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Ihadthought about it. If I was elected Governor, I would be spending the majority of the week in Sacramento, but I couldn’t ask Rio and Marcus to leave San Francisco. It was where their livelihoods were and they’d already put their lives on hold once to split their time between San Francisco and Washington DC. I couldn’t ask them to do that again.
“Marcus was talking about maybe Sausalito. It’s an hour and a half to Sacramento on a good day.” Marcus hadn’t actually said anything out loud about it, but I had caught him scrolling through real estate listings on his computer more than once.
I knew that he would never come right out and say that’s what he wanted to do. I wasn’t sure if it was a holdover from his childhood in the poorest parts of London. He had never been asked for his opinion then, and I still think it surprised him whenever someone asked for his thoughts on things that had nothing to do with his job.
I was attached to our apartment in San Francisco, but I was attached to Marcus even more. He was my best friend, and had been my first friend when I had studied abroad at Oxford.
I made a mental note to talk to Rio about it later, and focused my attention, once again, on the hawk-like old man in front of me.
“I have a meeting with Theo Nilsson sometime this week about getting a security outfit. I’ll play by the rules.” A box full of firecrackers had a way of changing evenmystubborn mind about extra security. What if Rio had been alone when the doorbell rang? Or if Marcus wasn’t there to stop me? The very idea had shaken me down to my core. It was high time to get my head out of my ‘I-can-take-care-of-myself’ ass.
Mortie gave me a long hard look from underneath his bushy gray eyebrows. “Huh. Remind me to send you a box of fireworks whenever I need you to do something.” He joked, slapping a hand on his thigh, which was the universal gesture of all old men equating to: ‘aha, got him!’
I gave an obligatory chuckle, and then an idea came into my mind. “Hey, do you think I could get a couple of days off in the next month or so?” I asked, hoping that Mortie’s good mood would extend to giving me a little bit of free time.
“Like, the entire day?” I could already see the ‘no’ forming on the old man’s lips, and I hurried to jump in and cut him off.
“No, I’ll come in the mornings on those days or work virtually.” I knew that there were some days that I could be more hands off, and I was 100% going to bank on that.
Mortie was silent as he thought about it, “...why?” He finally asked, sounding suspicious.
I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t any of his business but, let’s be honest, my businesswasMortie’s business for the next year.
“I want to take a girl on a date.” I answered honestly. Everytime Rio came home smelling like Madeline’s cherry tart scent, the aching desire to have some one-on-one time to get to know the mysterious beta grew even stronger. Rio was absolutely smitten, and I wanted to be as well.
Mortie’s hacking laughter filled the office, and again he slapped his knee like I’d just made the funniest joke he’d ever heard.
“You know, I sometimes forget that you are still pretty young.” Mortie wiped a tear out of the corner of his eye. “But to answer your question, sure we can give you a couple of days here and there to help you on your love quest, Casanova.”
Normally, I would have gotten irritated at Mortie’s laughter, but right now I was floating on Cloud-9. I would finally get the chance to take Madeline out and give her all of the reasons as to why she should also give me a chance.
