Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, after I help Chris get the kids off to school, I head downstairs with coffee but without eating breakfast. My stomach isn’t thrilled with the idea of solid food.
My secretary is already at her desk. “Any word from Leo or Kev this morning?” I ask.
“No, ma’am. Do you want me to get them on the phone for you?”
Do I?
I could call or text Kev directly except, under the circumstances, if I do that and it’s not about work, I know he’ll kill me.
The optics.
Motherfucking optics.
“No,” I tell her. “But let me know if they check in, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I don’t even pause in the Oval Office. I walk straight through to my study. I’m due my PDB any moment now, but my routine is thrown off without Kevin walking into the West Wing with me.
I force myself to sit down behind my desk in the study, take a deep breath, and hold it for a moment before letting it out.
I have a job to do.
The world can’t stop just because I’m…off-kilter.
I have to get back to work, the reelection campaign—everything.
It’s not fair, but it’s life.
My life.
Once the PDB ends, I find Chris standing in my study door with a plate in hand and another cup of coffee. “You didn’t eat this morning.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You didn’t eat dinner last night. And when I thought about it, I don’t think you ate the day before, either.”
He’s right, but I wasn’t saying anything.
He walks in and shuts the door with his foot. Then he sets everything on my desk and stands there, arms crossed over his chest. Today he’s wearing jeans and a light blue chambray shirt, button-up, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. No tie.
Casual, for him, for a work day.
But he’s channeling Sir.
Or, he’s trying to.
It is ironic that the sadist isn’t Sir the way Sir is. I’ve seen Kev reduced to tearful begging for release by this man, and yet, to me, Kev is still in certain ways a scarier Sir than this Sir is.
Chris is the Rottweiler, and Kev is the Border Collie.
You ever fuck with a Border Collie when they’re trying to get you to do something? They’re persistent, they don’t give up, and they are used to single-handedly corralling large numbers of very stupid beings and getting them to do exactly what they want them to do.
Border Collie.
Sure, a Rottweiler can fuck up your day, but most of them are sweet, adorable snot-demons who are great to have backing you up, but you know damn well most of them, they’re not “dangerous.”
Chris has brought me a toasted bagel with cream cheese, a hard-boiled egg, a banana, and a blueberry muffin.
He points at the plate. “There’s got to be at least one thing on there you can eat this morning. So…eat.”
I sit back and stare at him with an eyebrow arched.
He breaks first about thirty seconds later. “Why isn’t this working?” he mutters. “It works when he does it. I’ve seen him get you to do self-care when you’re close to dropping from exhaustion and haven’t eaten in days. He can make you eat when I can’t. What the fuck, Shae?”
I take pity on him and reach for the banana, which I think I might be able to manage a couple of bites of. “Because I’m scared of him,” I tell him. Which is the truth.
Don’t ask me why—I don’t know.
Why are sheep scared of the Border Collie?
Not even the bad kind of scared. That’s stupid, yes, but I can’t explain it. Do I think Kev will harm me? No.
Still…
“Yeah, see, I don’t get that,” Chris says. “I’ve put bruises all up and down your ass. You’ve seen what I do to him. I’ve broken into your house, tied you up, nearly choked you unconscious, and had really long, hard, raunchy sex with you, and you aren’t scared of me?”
After slowly peeling the banana about halfway down, I sit back in my chair and fellate the fruit.
All while my eyes stay fixed on his. And as a realization rumbles through me that, no, I can’t eat. If I try, I’ll puke.
A deep, low rumble rolls from him and I watch the front of his jeans fill in. “That’s a dangerous game, girl. You want to brat me, I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you upstairs right now and spank your ass. I can get away with that. I’m your husband. Secret Service will snicker and laugh at us and hold the door for me so I can carry you through.”
I deep-throat the banana, because I just figured it out myself, the answer to his question.
He takes a step forward, his fists clenching, and I pull the banana out and whisper, “Red.”
He freezes.
I take a small bite of the banana, just the tip, slowly chewing and swallowing it. “That’s why I’m afraid of him,” I say, finally able to verbalize it for the first time in the nearly six years I’ve been doing this with Kevin. “I don’t get to safeword with him in the office.”
Just like sheep don’t safeword with Border Collies.
* * * *
By noon, I haven’t heard from Kevin or Leo.
Benjamin Cussler, Kev’s deputy chief of staff, conducted the morning staff meeting. I only find out about that after the fact when Angie drops by to coordinate the afternoon press briefing talking points with me.
I don’t want to appear like I’m out of the loop, or have a larger personal stake in this than I already do, but it’s starting to piss me off that I haven’t heard anything yet.
I trust Leo to take care of Kev, but I want to know how he is.
How does this factoid escape Leo’s notice? Leo knows how I am, and knows who Kev is to me and Chris. How can he keep me out of the loop like this?
I’m glad I don’t have any appearances today, no public speaking to do here, either.
Yay.
I head upstairs when I know the kids are home from school so I can spend some time with them. They’re sitting at the table in the family dining room with Yasmine, and already have their schoolwork spread out.
“Hey, guys.” I hug all of them. As I’m sitting down, Hudson pipes up.
“Where’s Uncle Kev?”
“And Leo?” Ivy asks.
“Are they back yet?” Myla asks.
Shit.
I opt for simple. “They’re not back yet. Once they are, I’ll make sure they say hi.”
Chris walks in—better late than never—and kisses me before walking around the table to greet the kids. “Hey, how was school today?”
“Our class made cards because of Aunt Lauren,” Ivy says, opening her backpack.
Ohhh…shit.
They’re condolence cards for the White House in general, which is both incredibly sweet and also a tear-jerker I don’t need right now.
I meet Jasmine’s gaze and she mouths, “Sorry.”
I could’ve done without this. I force a smile. “That was very sweet of them.”
Note to self—write a personalized thank-you note for their class.
I make myself stay there with them for my usual time before I excuse myself and return downstairs, where I lock myself in my private bathroom and silently sob.
I can’t do this without Kevin. I feel weak and horrible and guilty and selfish, but I need him.
And that both scares me and infuriates me. I had an eighteen-year Senate career without him. I got myself elected three times without him. I passed the bar and did all sorts of things in my life, all sorts of accomplishments, without Kevin’s help.
Why is this taking me out at the knees?
I clean up and return to my study to get some more work done.
I’m about to head upstairs to sit through dinner with Chris and the kids—not that I feel hungry, because I don’t—when Leo appears in my study doorway.
My heart races, and I’m already up and moving, intent upon going to Kev’s office, when Leo intercepts me with an outstretched arm. “He’s not here, ma’am,” he softly says.
I also realize Leo looks like hell, and I’m pretty sure he’s dressed in the same clothes he wore to the funeral yesterday.
“What?”
“He went to the townhouse.”
Some cranky toddler buried in my soul wakes up howling for her blanky and a cookie and her favorite stuffy, and I slam the door shut on it. “Is he okay?”
Leo shakes his head. “He’s going to take a couple of days off. He’s already told Ben.”
Leo has very deep, expressive brown eyes. In the right light, they hold flecks of amber and green and even greyish blue. Right now they look dark, worried, with russet tones.
I step back and motion him inside and to close the study door behind him. Once I know our privacy is assured, I say it. “When’s someone going to tell me what’s going on? I shouldn’t have to learn about this second-hand. Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I literally didn’t have any privacy to call you, ma’am. He’s not doing well.”
“Then he needs to be here, with us, where we can take care of him.”
“He won’t do that, ma’am.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the optics. You have no idea. Right now, every eye is on him. You haven’t been checking the news today, have you?”
“You know I don’t, unless something’s breaking I need to see.”
He pulls out his personal cell and calls something up, then shows me.
Yep, a picture of Kev from yesterday on the front page of WaPo, eyes closed, tears streaming down his cheeks, Leo’s arm around him, Kev’s hand on Lauren’s coffin.
Motherfucker. I’m going to kill Bill Graham.
Sure, it’s a damned money-shot, but Kev’s his friend.
“That’s not the only one, obviously,” Leo says. “But when the local media realized Kev stayed behind, they were all over him at the Baltazars. And there were press waiting on us when we landed in Dulles this morning.”
“What the hell? I told Secret Service to take care of you guys!”
“They did. Two agents, we flew back commercial. That’s why Kev told them to drop him at the townhouse. There was a crowd out there waiting to catch a glimpse of him, and he didn’t want to deal with reports of him only stopping by there and then coming to the White House.”
“Oh, jesusfuck!” I sink into my chair. Prophet will do anything to prevent a bad optic for me and the administration.
However, I refuse to be kept from him that long. “Tell him to get back here tonight,” I say. “He has a home here, with us. The kids were asking about both of you. He needs us.”
He wearily sighs. “I’ll run up and say hi before I go home. I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Talk to me, Leo. What happened?”
He leans against the door. “We sat up most of the night talking with her dad and some other relatives. Kev did a few shots with them. Her parents—and pretty much everyone else—told Kev how Lauren still talked about him, how every time they talked to her, or she visited, every other word out of her mouth was something about him. That while she said the right things to them, they got the distinct impression she was still in love with him and hadn’t moved on. Even though she hinted to them Kev had a boyfriend, but she was keeping that quiet for him.
“She apparently considered it her mission to help protect his reputation. Then they put us in the same guest room, and Kev asked me not to correct them because of the optics. There were other cousins and aunts and uncles staying with them, and considering when we got up this morning my inbox was flooded with journalists asking if Kev and I are a couple, I’m guessing in addition to the funeral pictures, someone there said something to someone.”
I groan. “Motherfucker.”
“Ma’am, she was his best friend, and he was hers,” he gently says. Despite not wanting to hear this, I know I have to listen. “He loved her. He felt guilty because of their divorce. He feels guilty that she came to work for him and maybe that’s why she was murdered. He feels guilty that she never had another serious relationship and was too busy helping him cover for what she thought she was covering for. Everything her parents said to him wasn’t meant to make him feel guilty, but that’s exactly what it did.”
“He loves you, but you need to step back and give him space. You can’t help him right now. I know you’re kind of at a loose end without him here, but Shae, he is an empty well. He has nothing to give you, and that’s heaping even more guilt on him right now.”
Being president means giving up some things. Even things you love very deeply.
It also means being able to let go when required, no matter how painful.
I try one more time. “He can’t stay here with us and stay upstairs and not work?”
“You know how he is. If he’s here, he’s asleep or working. He’s been on a public stage he’s never had to inhabit in this particular way before, and he’s trying to find his footing. He’s never had to publicly grieve like this. Even when his mom died, he still had relative privacy, because he didn’t talk about it on the air.”
“His father sure did,” I grouse. “Fucking asshole.”
“Yeah, and that happened in West Virginia, too, which might as well be Mars as far as the rest of the country is concerned. She wasn’t a public figure.”
He’s right, I know he is, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I want to be the one holding Kev while he cries.
I want to be the one giving him the love and energy and support he’s given me.
And it’s killing me that I can’t.
“Go on up and see the kids,” I tell him. “And please brief Chris on all that. He needs to hear that from you.”
He nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
He leaves my study door open behind him. Meanwhile, I sit back in my chair and wonder how far I’d get if I tried hiking out of here on foot to go see Kev before Secret Service grabbed my ass and threw me in The Beast and hauled me back here.
Because I’m seriously considering it.