“Fucking finally!” Austin laughs as he pushes the cork out of the champagne bottle. It flies up in the air and crashes on the floor after bouncing off the ceiling; a torrent of bubbly champagne starts gushing out of the bottle and Tracy and I rush to place our glasses under the stream of alcohol.
“Alright, one more!” Austin continues in a gleeful tone, handing Tracy the open bottle of champagne and opening another. We’re inside Tracy’s office, and the room is completely packed with staff members, all of them in a celebratory mood. Why? Easy enough: Austin’s jobs bill has just passed.
Despite Walker’s best efforts, Austin’s showmanship was just too much for the disgruntled Speaker of the House. And, after so many months of pushing his bill and fighting the Senate, Austin has finally done it.
“Come here,” he tells me, resting the second bottle of champagne on Tracy’s desk and coming up to me. He takes one hand to my waist and pulls me into him, his lips looking for mine. “This victory … you’re part of it, you know?” he tells me, looking into my eyes with a soft smile.
Smiling back at him, I tuck one lock of hair over my hair. “No, this is all you,” I tell him, going on tiptoes and brushing my lips against his again. “All you,” I repeat, pushing one glass of champagne into his hands while I take a sip from mine.
“We deserve this break. I think I’m finally putting all the scandals and bullshit behind my back, and that’s --” He trails off as the door to Tracy’s office swings open, and an intern with disheveled hair steps inside.
“I… I…” the young intern starts, bending down and placing both hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. “Walker… Walker just held a… a press conference.” The intern finally manages to say and, judging by the tone of his voice, whatever Walker said at the press conference wasn’t good.
Wasting no time, Tracy pulls her phone from her purse and boots it up. A few seconds later and she’s holding her breath. “Fuck,” she hisses, and that’s all I need to know that whatever happened, must be really bad; Tracy never curses.
“What’s going on?” Austin asks her, and her eyes jump from him to me.
“Walker, he… he wants to impeach you.”
“Impeach me? That’s absurd! How the hell does he --”
“Austin,” Tracy whispers, lowering her voice and wetting her lips with her tongue. “He said that your relationship is a fake one… He’s saying that you made a fool out of the country and out of your voters. He’s saying all sorts of things about your integrity, and he’s calling for a special investigation.”
Austin doesn’t say anything and Tracy goes to the television and turns it on.
It’s the news. The TV screens are usually on in here, but the one day they were off is the day that Speaker Walker has to try and impeach the President.
You know? It’s like, can the universe give us a break?
Tracy turns up the volume.
“And I have it on good authority, that the President of the United States, acting in collusion with his Chief of Staff, Tracy Comerford, have engineered a situation to fool the American people into believing for whatever reason that he’s going to get married,” Walker says on television.
The room is silent. I can hear my own heart beating so loudly though.
“Why, I don’t know, the President would want to do this, but this woman we have no idea over. We need to investigate her and we need to remove a President with such bad judgment,” he says.
Tracy turns off the television. The sounds of laughter and cheer, just a few moments ago, have vanished.
“Fuck,” Austin mutters, his face suddenly growing pale. Walking around Tracy’s desk, he sinks down onto her chair, staring at the glass of champagne in his hand, almost as if it held the answers he needs. “Ashley, Tracy… The two of you, stay. Everyone else, leave the room. Please.”
Nobody dares to question him; I hear the shuffling of feet as everyone rushes out of the office, and then someone closes the door. The mood inside the office was a celebratory one, but now that mood has soured like a bad wine.
“We’re fucked,” Austin growls, looking up to meet Tracy’s gaze. He’s gripping the glass in his hand so tightly that I expect the glass to shatter sometime soon. He’s angry, I can tell, and that makes my heart tighten up inside my chest; after how hard he's worked, everything could go up in smoke.
“How the hell did he find out?” Tracy says as she sits on one of the chairs lined against the wall of her office. She’s pinching the bridge of her nose, a nervous tick that surfaces whenever she’s at a loss on what to do.
“This plan was too risky… we shouldn’t have done this,” Austin whispers, still looking down at his glass. Maybe he’s right but, still, his words make my heart ache; if it weren’t for this plan, Austin and I would have never crossed paths. But I can’t think of that now. No, I came to the White House to do a job, not to fall in love.
“Fuck,” Austin continues, finally letting go of his glass and slamming his fist down on the desk. The glass wobbles from side to side and tumbles forward, champagne spreading over the surface of Tracy’s desk. “This is fucking serious.”
“Calm down,” Tracy says, jumping up to her feet. “We can… we can hold a press conference and deny all this. He doesn’t have any proof, and we made sure nothing exists in writing. Even if he manages to provoke a special investigation, no one will be able to figure out we hired Ashley. He can’t prove a thing, and I think that we --”
“You’re forgetting something, Tracy,” Austin cuts her short. “If we go down that route, I’d have to really marry Ashley,” he says, pursing his lips and giving Tracy a cold stare.
Without saying a word, I sit down on the chair facing Tracy’s desk and look down at my lap, Austin’s words echoing inside my head. The way he said it, it’s almost like the last thing he wants in the world is to marry me. Somewhere along the way, I guess I started believing that our fake relationship was becoming something else … but I guess I was wrong.
“No one will have the guts to impeach you,” I finally manage to say, looking from Tracy to Austin and putting my game face on. “I have enough dirt to bury at least half the senate. They won’t lift a finger against you.”
“No,” Austin dismisses me with a wave of his hand. “I’m not sinking down to that level. I thought you knew me better, Ashley. I’m better than that” Then, changing gears fast, he narrows his eyes into slits and locks them on mine. “Who in your office knew about the deal?”
“What are you trying to say? Only one other person knows of our deal, and I trust her with my life, Austin. Don’t try and accuse me or my people, when you’re the one surrounded by people who make their living by lying!”
“Don’t act so mighty now. That’s exactly what you do for a living,” he says flatly, his cold stare making me feel as if someone stabbed me through the heart.
I hold my breath for a few seconds, and then I let the air out of my lungs fast, exhaling sharply. Screw this; I don’t have to put up with this bullshit.
God, I was doing fine before they came up to me and dragged me into this mess. Here I am, trying to help him and he’s treating me as if I’m some stupid intern whose mistake caused all this. No, I’m not going to allow him to treat me like this.
Standing up fast, I take the ring off of my finger and throw it against him. Austin doesn’t move as the ring bounces from his chest and falls on the floor at his feet.
“It was your stupid dick that put you in this mess,” I hiss, offering him a cold stare of my own. “Maybe your dick can think of a way out.” Snapping my heels together, I turn around to leave.
Grabbing at the handle, I open the door and, before leaving, I look at Austin over my shoulder.
“Check the Oval Office for bugs. My office is as clean as a whistle; I made sure of it. If I were Walker, that’s how I would've done it.”
Without giving him enough time to think of a reply, I slam the door behind me.
I should've never gotten involved in this whole charade.
Austin