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I laughed, my heart pounding as I imagined a bunch of little blond kids groaning on the stairs while some lucky woman watched Carter shave very slowly.
“That’s a good tradition,” I whispered and turned, staring down at the river, the wind cooling my cheeks.
“It looks clean, doesn’t it?” I asked, looking down at the churning black waters below us.
“It’s dark,” he said. “Clean, dirty, everything looks the same in the dark.”
“That’s a pretty pessimistic view from a politician.”
Carter laughed, turning his back to the water to face the buildings behind us. The Christmas lights of the city reflected in his eyes. “Maybe it is,” he said, his voice dark with something I couldn’t quite place.
“Have you always wanted to be a politician?”
“No.” He laughed. “I wanted to be a skateboarder, remember?”
“Of course, such a natural progression from skater boy to mayor.”
Carter was quiet for a long time, and I found a huge wealth of patience inside of me for this man. I would wait for him to talk, no matter how long it took.
“My family is…unorthodox.”
“Your mother?”
“The tip of the iceberg, sadly. My mother has spent most of my life as a petty crook. She did some time a dozen years ago, but for the most part has managed to be good enough to stay out of trouble, but not good enough to ever be able to leave the game. She left us on my grandmother’s doorstep when we were kids and Margot raised us.”
“Your grandmother? That doesn’t sound too illicit.”
Carter laughed. “In her heyday, Margot was the paid companion of mobsters and musicians and politicians. She taught us how to play poker and handicap horse races. By the time I was fifteen, I could cheat at cards and hold my gin better than a man twice my age.”
I wasn’t sure that laughter was the right reaction to this news, so I bit my tongue.
Carter glanced over at me, his face tight. “I’ve never told anyone this.”
A warm sun rose inside me, a sense of pride that I was the one to receive this kind of trust. This kind of intimacy. “You’re ashamed?” I asked.
He pursed his lips as if weighing his answer. “Yeah, I guess. In a way. I think going into law and politics was my way of rebelling. As ridiculous as that sounds.”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all.”
“My brother is, or was actually, a big deal poker player, before he married a cop. My sister married the son of a gem thief who used to work with my father—”
“And you want to do good.”
“Right, it does sound ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t,” I breathed. He didn’t look at me and I could see his discomfort, the tension in his muscles.
“I don’t actually know if I would be a good mayor,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stunned to see such doubt in him.
He glanced at me askance. “Come on, you saw me at Jimmie Simpson. Those women hated me and I couldn’t…” He sighed. “I couldn’t win them over.”
I licked my lips, wondering if I was about to overstep some boundary, but he’d made fun of my baby’s name, so fair was fair.
“First of all,” I said. “Those women are tough and no one has an easy time winning them over. I’ve gone up against Tootie Vogler in the past and she made mincemeat out of me.”
He turned to face me fully, a smile playing about his lips. “But?”
“But you were being patronizing,” I said, and winced, waiting for him to snap.
He simply stared at me.
“You mad?”
“No,” he said. “I think you’re right. I think…” His eyes roved over my face and I was suddenly spellbound. Breathless. “You’re amazing,” he whispered.
I cupped his face in my hands, his skin warm against my flesh, the beginning of a beard rough in my palms. I wished I could hold all of him this way, every wounded and taut inch of him.
“I think, despite your family, you’re a good man.”
“If you knew—” He shook his head.
“If I knew what?”
He stared into my eyes and I couldn’t breathe. My heart hammered in my chest. His fingers touched my cheek, the glittery barrette in my hair. “I think maybe I’ve said enough tonight,” he said. “What is it about you, Zoe? You make a mess of me.”
As compliments went, it was a pretty mixed message, but I understood what he was saying and my heart swelled.
“It’s late,” he whispered.
“It is,” I agreed, not moving. I couldn’t have, not for the life of me. He’d said we were in this together, and the look in his eyes when he’d said it had made me believe him.
It might be a mistake, but I wasn’t going home. Not alone. Not after this night.
I shifted my weight onto my toes and I tilted, swayed right against his chest.
“Take me to your house,” I whispered, hoping that was all I would have to say.
