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“Sure,” Chris replied with a sigh. They needed Natalie on their side, needed her to keep their secret, if only for the next few days.
They left Jamie’s room, leaving the door slightly open, and went back down the stairs. Chris followed Natalie into the kitchen and slid onto one of the stools at the counter and removed his earpiece.
Natalie sat opposite and folded her arms on the counter. “Okay, tell me everything.”
Chris did. He started with the conversation with Jamie on the plane that sparked Chris’s change of opinion about him. He told Natalie about the pool, about the VA and when he started realizing just how wonderful Jamie actually was. Chris told her about Jamie’s nightmare, about the first time they spent the night together and how he started understanding just how much he had started to care about him by then.
Talking about it, Chris could pinpoint the exact moment that he knew he was in love with Jamie—it had been the morning that their relationship had propelled forward. It had been sunny, Chris had been driving Jamie back from their coffee run, and Jamie’s feet had been on the dash, his head pillowed on the car window and his eyes closed as he quietly sang along to whatever had been on the iPod. It had been the simplest thing—Jamie had slowly opened his eyes and smiled at him. That’s all it had taken.
Chris could have crashed the car, so distracted by the warmth that had flooded his chest and the breath that had caught in his lungs, forcing himself to tear his eyes away to watch the road again. That night, he had gone to grab a bag of potato chips and they had toppled onto the sofa, Chris landing on Jamie’s chest and their mouths almost touching, and Chris had known for sure that he was a goner.
Natalie listened to it all, her expression blank, giving nothing away until Chris had finished the story and looked at her with apprehension.
“Well, Chris,” she said, unpinning her hair, “this is a pickle you have yourself in.”
“I know,” he replied, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Like I say, I didn’t intend to fall for him. It just happened.”
Nat looked carefully at him for a moment. “But you’re going to tell the president about it by the end of the week?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to risk losing your job over a guy that you’ve known for a month?”
Chris sighed. “Nat…I have never felt this way about anybody in my whole life. I know it’s stupid and reckless and so damn fast, but I’m in love with him. I don’t want to sneak around behind anybody’s back; I don’t want to be a sordid little secret. It’s killing me that I can’t just wrap my arms around him in front of everybody, that we can’t go out for dinner together, that I can’t tell my friends that I’ve met the most amazing person in the world who makes me so happy I could burst. I don’t care if it’s been one month or one year, I don’t care if it costs me my job. I just want to be with him.”
Natalie smiled at him as she shook her hair free of the last pin. “It’s wonderful that you’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I know. The truth is written so plainly on your face that I’m almost a little embarrassed at how whipped you are!”
A snort of mirth left Chris involuntarily. He grinned and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well…” he said with a shrug.
Natalie squeezed his forearm. “You’re a good guy, Chris. I’m not going to give anything away—keeping secrets is one thing I’m really good at, but you need to be a hundred percent sure that you know what you’re getting into. I’m not just talking about Jamie’s plethora of problems and PTSD. I mean all the shit that comes with being famous—paparazzi that’ll hound you when you walk down the street and take pictures of you out for coffee. I’m talking about all the dicks that’ll call you exploitative and an opportunist, all the bigots that will call you all the disgusting names under the sun. Is Jamie worth that?”
Chris gave her one small smile and nodded. “Yes, he’s worth it.”
* * * *
The pounding in Jamie’s head woke him up. His tongue felt thick, his mouth dry like he’d been sucking on cotton wool and his head felt like somebody had replaced his brain with a cannonball. He was on his front, and he was still dressed in his suit from the night before. He tried to move and immediately regretted it, groaning into the pillow as his head threatened to burst wide open.
“Good morning, soldier,” said a familiar voice from the bottom of the bed.
“Shh…” he mumbled back. “You’re shouting, Natalie.”
“I’m barely even speaking above a whisper!” she replied loudly and Jamie felt her prod his leg with her foot. “Come on, Barratt, roll over and take your hangover cure like a good boy.”
“Well, that sounds vaguely kinky,” he said, unable to hold back a smile, despite the immense pain he was in.
“Only in your dreams,” Natalie responded cheerfully.
He rolled over and found her standing at the bottom of his bed and holding a glass of water, a pack of Advil, and some dry crackers, which he gratefully took from her. “Did I ever tell you that you’re an angel?”
Natalie snorted as she climbed onto the bed and lay next to him as he swallowed his pills and sank back into the pillows, tentatively nibbling at a cracker.
“There are many things you have called me, James Barratt, butangelwas never one of them.” Natalie turned her head and smiled at him.
Jamie managed to smile back and took another bite of cracker. “Where’s Chris?”
