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“There will be sound bites, I’m sure.”
“You turned Kirilov’s theater around on him. Whatever he wanted, he didn’t get, Brennan.”
His eyes flare as I say his name. Stay away, Reese. I can’t move.
Our gazes lock. “I’ve missed you.” Brennan’s hand squeezes mine.
You are bad for him.
Protect him from everything.
Especially yourself.
All week, I’ve been trying to starve this conflagration between us of oxygen before it blows up in our faces, but here I am.
I rest my forehead against his and breathe him in. “I’ve missed you, too, mon cher.”
My radio squawks. “Rooftop to Quarterback. What’s the holdup?”
I key my mic. Brennan is so close the agents on the other end can probably hear his breathing. “Ranger needed a minute. We’re on the way.”
Brennan steps back, straightens his shirt and tie, and adjusts his jacket.
“You look perfect, mon cher. You always do.”
He clears his throat as a flush climbs his neck and spreads over his cheeks. He doesn’t look at me, and I don’t look at him. Suddenly there’s too much tension between us, like we’re two magnets that don’t know how to interact if we’re not fusing together.
He spends the next four hours at the reception. The brawl is the talk of the UN, and Brennan downplays its intensity while playing up the heroics of the Secret Service. By the end of the night, Sheridan practically fought every Russian single-handed, while I’m his bayou knight in shining armor.
The NYPD doesn’t even try to arrest the Russian agents. Not on UN territory, and not while the fight raged in the space between the US and Russian motorcades. There’s enough of a question of what laws apply to whom and whose jurisdiction everyone’s feet were in that no one wants to touch that legal ulcer.
Instead, the UN and the United States file official protests against Russia before the sun sets. President Kirilov is in the air on his way back to Moscow two hours later, a scathing press release in his wake.
I don’t stay for the reception. I can’t be at Brennan’s side that long, fighting to keep what’s twisting and tangling inside of me from showing. Everything is too close, too hot, too ready to burst.
I take an SUV to the hospital where two of my agents are getting their knees scanned. Both have torn ligaments, and I send them back to Washington.
Sheridan is there, too, being evaluated for a concussion, and I wait with him until the scans come back. He’s ragged, his suit torn, his shirt blood-spattered, and one of his eyes is swollen shut. But his cheeks are peach-pink when I sit at his bedside, and he and I talk softly about nothing until he’s cleared. No concussion, and other than being battered and bruised, he’s going to be fine.
He’s quiet on the drive back to the hotel.
“What you did was very brave, Sheridan,” I tell him as the lights of Midtown shine on us. Fluorescent melts him until he’s neon and darkness. “You probably saved the president’s life. And mine.” My blinker clicks. Pedestrians crossing the sidewalk in front of us laugh, sounding faraway from inside the up-armored SUV. “Do you want to take some time? Go back to Washington—”
“No,” he says quickly. Maybe too quickly. “No, I want to stay. What I did…” He shrugs. “It wasn’t anything special. It was just the right thing to do.”
“You’re a good man, Sheridan.”
He gazes out the passenger window and watches Midtown drift away.
I help him to his room, help him out of his ruined suit, and give him the muscle relaxer the ER prescribed him. Our hands brush as I pass him a bottle of water. His eyes flare.
“I want you to drive POTUS tomorrow morning.” I’ve just put him in one of the highest-level positions on the detail. Henry’s slot. My right hand position.
His lips part as he stares up at me. “Really?”
“You’ve earned it. For tomorrow, at least.” I tousle his hair. “Get some sleep.”
His eyelids are falling fast, and he’s asleep before I’ve shut his hotel room door on my way out. He’s smiling, though.
