“All hail Justice Roberts!” Derek called out as Teague walked into the condo that belonged to the members of the Powerplay club.

“Not yet,” he said, grinning at Derek, Kamal, and Colonel Jefferson Thibadeux, the commander of domestic operations for the Pentagon.

The other men congratulated him and handed him a bottle of Patrón Lalique tequila.

“That’s to be saved for after your confirmation, though,” Kamal warned. “Use it as inspiration when things get tough…and they will get tough.”

“Let the man enjoy himself for a few minutes before you start the doom and gloom,” Jeff said, pouring a finger of scotch and handing it to Teague.

“It’s okay,” Teague said, taking a seat in an armchair while everyone else chose seats in the living room as well. “He’s right, it’s going to be a long road, and frankly, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get confirmed.”

“Well, my candidates are prepared to fight for you tooth and nail,” Derek said. He was one of the nation’s foremost political consultants, and though he’d switched to less mainstream clients in the last few years, he was just as good at campaigns of ideals as he had been at campaigns of manipulation. Congress currently had its first transgendered representative courtesy of Derek’s campaign management, and the Senate was being served by six more people of color than it had been five years ago, also due to his strategizing.

“I appreciate it, and I appreciate the president’s support,” Teague said to Kamal.

Kamal scoffed. “You’re the best person for the job. It was an easy decision for her. Now we have to figure out how we’re going to get another fifteen opposition party Senators to agree with us so we have a majority.”

“So what’s our strategy?” Jeff asked. “Maybe a two-pronged approach…I’ll investigate the senators most likely to turn, and we can hold that in reserve in case they won’t cooperate?”

Derek smirked. “You’re sounding like me,” he joked. “But it’s probably the most realistic plan.”

Kamal groaned. “I really shouldn’t be hearing these things. If the president thought I was listening to a discussion of blackmailing United States senators, I’d be sleeping in the other wing of the White House for a very long time.”

“Bite your tongue,” Teague said, the attorney in him taking over. “No one said the word blackmail, and no one will.” He gave a hard look at the other three men. “We are talking only in hypotheticals. Things that some people might do in order to gain a confirmation. It’s important for us to understand the lengths some people might go to for an appointment so that we can be certain not to accidentally step in those shoes.”

“Absolutely,” Derek agreed, rattling the ice cubes in his tumbler of bourbon. “You have to know where the landmines are in order to avoid them.”

“So, hypothetically speaking,” Jeff continued. “Some people in our position might gather intelligence on the appropriate senators and hold on to that as an insurance policy.”

“Some people might,” Kamal echoed.

“But most people would hope that it never came to that,” Derek said sternly. “Because that would open the nominee up for some very serious charges should it ever be discovered.”

Jeff shrugged. He was always tight-lipped, but the other Powerplay members suspected that he wasn’t averse to using very dark methods to get the results he wanted.

“Now, some other things a nominee and his allies could do is to look for legislative favors that could be exchanged,” Kamal said.

“I happen to know that a certain opposition senator from Rhode Island would really like to get a new airport built in his home state. The FAA needs to approve anything like that.” Derek grinned at Teague.

“Well, I imagine the president would encourage the FAA to approve a project like that,” Kamal offered.

“Okay, one down, fourteen to go,” Teague joked.

“Let me dig up what I can on our fifteen senators and their legislative desires. Hypothetically speaking, we won’t be able to find enough items to trade to cover all of them, and not all of them will be amenable to it, so let’s assume we can sway a third that way,” Derek added.

“Five,” Teague lamented. “What the hell can we do to get the other ten on board? The partisanship is so intense these days, it’s nearly impossible to get anyone to vote against party lines.”

Kamal looked thoughtful for a moment. “Then let’s sell you as the American dream.”

Derek looked at Kamal with curiosity.

“Look, you’re one of the cleanest nominees in the last twenty years. And you have a classic American success story. Humble beginnings, self-made man, you’ve been a successful businessman as well as had experience in the public sector. It’s the kind of story the other side of the aisle lives for.”

Teague shifted uncomfortably at the mention of what a “clean” nominee he was. His one dark secret was sitting in that cell in California, and his Powerplay brothers didn’t know about it. Guilt ate away at him, but still, he knew he’d never tell them the truth. He’d done that once, and Deanna had left him shortly after learning about it. He knew in his situation, his reputation had to be as white as snow, since his skin never could be. No, it was all too easy to be lulled into thinking he’d be given the same treatment as a man with lighter skin. He had to remain relentlessly guarded about some things, and his connections to that prison cell were at the top of the list.

Jeff snorted. “As the one here who regularly works alongside the so-called ‘other side of the aisle’ types, I have to say that his commitment to protecting Roe v. Wade is going to torpedo any arguments you might make about his all-American appeal.”

“Maybe,” Kamal conceded, “but maybe not. Look at it this way, the opposition knows that there is no way they’ll get a nominee from a woman president who opposes choice, but what if they could get a nominee who’s as American as they come, a believer in hard work, the application of strict ethics, protections for employers as well as employees.”

“It might work,” Derek said. “We’d need a lot of images of Teague working at soup kitchens and going to church. Also a list of his corporate clients wouldn’t hurt.”

Teague snorted. “I went to the First Avenue African Methodist Episcopal church every damn Sunday until the day I left for college, but you’ll have a hard time finding pictures of me attending a church since I moved out of my mama’s apartment.”

“But you go when you visit her in Chicago, don’t you?” Jeff said, winking.

Teague shrugged, “Well, yeah…”

“That’s all we need,” Derek pronounced. “Let’s get those cameras rolling, get some interviews with the nice church ladies talking about what a great kid you were. It’ll soften up several of them right away.”

“And how are you going to get around the fact that I’m black?” Teague asked, finally drawing attention to the elephant in the room.

Derek cleared his throat and uncrossed his legs, leaning his elbows on his knees as he pinned Teague with his famous icy-blue gaze.

“You know as well as I do that there are some of them who are racists and that’s never going to change. But for some of them, it’s more an issue of never having known anyone except the white people at their country club. And we can work with that. Let them see you as the American dream in action. Let them hear that your views on many of the things they’re concerned about are moderate, and make them see you as a person rather than a race.”

Teague sighed. He appreciated his friends and their dedication to getting him where he wanted to go. That was what the Powerplay club did, leveraged the influence, skills, and knowledge of its members in order to help them climb to the highest levels of the Washington power structure. And it was working. Albeit not in the way they’d all envisioned.

Derek was supposed to manage the campaign of the next president, gaining them all access to the White House. However, his candidate had imploded in an ugly event in a DC hotel room, and Derek had ended up married to the escort who the candidate had been caught with. It ended the campaign and nearly destroyed Derek’s career, but he had recovered, becoming the consultant for a whole subset of candidates that represented marginalized populations, and they were setting records, putting people in office who a few decades ago weren’t even given full civil rights.

Meanwhile, Kamal, who had been the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, had ended up in a mess of his own—one that resulted in him resigning from the ambassadorship and seeking asylum in the United States. Eventually, he’d had his Egyptian citizenship reinstated, but in the meantime, he’d ended up as the nation’s First Gentleman, so he’d politely declined to be a citizen of Egypt again and was now an American through and through.

And because of their alliance with the White House, the Powerplay members now had more influence and insight in Washington than ever before. Including Teague’s nomination to the nation’s highest court.

“I’m willing to try,” Teague said finally. “I don’t mind kissing a few asses, and God knows my mother would appreciate the visit and the trip to church. She’ll welcome the chance to try to get Jesus on the phone to save my soul.”

Derek and Jeff both laughed, Jeff coughing as his beer went down the wrong way.

“Maybe we need to get you a respectable girlfriend too?” Kamal asked.

Teague’s mind flashed to Deanna, but he snorted. “Not a chance.”

“Are there going to be any surprises from your usual batch of women?” Jeff asked. Teague was a long way from being a monk.

“No,” he answered dismissively. “I may not have long-term girlfriends, but I’m careful. Only other attorneys and the occasional Congressional staffer. None of them want their sex lives plastered all over the news any more than I do.”

Derek nodded. “But no one you’d be willing to actually date while this thing is

being considered?”

“You know I’m not cut out for relationships. I appreciate that the two of you do it ”—he looked at Kamal and Derek—“but that’s not in the cards for me.”

Kamal snorted. “Ah, my naïve friend.” He shook his head. “Such strong words. I’ll enjoy watching you eat them when the one walks into your safe little world.”

Teague gave the First Gentleman a dark look. “Maybe she already did and

also walked back out.”

Jeff cleared his throat awkwardly and walked to the bar, where he set down his empty beer bottle before grabbing a soda from the refrigerator and cracking it open with a hiss.

Derek leaned back in his chair. “Something you want to share, sweetheart?” he chided Teague.

Teague scrubbed a hand over his face. “My ex from college showed up yesterday—in the White House press corps.”

Kamal gave him a sharp look. “Who?”

“Deanna Forbes, Washington Sentinel.”

“She’s new in the last few months.”

“I guess so. She said she’d recently moved from Boston.”

“How much of an ex-girlfriend was she?” Derek asked.

Teague pinned him with a stare. “I should probably rephrase that—ex-fiancée.”

The room went silent, all three of the other men staring at him for a count of at least thirty.

“Fiancée?” Jeff choked out.

“What the hell? You never thought to mention this to us before now?” Derek added.

“Good God,” Kamal groaned.

“It was twelve years ago,” Teague answered defensively. “We were children.”

“You were in college,” Derek corrected.

“College students are children. We were definitely children.”

“You want to tell us what unforeseen fallout there could be from this?” Kamal gritted out. “Drinking escapades? Drugs you did together? You dumping her and she’s now out for revenge?”

“She broke up with me,” Teague snapped.

And again, silence settled over the room.

“No,” Jeff said, a laugh in his voice.

Derek snorted.

“You’re serious?” Kamal asked.

“As a heart attack.”

“Why?”

Teague felt the blood rushing to his face, and his heart skipped a couple of beats. No matter how many times it happened, no matter how many ways he tried to be rational about it, he could never stop the emotions that bombarded him when he thought about being rejected because of the color of his skin. He was a six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound, Yale-educated Supreme Court nominee, and he still felt like a humiliated nine-year-old when he had to admit it.

“Because I’m black,” he told his friends. “She broke up with me because I’m black, and her parents are racists.”

“Motherfuckers,” Derek hissed.

Kamal just shook his head.

“Damn,” Jeff added, taking a big gulp of his soda. “Wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not.” Jeff had grown up in the rural south, and his view of race relations was deeply impacted by what he knew in his hometown and through his extended family.

“No wonder you never talked about it,” Derek added.

“And I won’t be talking about it now. It’s ancient history, and it won’t be any sort of an issue in the confirmation process.”

He didn’t truly think it would be, or he wouldn’t have said it with such conviction, but his next answer was a flat-out lie, one that he would have on his conscience for a long time.

“So, she doesn’t have any secrets about you? Things that could be brought to light all these years later?”

“No. She knows nothing about me that everyone else in the world doesn’t already.”

“Let’s hope so,” Kamal muttered.

The rest of the hour was spent on something mercifully not involving Teague. The condo had emptied except for Jeff when Teague finally hoisted himself off the sofa and went to grab his jacket before going home.

“Long day,” Jeff said from where he stood looking out the sliding glass doors to the lights of the city beyond.

“Yes. I could use a good night’s sleep.”

Jeff turned to face him. “So, you really okay with running into the ex? Did you say her name’s Deanna?”

Teague lifted his jacket from the hooks by the front door. “It was a shock for sure, but we actually had lunch earlier today. It was all fine. It’s been a long time.”

Jeff nodded. “Really crappy way to end a relationship, though.”

Teague glanced at him, his skin itching because he could feel that Jeff saw more than he wanted him to.

“Yeah, but trust me, it was far from the only time my race has been used against me.”

Jeff took a couple of steps into the room, setting an empty beer bottle on the bar. “I ever tell you about my old man back in Arkansas?”

Teague snorted. “No, but with a lead-in like that, I have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to say.”

“Eh, it’s a given that he was a racist son of a bitch,” Jeff replied. “He was a mechanic—farm equipment, not cars—and also a mean drunk. He flirted with the local white supremacist group and spent his Friday and Saturday nights with his buddies drinking themselves stupid and talking shit about anyone who hadn’t been born in Watson County or didn’t look like them.”

Teague shook his head. “Ah, life in the country.”

Jeff chuckled, but it was bitter. “But there was something that no one knew about him, something that he kept secret until the day he died, and I found it out when I had to go through his house to empty it for sale.”

Teague watched his friend, waiting for the big reveal, half dreading it and half craving it.

“See, my parents were barely married long enough to have me, and my mom took off to another state when I was about seven. She left me with my dad, and I never heard from her again, but after he died I found out that my dad had actually been in love before my mother.” His gaze lifted to Teague’s. “She was black, and he wanted to marry her.”

Teague shook his head slowly, lips pursed. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but there were slave owners who fancied themselves in love with women they owned. Somehow they never saw the contradictions there.”

“I know, and I realize the fact that he was in love with a black woman didn’t mean he wasn’t still a racist, but my point is this—human beings are complicated, and when we reduce them to labels—racist, black, sinner, saint—we render them one-dimensional, but they’re really not. I don’t know the story with your ex, but I’m guessing it’s a lot more complicated than ‘you’re black so she left you.’”

“And maybe it’s exactly that simple,” Teague snapped, even though deep in his heart, he sensed Deanna hadn’t told him everything. “Maybe racism is really just that basic. My skin is dark; therefore, I am less than. Less than adequate, less than worthy, less than human. Maybe it is, in fact, the simplest thing of all.”

Jeff nodded. “You might be right. And while I’ve been called poor white trash plenty of times, I’ve never been black. I haven’t walked in your shoes, so anything I say is just speculation. But I do know that the letters I read from my father to Ellie, his black girlfriend, were full of a love that I didn’t know my father was capable of. He was a better human being when he was talking to her. For at least some small moment in time, he didn’t view her as less than—he viewed her as everything.”

Teague stopped, his handle on the doorknob, pausing before he left the condo. “Why did they split up?” he asked, wanting the last piece of the story in spite of himself.

“My grandfather,” Jess said softly. “My grandfather said he’d kill her if my dad didn’t quit seeing her. My grandfather had already been to prison once for aggravated assault. I have no doubt he was capable of carrying through on the threat.”

“And what happened to Ellie?” Teague’s chest was heavy and tender. He hated the sensation.

“Her parents sent her to live in Mobile with family while she finished her last year of high school. I think they didn’t trust that she and my dad could stay away from one another and didn’t want to find her in some field somewhere shot with my granddad’s hunting rifle.”

Teague shook his head. “Jesus, you come from some incredibly fucked-up stock.”

“Indeed,” Jeff agreed.

As Teague rode the elevator down to the lobby, all he could do was wonder what would have become of Jeff’s father and Ellie had they just been allowed to love.

* * *

Deanna’s cell phone rang as she sat at her desk, combing through Teague’s record as a Supreme Court clerk. The confirmation hearings were beginning in earnest, and she would need to provide at least one story per week on the progress as well as more information on Teague’s background and perspective on various key constitutional issues.

When she looked at the phone screen, she saw the four-one-five area code, and her stomach sank. She’d been wondering if he would call, but secretly hoping he wouldn’t. It was never easy speaking to him, and this time, she was riddled with guilt because she’d also been in contact with Teague.

She picked up the phone and made her way to a small conference room that had four walls and a door, unlike her cubicle.

“Hello?” she answered as she shut the door and sat down without turning on the lights.

“You have a call from San Quentin State Prison,” the automated voice said. “Will you accept the call? Please press one for yes and two for no.”

She pressed one and waited.

“Hello? Ms. Forbes?” Roland’s deep voice seeped over the miles.

“Yes, Roland. Hi, how are you?”

“I saw the news,” he said without preamble. “I’m so damn proud, I’m about to burst.”

When Teague’s mother had told her younger son that his older brother was dead to them, she’d also told her older son that he needed to agree to be dead in order for his promising younger brother to succeed. Roland had agreed, living out his twenties and thirties alone in prison, with no family or friends on the outside to come visit him.

Except for Deanna.

Deanna had first gone to San Quentin three years after she broke up with Teague. She was desperate for a way to feel closer to him, but knew she wasn’t worthy of actually contacting the man she’d wronged so deeply. So she did the next best thing: she went to San Quentin State Penitentiary and met his brother. The first couple of times, she’d interviewed him under the guise of writing a piece on inmates sentenced to life without parole in extreme hardship conditions. But by the third time, she was so weighted down with sorrow for Roland that she took the chance and told him she’d known Teague. Since that day, they had stayed in contact via phones and letters, never mentioning Teague’s name, but also speaking about him in ways both circumspect and loving. Two people who had lost him and could only talk to each other about it.

Roland knew not to mention Teague’s name on the monitored phone lines of the prison, so he never said what he was proud about or whom, but Deanna knew, of course.

“Yes, it’s a big honor,” she answered.

“But it might be tricky from here on out?” he asked.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment, thinking. “It might.” She struggled for the next word. “It might not be safe for us to talk for a while.”

“Okay, I understand. I won’t call unless it’s an emergency. But I saw on your byline that you’re in Washington too.” He paused, and she could hear other inmates in the background also using their allotted phone time. “Have you seen him?”

Her heart squeezed at the hope in his voice. So many years, so alone. Sometimes she really didn’t know how Roland stood it.

“Yes, actually, I have.”

“Ah,” he said, satisfaction oozing out along with the word. “I’m so glad. Tell me. How is he? What is he like? Did he say anything about Lydia?”

Roland also knew not to refer to his mother except by her first name. They’d been so careful over the years, so aware that anything they did could bring down Teague’s house of cards.

“He looks…great. He’s big, like you. He filled out in the last ten years.” Her mind stuck on the image of Teague’s broad shoulders and powerful chest. “And we didn’t talk about Lydia, but I know she’s doing well.”

“Yeah? That’s good. I worry about her. Getting older.” Another pause. “Did he get as tall as me?” Roland asked, his voice alight with joy.

“Yes, he’s been your height since college, but now he has more muscles. And lots of expensive suits.”

“Damn. That’s fine,” Roland said, laughing. “I’d love to see him in one of those suits. He was always such a skinny…” He stopped himself then, trying to remain anonymous when the conversation was anything but. “He was always skinny,” he continued.

“How are you, Roland?” she asked. “Did you get the last care package I sent?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did.” He’d always been formal with her, reminding Deanna that Teague’s mother had raised her sons to be gentlemen, no matter what had happened to Roland along the way.

“I really appreciate the socks and toothpaste especially. I’m not sure how much toothpaste they think a person uses in a day, but it sure ain’t as much as I need.” Then he laughed, and she had to smile. How he could gather the mental energy to do anything, much less laugh, was beyond her, but it warmed her heart to hear it.

“Well, you know I’m happy to do it. When you write next time, send me a new list and I’ll do up another package for April.”

“Thank you.”

“And how is your degree coming along?” she asked. Roland had begun a bachelor’s degree program inside the prison, studying ancient history, something he said had always intrigued him and so why not study it?

“I’ve finished off six more credits,” he answered, a note of pride in his voice. “If I keep it up, I should be able to finish in about eighteen months. Then maybe I can get another degree.”

Deanna swallowed at the reminder that Roland was sentenced to life with no hope for parole. He’d always seemed to accept it, treating it as though it were inevitable, and patiently enjoying whatever small things he could in the meantime. It broke her heart every time she thought of him.

“I think that’s wonderful,” she told him. “I’m glad you’re still working hard and enjoying it.”

“Will you see him again?” he asked her, switching the subject back to Teague.

“I’m sure I will—for work. I’ll keep writing stories about it all. It’s my assignment now.”

“That’s good. I’ve switched my subscription from your last paper to this new one, so I can read all your stories.”

“Thank you,” she told him, meaning it genuinely. “I love knowing that you’re reading my work.”

He murmured something about hers being the best reporting out there, and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling, tears threatening yet again.

“They’re going to end my call in just a couple of minutes, but thank you for seeing him when I can’t. And thank you for telling me about him.”

“Always,” she answered. “I’ll always tell you about him. You know that.”

“You come out to California when he’s at his new job. Maybe you can show me some pictures of the swearing-in? I’d like that so much.”

She’d been to California four times since that first trip. “Yes, I will schedule it. And I’ll see if they’ll let me bring the video in on my phone. That would be even better; then you could watch the whole ceremony.”

“You’re a blessing, Ms. Forbes. I’m thankful every day that you found me and that I can be some type of friend to you.”

“The blessing is mine—”

Then the line went dead, and the automated voice came back on, telling her that the inmate’s time was up.

Someday Roland’s time would be up for good, and it broke Deanna’s heart that Teague could never know his brother in the meantime.