Hendrix
“You brought a dog into a historic hotel? Are you insane?”
As it turns out, Cynthia is part demon. Red-faced, spit flying out of her mouth, and I’m half expecting a few new limbs to pop out of her body.
“The hotel manager has contacted the campaign, and they are livid.”
The entire conference room full of people stop talking and turn their heads to look at me. I’m leaned up against the wall, my white dress shirt untucked and my tie loosened. Because Cynthia told me that the media has been preferring my “street style,” I’m in my own pair of jeans sans my wallet chain. This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been busted, and Cynthia has to be aware being caught with a puppy isn’t my worst offense.
In a half hour, we’re all attending some summer festival in some town in Kentucky I didn’t know existed until four hours ago. This is what my life has become: go to where I’ve been instructed, read from a script, be a robot, but then at night, I spend time with Elle.
Cynthia stares me down as if she’s scary enough for me to offer an explanation. I cross my arms over my chest. I went to juvenile detention for Dominic. I can take on a pissed-off, pampered, fresh out of college, twentysomething wannabe politician with too much eye makeup.
“That’s it?” she yells. “You say nothing? There are pictures online with you taking a puppy out of the hotel and getting into your brother’s car. You are representing the governor. You are supposed to be a model of...”
She open and closes her mouth as she searches for the right words. “You are not supposed to be smuggling puppies in and out of historic hotels where dogs are not allowed and where the damage that mutt could have done could have been close to criminal. That hotel is on the list of historic registries.”
Thor’s lived with me for two weeks, and besides taking a piss once in Holiday’s room, a dump in the kitchen and eating my pair of combat boots, he’s been good. In the hotel, Thor only messed in the bathroom, and I cleaned, literally, that crap up.
“Where the hell did you get a puppy from, and why on earth did you think it was okay to bring it into a historic hotel? Is this a joke to you? Is this entire deal you’ve made with us a joke? This picture of you and the puppy is starting to make national headlines, and I have to answer to the governor as to why you had a puppy at a historic hotel on my watch!”
I can count in single digits my number of cares over someone taking a picture of me carrying a puppy out of the hotel. I had the bugger wrapped in one of my shirts, but he popped his head out right as I made it through the front doors and into Axle’s car. It wasn’t the media who took the picture. It was just a person who saw me, saw the puppy, clicked a button, pushed Tweet, and two weeks later the media found it online.
The media and the world have wrong priorities if this is news.
“Say something!” Cynthia demands. “Say something, or so help me, I’ll tell the governor that this entire deal was a mistake.”
The chain around my neck tightens. “I found a puppy. I took it in. What’s the big deal?”
Cynthia spins on her feet so quickly her hair catches on her thick coat of lipstick. “Big deal? I have no idea if that thing did damage to the hotel! You should have told me. Even better, you should have never brought a puppy into a historic hotel, and you should never break any rule! You are on probation!”
The door opens, Elle’s dad enters the room, and my gut twists. It’s not just me who’s uncomfortable. Everyone else in the room looks down and fidgets in a wave as he walks toward a table that has his computer. Cynthia, I can handle. The governor’s disapproval, I’m not excited about, but once again...a puppy isn’t the worst thing I’ve done, and I’m banking on him seeing it that way. Historic hotel or not.
Elle’s dad gives me an analyzing glance then talks to Cynthia. “I saw the picture. Was there damage to the room?”
Cynthia sighs and places her hands on her hips. “The hotel says the towels were dirty from Hendrix obviously cleaning up after it. Other than that, no, but they are reinspecting the room, and they’ll blame any damage in that room on us. The hotel is mad. They released a Tweet expressing how Hendrix bringing a dog was disrespectful, and that they are demanding a public apology.”
The governor is a bear of a man—tall, the physique of someone who has worked out their entire life, someone who demands respect because he enters a room. The way he watches me makes me feel like he can read my mind, and that’s scary for both of us. But I’m not going to bend, not even for him.
“I found a puppy,” I repeat. “I took him in. That’s it.”
“It’s a big deal!” Cynthia yells at me.
The governor pulls out his cell and texts. How damn silent can a room full of people be, and why the hell is a puppy a federal offense?
“You’re right, Cynthia, it is a big deal, but it’s not a big deal for Hendrix. Bringing in stray dogs is someone else’s style which means this is someone else’s fault.”
Cynthia’s entire body flinches with his words, and I’ll admit to letting out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. I didn’t think I’d go to jail over a puppy, but I had been imagining a warning that would put me on edge. Like do it again and we’ll throw your ass out of the campaign, and you can finish out an additional year behind bars.
A knock on the door of the conference room and when the door opens, I briefly close my eyes. Just damn. I shoot a glare straight at Elle who is walking in. She’s no longer in the glasses, blue jeans, and the white lace tank from last night, but in a blue dress that looks like it was made perfectly for her every curve. It flows with her, and makes her look like she’s walking on a breeze.
Yeah, she’s gorgeous, but I prefer the real Elle and not as she is right now: makeup, hair, clothes, perfection. A walking, talking magazine cover.
While she’s currently most men’s fantasy of a breath of fresh air, she’s about to give me heartburn. The girl isn’t afraid of a thing as she glares straight back at me.
For the past two weeks, we’ve talked on the phone, via video chat, and have hung in person late at night in hotel rooms as we ate room service and watched movies until we could hardly stay awake. Friends. Just friends. Each and every time I talk to her, I want to talk to her more. I want to sit with her more. I just want to be with her more, and she needs to let me take the fall.
“You wanted to see me?” Elle says to her father.
“Yes.” His words the equivalent to a slice of a razor. “Everyone needs to leave.”
People file out, and Elle stands near the wall next to the door, staring at the floor with that same pissed-off expression I’ve seen a few times. She knows what’s about to happen as well as I do. Elle told me she would be blamed, and I can’t let it happen. I’m the delinquent. I’m the person who makes mistakes. Elle is the girl with a big heart.
“I did it,” I say. “I was outside walking around, I saw a guy dump a box and I was curious. The puppy was in there, and I brought it in. I didn’t know it was going to be a big deal.” And I say the words I hardly ever utter. “I’m sorry.”
“Drix didn’t do it.” Elle lifts her head, and it’s like watching a ram kick its front legs as she glances over at her father. “I’m the one who found the puppy, and I knew you’d be mad if I picked up another stray. When I saw Drix in the hallway, I asked if he would watch him.”
“And then take it home?” her father pushes, and I wince internally at the anger simmering underneath his suit and tie.
“Yes,” she says. “I made phone calls, and I got the dog into a no-kill shelter, so I asked Drix to take him there and he agreed.”
“Because how can he say no to the governor’s daughter,” her father says, and I’m shaking my head. I saved that puppy, and if Elle wasn’t there, I would have given him shelter.
“Sir, with all due respect—”
“It’s okay, Drix,” Elle says. “I’m the one who’s wrong in this scenario.”
“Yes, you are.” Her father raises his voice. Not a lot, just enough, and that angry darkness from before the arrest raises its groggy head. No one should be yelling at her. “Do you have any idea what Hendrix has gone through in his life? Do you have any idea how thoughtless your actions are?”
Elle only tucks her hair behind her ear, meets my gaze and says, “Do you mind giving me and my father a few minutes alone?” Her steady voice is perfection, as if she’s reading a speech.
I tilt my head. You’re interrupting me taking the fall. Step back. Let me handle this.
Elle arches an eyebrow that’s a darker shade of blond than the last time I saw her. It’s not a big difference, but I notice. I also notice her new contacts. Still blue, but that blue is brighter and not the deep blue I dream about at night.
I prefer her lighter blond, deep blue eyes and glasses. I prefer hair in a messy bun and those wisps of strands curving around her beautiful face. I prefer her real smile when she laughs at a movie over the fake one she puts on for everyone else. I prefer the faint scar over her right eyebrow she got while climbing rocks with Henry when she was eleven more than the makeup that currently covers and conceals. I prefer her as she is, and I prefer for her to let me to continue to keep her out of trouble.
“Please leave, Hendrix,” the governor says, “and please accept my apology. My daughter has a habit of not thinking her actions through. I understand that my campaign staff and I ask a lot of you, and you have done an amazing job, but please know that Elle is not an extension of me or my staff. You are under no obligation to her whatsoever.”
No obligation. Elle opens the door, and those fake, bright blue eyes beg me to leave. I go through a million scenarios in my mind, try to figure out what words I can say to convince her father that the puppy is on me, but even with a photo, he’s made his decision.
Judge, jury and executioner and I get it. It’s what happened to me the moment I was arrested, and like me, she’s willing to take the fall. Hating myself, respecting her, I leave, and the door doesn’t even close all the way before he begins to yell.