“Mymurse?”
“Your man purse. God, everything about you is way too big. Your body. Your head. Your stupid bag.”
He picks up right where I left off. “My brain. My capacity to prove you wrong.”
“Your ego.”
He holds my stare and I sigh, squeezing my eyes shut. Maybe when I open them, he’ll be gone.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I ask, flicking my hand in a shooing motion.Like with your wicked witch of a girlfriend.God only knows how much frostier she’d get if she knew he was in my office, coating the place in testosterone.
He squints at me for a moment, like he’s making a decision about something. Then he nods once, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.
“Well, you have agreatweekend, Goldilocks. Hope you make it home alive. Or not. I don’t care if you don’t, right?”
He turns and strolls out while I glare daggers at his back. Since he can’t see me, it’s not very satisfying.
I pack up my things and head out a few minutes later, though I can’t shake the strangeness of our encounter on my walk home. I know I shouldn’t let him get to me—it’s what he wants—but I can’t seem to help it. He’s just so... and he’s such a pain in the... and he makes me want to...gah.
But underneath all the annoyance, there’s something else. A nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I’m missing something. When I replay our conversation, my memory freeze-frames on the look in his eyes when he offered to walk me home. It was... possessive, somehow. Almost proprietary.
Weird.
Even weirder that I liked it.
Chapter 6
Ben’s words pinball around in my head all weekend. Is he actually concerned about my safety, or is this just another one of his power moves? It’s hard to reconcile the man-beast who’s been so desperate to knock me down with the anxious worrywart who looked at me with concern in his eyes. How strange to think that Ben is capable of genuine human emotions.
I’m sure it was an aberration.
My suspicions are confirmed when I arrive at work on Monday and there’s already an envelope waiting for me on my desk. I should’ve known a tiger couldn’t change its misogynistic stripes. War: still on.
I rip it open and it’s a recent story from thePost:SPATEOFMUGGINGSHITSCAPITOLHILL. So we’re still on that, then.
And that’s only the beginning. Throughout the week, he bombards me with stories highlighting district crime statistics. Tuesday:DCLANDSONTOP10MOSTDANGEROUSCITIESLIST. Wednesday: a crime heat map focused on the Capitol Hill area, complete with a highlighted warning that “residents should exercise caution when out after dark.” On Thursday, it’s a list of local police stations, gyms, and martial arts studios offering self-defense classes. The guy is straight-up nuts.
And yet... am I crazy for thinking it’s kind of sweet?
I’m guessing this mail is supposed to “scare me straight,” but what Ben doesn’t seem to realize is that he rattles me more than any mugger ever could.
I’m so exhausted by Friday that I barely notice the package at first.
It’s been a long week, full of fire drills and petty dramas that’ve kept most of the staff chasing our tails. Carol hosted a town hall in New Hampshire last week, and of course some grandstanding heckler used it as his opportunity to bait her into a contentious back-and-forth—and because all the world’s a stage, the moment immediately went viral. While such incidents have become commonplace in my job—I’ve lost count of the number of controversies I’ve lived through—it made for several headache-inducing days of damage control.
The one bright spot was my meeting with Senator Moreno’s team, who seemed more than receptive to working with us on the child care bill in exchange for Carol’s show of support on their infrastructure legislation. It’s exceedingly difficult to secure allies across the aisle these days, and it’s thrilling to have a glimmer of hope that my bill could one day become reality.
Nevertheless, by Friday morning I am ready to call it a week. I’m juggling my purse, workbag, coffee, and a file someone shoved at me as I walked in the door when I spot the bulging envelope sitting ominously atop my desk. This must be how celebrities feel when deranged stalker-fans stake out their house and leave dead roses on their doorstep. I orbit around it warily as I shuck my coat and various personal items, mentally running through the possibilities for its contents. Judging by the theme of this week’s correspondence, it could be anything from a stack of milk cartons with children’s faces on them to a set of nunchucks.
I open the envelope gingerly and when I shake out its contents, something in hard plastic packaging clatters onto my desk: a combination pepper spray–rape whistle on a key chain. The packaging promises an instant takedown of any number of dangerous predators at an eardrum-shattering volume only bats can hear. As usual, there’s a note attached.
Kate,
Although I stand by my thoughts on the subject, I may have come on a bit strong last week. Consider this a peace offering. If you need to pretend it came from someone else, that works too. Either way, I’d appreciate it if you’d put it on your key ring.
If anything ever happened to you, I’m sure there’s someone, somewhere, who would miss you.
When six thirty rolls around, I pick up Ben’s “gift” and traverse the perimeter of the seventh floor to Senator Hammond’s suite of offices. It’s been a few weeks, but Ben’s office number is branded on my memory like a bad tattoo.
