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ChapterTwenty-Eight
Reese
Then
We’ve made it through several months with this secret between us. We’ve sneaked kisses and I-love-yous in the Oval Office and his study, and miles of private, longing looks travel from his eyes and mine. I escort him from the Residence to the Oval every morning and then stay for coffee. I spend too much time with him.
I’m sure Matt knows.
Nights are the most difficult.
I want to follow him up to the Residence at the end of each day and fall asleep in his arms and in his bed. I want to move my body into the White House the same way I’ve moved my heart.
We have a standing date for dinner in the Residence. It’s called a briefing. It’s us in the kitchen, trading kisses as Brennan cooks us dinner. It’s him teaching me yoga and interrupting his own forms to lean over and kiss me. It’s me holding him as I hum a blues song I grew up with as we slow dance to the beat of our hearts.
If I can, when Brennan isn’t locked in the Situation Room or in meetings with his national security team, I slip upstairs over the weekend and we steal twenty-four hours together. I imagine those days are what our lives will be like in the future: not the demands of the presidency but waking to kisses and the warmth of bare skin. Talking for hours. Never having enough of our hands on each other’s body.
One night, a Sazerac into the evening, he looks me in the eye and says, “I wish you could be my First Gentleman.”
I don’t know how to respond.
It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. I’ve wondered what if. If I could snap my fingers and rearrange my life. If I could go from being the man at his side with a gun to the man at his side with his heart for the whole world to see. Never hiding. Never having to sneak out of the Residence or pretend I don’t love him every time our eyes meet in the West Wing.
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Ignore what I said.”
“Do you wish I were different?”
“No.” He takes my hand on the kitchen counter and spins his glass as the smells of pork chops roasting in cinnamon apples and sweet potatoes fill the kitchen. “I wouldn’t change a single thing about you. What I want is impossible: I wish you could be you, exactly as you are, and be my First Gentleman. I wish you could go from securing my state dinner to standing by my side in the receiving line. Securing the motorcade and then falling into step with me. No sacrifices. No compromises.”
I thread our fingers together. “You’re right: that is impossible.”
“Then this—what we have—is what I want,” he says. “Well…” He grins. “I want you to spend the night a few more days of the week. Like, all of them.”
I kiss him, and we don’t speak about it again.
* * *
We’re eatingpizza when the call comes in. Brennan has his arm around my shoulders as we drag cheesy slices into our laps, sitting on the floor in front of the couch in his bedroom. My gear is in a pile along with his jacket and tie. We’re sharing a soda.
The phone rings. The secure one, the Top Secret line that runs straight to the Situation Room. There’s a handset in every room, and when they go off, the Residence sounds like the inside of a fire department getting an emergency call.
He groans, pushes to his feet, and grabs the phone beside his bed. “Walker.” His face hardens. “When?” And then, “Get everyone in the Situation Room.”
We scramble. I grab my gear and rush down the back stairs as he goes to the elevator, then meet up with him again outside the Situation Room. The Situation Room is right across from our command center, so half my detail has a front-row seat to the two of us.
“Mr. President,” I say as I badge open the secure door. Technically, I’m still on duty, and since I am the ranking agent, I’m responsible for accompanying him.
As I follow him in, Henry pokes his head out of the command center and holds up four fingers. It’s silent, quick code: You code four? You all right? I nod. His gaze sweeps me, and he raises an eyebrow before I lock Brennan and myself in the Situation Room.
It’s smaller than people imagine. Only half of Brennan’s national security staff have made it so far, and Shannon gives Brennan a quick rundown as McClintock growls into a phone. Military officers are swarming, pulling up satellite maps of Ukraine. Everything is dim, only the glow of the screens and the low-hanging overhead lights illuminating the room.
“One of our fighters has gone down, Mr. President. It was flying a patrol over one of our humanitarian corridors in Ukraine. Satellite imagery shows an air-to-ground missile launch from behind the Russian occupation line.”
“The pilot?” It’s Brennan’s first question.
“Air Force Captain Isabella Wilkes, sir. She ejected, and her locator beacon is transmitting. She’s behind the Russian line in the mountains of eastern Ukraine.”
Brennan’s knuckles whiten as his hands clench. “Can we confirm the Russians fired?”
