CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Brooke
Our drinking game started the same way it had dozens of times before, with a shot to get things started. Kiera had always been able to drink me under the table, but this time, I had good reason to get shit-faced.
A very good reason. I needed to forget, to do whatever I could to erase him from my mind.
We’d made a rule that if either of the candidates had a red tie, we’d do a shot. But when the candidates strolled out, and each was wearing a red tie, I did two shots.
Kiera lay on the couch, wearing the wifebeater and boxers I’d loaned her that matched my own. She looked at me. I had my massive unicorn slippers propped up on the coffee table and was holding the bottle of Tito’s at the ready. “Chill. You’re going to be under the table before they finish their opening statements.”
I wasn’t paying attention because my eyes were fastened on the screen. If I could’ve been licking the television set without Kiera noticing, I would’ve been. Cameron strode out there, looking confident and more delicious than I’d ever seen him. Never before had the incongruity between us been more obvious, with him there in that expensive tailored dark suit, and me at home on my ratty couch, in a ponytail, boxers, and unicorn slippers. The camera was supposed to make people look different, to add pounds, but it only made him look hotter, more presidential. I could sense Kiera watching me for my reaction, so I tore my eyes away from the screen to inspect my exciting fingernails.
But the second she looked away, I was right back on him.
“Your father looks good,” I said to her, even though truthfully, he’d been completely overshadowed by Cameron’s presence. Anyone would say the same. Owen Blakely was short, round, and gray-haired, where Cameron was tall, broad-shouldered, well-dressed, and shone like a model on the cover of a glossy magazine.
“He does,” she said, crossing her fingers as the camera switched to a close-up of Cameron. He was so calm and collected, not a bead of sweat or out of place hair visible anywhere. His easy, toothpaste-commercial smile lit up the screen, making him seem not just at ease, but like he truly enjoyed being there. Looking at him now, it was easy to believe he’d gotten completely over me, that I was just a blip, a fling. “Cameron is… wow. He’s very good-looking up close, isn’t he?”
I swallowed. She had no idea, but as good as he looked now, it was nothing compared to Cameron in jeans. Cameron shirtless. Cameron wearing nothing at all. I forced out memories of his naked body flush against mine. “I suppose,” I said noncommitally, sitting up and searching the list for another reason to do a shot.
I desperately needed another shot.
After introductions, the moderator moved on to opening statements, and Owen started to prattle on, saying the same boring campaign promises that could lure the average person into a coma. I straightened when I heard a catchphrase on our list. “He said fiscal responsibility. I heard it.”
We poured shots, toasted, and downed them. It was my fourth of the night, the fourth in less than twenty minutes, and it went down like water. The debate had barely started, and already the room was swimming. Kiera was right. I needed to relax, or I’d end up in a hospital, getting my stomach pumped.
“Is this live?” I asked, watching as the camera panned to Bernadette.
“It’s supposed to be, but my dad said there’s like a fifteen-minute delay or something like that,” she said, clutching a pillow to her chest.
I stared at Cameron’s fiancée. She was wearing a red suit and looked so superior, it made my stomach roil. And she was superior to me, in every way, but the most important way was that she had Cameron. Despite her rigid posture, the woman was clearly comfortable, sitting at the front of the auditorium among the other suits. She had a little smile on her face, rimmed in bright red matching lipstick. At that moment, I thought of him kissing her. Fucking her. Spending his entire life with her. It didn’t matter that the last time we spoke, he’d given me a little hint that had I not been a traitor, things might have turned out differently between us. This was what he wanted, what he’d chosen.
And then, when the camera panned back, I saw the giant ring. It was huge, unavoidable. A symbol of their love and everlasting bond.
Right then, I knew I was going to be sick.
I threw a hand over my mouth and jumped to my feet. “Be right back.”
“But you’re going to miss his opening statement!” she called as I rushed to the bathroom.
I hung over the toilet, vomiting all the contents of my stomach into the bowl. It had been a mistake drinking that much, that fast, but I’d also done it on an empty stomach. Kiera and I had ordered in pizza, but it hadn’t come yet, and I’d been too nervous to eat much, anyway. And now, I was paying the price. My vision blurred. My face felt hot but my limbs cold. My heartbeat thrummed in my ears, so loudly that I couldn’t make out what Kiera was saying from the other room.
I figured she was yelling at the television set what a douche he was, so I took my time.
I cupped water into my mouth, and brushed my teeth, then turned off the faucet to hear Kiera shouting, “Brooke. You gotta get your ass out here! Hurry!”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as she appeared at the door. She grabbed me by the hand, looking utterly shocked, and tripped over herself trying to pull me back to the television. “What?”
“He’s having a total breakdown, I think,” she said, pointing at the screen.
“Who? Your father?” I studied the screen, but it was Cameron speaking. He was striding away from the podium, looking totally in control.
“No! Cameron.”
“Wait, what?”
“He just told the audience that he likes sex. Loves sex. I think some old lady in the front row passed out.”
“What?” If the couch had not been there to break my fall when I collapsed down, I wouldn’t have noticed. I sat there, on the edge of the sofa, trying to listen. The bell signaling the end of opening statements had rung, but Owen was arguing to let Cameron have more time. More time? To discuss his love of sex? “What the hell is he doing?”
“He said that there might be pictures circulating around,” Kiera said, her face white. “He said that he really didn’t feel he could be the honesty candidate unless he got this off his chest. Oh, my god, Brooke, do you think he just snapped?”
I shook my head. One thing I knew about Cameron was that this didn’t “just” happen. It had been brewing all along. With him visiting sex clubs, being with me. He loved things loose because he never had the chance to be. He’d been holding the real “him” inside to please everyone else. He’d been the machine, when all along, I knew it would serve him better if he’d just be human.
Like this.
I could tell at once, as I studied him, that something was different. His posture had changed. It wasn’t so rigid, and his smile was more relaxed.
Now, he didn’t just look hot. He looked human.
The camera panned to his father, who shuffled in his seat, looking absolutely disgusted. “His father looks like he’s going to kill someone!” Kiera shrieked.
But as Cameron started to speak again, his face was completely serene.
He’d done it. He’d finally gone beyond caring what his father wanted for him.
He was doing this for himself.
“The pictures you may see of me, I apologize for. Some of them were taken at a sex club,” he said.
I felt my face drain of all blood. Kiera looked at me. “Did he say, ‘sex club?’”
“And yes, while I know that many of you may not approve of that lifestyle, I have never in my life thought what happens between consenting adults should be prohibited or frowned upon, as long as no one is hurt in the process.” He cleared his throat. “And I apologize deeply to the young lady in them. I hope that the media will be responsible with them, and leave her alone, and if they are to subject anyone to scrutiny over these photos, please let it be me and leave her out of it.”
Kiera was staring at me. “Is he talking about you?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Pictures? I’d destroyed all the pictures I’d taken of him. Had someone else been digging around, finding dirt on him? Had those pictures included me?
The camera panned to the audience again, all of which seemed rapt. Except now, there was an open chair in the front. It was where Bernadette had been sitting. The camera panned back, just in time to see her striding briskly up the auditorium steps and disappearing through the back door.
“I want to thank you for the good wishes on my engagement,” he continued. “But as you might guess, that’s not going to happen now. Like I said, in order to be the honesty candidate, I have to be honest with myself first. And I can’t marry someone I don’t love and who is willing to blackmail me in order to become First Lady.”
Bernadette. Oh, my god, he just dumped Bernadette. On live television. When he said this, his father jumped up, threw something down on his seat, and strode out too. When he pushed through the auditorium door, it banged so loudly it echoed through the hall.
I felt myself tearing up. Finally. “Good for you, Cameron,” I whispered at the television, wanting to reach out and touch his face on the set.
The bell rang again, signaling the end of his two minutes, but he spoke over it, raising his hand and looking back apologetically at his opponent. “This brings me to my point, and if you’ll forgive me, Owen, I’m almost done here.” He turned to the audience and smiled. “I know this is a lot to digest, but it’s something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a long time. I don’t think I can adequately be your candidate right now. I’m getting there, but I’m not ready. I love this state, love this country, but I know all of you do, too, and you deserve a Pennsylvania that you can be proud of. You deserve a senator that you can be proud of. Which is why I’m bowing out of this race. Thank you.”
Then he ripped the microphone off his lapel and strode down into the audience. Looking neither left nor right, he walked straight up the auditorium stairs. The camera followed him the whole way, but he stared straight ahead, and there was a spring in his step. He pushed open the doors and escaped into the lobby, and the camera stayed there for a moment afterwards, as if expecting him to return.
Of course, he didn’t. The crowd began to murmur and the moderator, obviously at a loss for words, started to babble about how this was an unexpected turn of events for the young political golden boy. I looked down at my thighs, at the thousands of goose bumps sprouting there.
Kiera gaped at me. “You met him at a sex club? Really? So what else aren’t you telling me?”
I shrugged, putting my unicorn-slippered feet up on the coffee table again, my eyes still trained on the television. They’d now cut to the studio and were showing pictures of him with Bernadette. The bottom of the screen flashed, Republican Frontrunner Brice Bows Out of Race, Citing Potential Scandal.
Scandal. And not one to do with political contributions. A scandal involving me. One I hadn’t been responsible for breaking. But, who?
“So does he like really kinky shit?” Kiera asked, reaching over and shaking me. “Is he a freak? Speak!”
I couldn’t. All I could think was that he and Bernadette were over. Obviously, once she caught sight of the pictures of us together, Bernadette wouldn’t want him. Is that what happened? Did he think I was responsible for the photos? No, he couldn’t. If he had, he wouldn’t have said what he’d said to keep the scrutiny off of me. When he said that, I knew, without a doubt, that he didn’t still hate me.
Maybe he even could…
No. That was impossible.
The doorbell rang. Kiera threw a pillow at me, then stood and grabbed the twenty off the coffee table. “That’s the pizza. You need to tell me the dirt, girl, or I’ll never forgive you. What’s a sex club like? Do you like… fuck people in the open? Did Cameron?”
She rushed over to the door and pulled it open as I watched the general chaos in the auditorium. “Oh,” she said, her voice stiff. “Hello.”
I turned around to see who she was talking to.
Cameron was standing there.
I threw my unicorn-slippered feet off the coffee table and jumped up to standing, suddenly hyperaware of the incongruity between us — he was still in his suit, albeit the tie was loosened, but it didn’t make him look like anything less than a million dollars. And here I was, in my crappy apartment, wearing a thin tank top and ponytail. And unicorn slippers. Ridiculous unicorn slippers. I was lucky I’d showered and brushed my teeth.
Kiera said, as if he needed any introduction, “It’s the douche.”
He could have looked at her, but it was like she was invisible. His eyes were trained on me, unwavering. His gaze told me everything. It was so deep, it took my breath away. It didn’t matter what I was wearing, or who I was with, or that I was surrounded by the crappiest four walls he’d ever seen. All that mattered was that I was here, in front of him.
I pointed at the television. “But you were just…”
“There’s a time delay,” he said dismissively. But only fifteen minutes. Considering traffic, I was pretty sure it meant that he had walked out those doors and come straight here. He strode into the room and stopped in front of me. “Did you watch the debate?”
I nodded.
“I know that you said it didn’t matter,” he said, his eyes roving over my body. “But could it have mattered? If things were different? If we were being completely honest with one another?”
I stared at him, not comprehending. And then it poured out automatically, though I’d said it before. I felt it bore repeating, “I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry about what I did.”
He waved his hand, dismissing it. “Forget it, Cassandra. I know why you did it, and I forgive you for that. That doesn’t matter. What I meant is, you told me you loved me.” He swallowed, his eyes intent. “That wasn’t an act, was it?”
Tears burned, searing the backs of my eyeballs. “No. Of course not. I told you. I couldn’t lie about something like that.”
He nodded slowly in affirmation. “Good. Because I’m in love with you too.”
Without warning, he bridged the distance between us, took my face in his hands, and kissed me as if he’d been just as starved of me this past week as I had been of him. I kissed back, hardly able to believe that he was here. That this was happening. That he and I were in love. But god, it felt so right, now that we’d arrived at this moment. Nothing else mattered. Everything around us fell away as I wrapped my arms around him, feeling his strong body against mine. It was something I thought I’d never feel again, and I savored it, not wanting to let go.
“God, get a room, you two,” a voice muttered.
When I broke the kiss, breathless, I realized Kiera was still there, sitting on the couch, but she was smiling. Despite the smile, it brought reality crashing in. My parents. His parents. The media. Some mysterious sex pictures that were floating around. I had no doubt Cameron accepted who I was, and I accepted him, but the outside world would prove more difficult. I clung harder to him, and kissed him again, wanting to believe that him and me, us, was all we needed.
“Are you all right?” he asked, placing a finger under my chin and lifting my face to his.
“Perfect,” I told him, tears in my eyes. “I don’t think I have ever been happier. But…”
He smiled. “I get it.” He put out his hand, and I laid mine against it, and we entwined our fingers together. I knew that he understood my thoughts exactly. “We’ll work it out, all right? Whatever it is, you and I can work it out together. Common ground, okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Common ground.”
“Except,” he said, looking down past my face toward my feet. “I draw the line at those slippers. I think those are the ugliest ones I’ve ever seen.”
I grinned up at him and said, “Now I know what to get you for Christmas.”