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ChapterThirty
Brennan
Then
For the first time in my presidency and in my life, I am not alone. I have Reese at my side, and more than that, in my heart.
Our morning meetings appear on my calendar again. In the never-ending chaos, those thirty minutes that are ours alone are what I set my heart to. As the world splinters into agonizing choices and spreading darkness, I find my shelter in the light of Reese’s eyes and the reassurance of his embrace.
He spends a whole flight to Brussels in my office, playing devil’s advocate against my arguments. He sits on my desk eating M&M’s as I pace in front of him, and somewhere over Ireland, it hits me that this is a moment taken directly from one of my thousands of daydreams: him and me, together against the world.
We fly back to Washington on a red-eye, and while everyone else is snoring, I blow him across three time zones, until he’s slumped on my office couch and I’m licking his come from my lips. “Is there a mile-high club for Air Force One?” I tease.
I’ve lived my life with secrets, but now I want to fling them into the ocean. I want to be open about loving him.
I want to hear his opinions, bounce ideas off him, and listen to his advice while we’re in the Oval and the Situation Room.
Once, I almost asked him to stay and help unravel my thoughts when Marshall invited the deputy head of NATO Allied Command Operations to the White House to discuss more-robust arms and aid for Ukraine. After the disaster with our SEAL team, I welcome alternative options.
Russia still seems to be one step ahead of our every move, anticipating our choices, our actions. Our humanitarian corridors are bombarded. Our pilots are harassed, antiair batteries near-missing our jets almost every day.
I don’t say it, but it feels like we’re on the defensive.
The sanctions I ordered against Kirilov’s military officers have shaken Russia to her core, at least.
General Quinten asks for more weapons and for American Special Forces to enter Ukraine to train the insurgents crossing in and out of the Russian-occupied zone. If they’re discovered, their presence would be a gift-wrapped excuse for Kirilov to escalate his war against us. Against me.
But we must ensure our humanitarian aid reaches the people. I’ve been on the ground during an occupation when the food and the medicine are gone and hunger replaces hope, when fear and desperation are the only currencies left.
With the world rushing toward what feels more and more like an inevitable and inescapable war, I crave the moments I can find for Reese and me.
I cook him a Louisiana feast on the Saturday closest to Mardi Gras. Crawfish étouffée, jambalaya, boudin balls, roast duck, cush cush, and pecan pie. I tell him to sit and do nothing more than drink from a bottle of champagne I pop open.
By the time dinner is ready, we’re well into a second bottle and have moved past tipsy, and we feed each other by hand right there in the kitchen. We never make it to the dining room or try out the newly arrived official state china for my administration.
Later, he makes love to me, undoing me until I cry out so loudly we’re both afraid the agents on duty will investigate. He falls asleep nestled into my side with his cheek pillowed on my chest. In the morning, we spread out intelligence reports and, together, try to unravel this intractably tangled globe.
We’ve come a long way in the six months that have passed since New York.
There is a world of difference between falling in love and being in love. All the held breaths and hesitations from before have vanished. Certainty fills me.
I am more than who I was before. I’m a better man, and a better president, for loving him.
All I need to do, when I feel the dark tides rising or the pressures of this office pulling me in a thousand different directions, is turn to Reese and stand on the bridge we’ve built between us. I can reach out, and he’s there. I’m not alone. The light in his eyes and the beat of his heart guide me, and I know—I know—he will always find me.
