drop. Well done.”

It’s like the girl has received an award. “Thank you!” Beaming she hands my female cousin the first of three dirty martinis.

I’m sitting here pretending Ms. Rothdale isn’t behind me, available for any man to hit on. With how stunning she looks tonight there’s already some fuckhead breathing on her. I know it. It’s driving me out of my fucking mind.

We receive ours next, slowly and one at a time.

I want her to hurry the fuck up.

Can I turn around without looking obvious? Or like I care? Because I don’t.

After the girl walks away and Jocelyn has taken her seat, Jordan asks, “Why didn’t you just take them off the tray for her, too, while you were up there, Joss?”

She takes this very seriously, so she can’t see he’s kidding. As if she were a professor of physics she explains, “Because when you’re balancing a tray, you have to be the one to shift the balance of it. If I picked one glass up, she would have spilled the other two. To Justin rising to Senate and representing our beautiful Georgia!”

Jordan lifts his glass as if to say, do you see what I have to deal with? “To Justin becoming a senator,” he smirks.

We all bring our glasses together and because I’m a dick, I hit mine a little harder than I need to, spilling into their glasses and some onto the table below our hands. Jocelyn jumps in her chair and spills some of hers, too. Jordan cracks up. She isn’t amused.

“Fuck you both. Why wasn’t I given a sister?”

Jordan’s eyes light up. “Uh oh, lookie what we have here. Someone’s not going to her room alone tonight.”

Ice pours down my spine as my imagination kicks into high gear. I whip around in my chair and glare at Jaimie’s new friend, a strong-jawed man who isn’t hurting for cash. Some people you can just tell are rich as fuck. He’s leaning in way too close, and she’s acting demure. Yeah, right. Like she’s shy.

Fuck. This. Shit.

Setting down my martini I stand up. “Excuse me.”