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* * * *
Marie Hall had called Chris as he was just about to get in the shower. He hastily wrapped a towel around his waist before picking up.
“What’s going on, Chris?” she asked immediately. “I come in this morning to find a notice saying that a firearm was accidentally discharged last night at the Hamptons house, and then you don’t follow up with a phone call. Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Chris replied with a sigh. “We just woke up. It was a bit of a rough night after that happened.”
“‘We’?” Hall repeated suspiciously. “Chris, please don’t tell me that there’s been more incidents like the pool.”
Chris mentally kicked himself. “No,” he replied hastily. “It’s just that Jamie was up for a while after the gun went off, having a little trouble getting back to sleep and I had to stay up, too. He just woke up when his phone rang.”
Hall paused for a moment. “Anyone of consequence?” she asked, seemingly satisfied with Chris’s response.
“Just a friend inviting him to a picnic in about an hour.”
“Alright. Full detail on him today while he’s in the open.”
“Understood,” Chris replied and hung up.
He sighed and ran his hands over his face. He was really going to have to be more careful with his status reports if he was going to completely ignore Foster and Hall’s instructions to keep his distance with Jamie. He didn’t know how the guy would have coped if Chris hadn’t stayed with him for the rest of the night.
Chris hadn’t been at all surprised when Jamie had immediately snuggled into him, seeing as how he had thrown his arms around him the second he had realized that Chris wasn’t injured. The guy had probably felt so guilty, so scared. Chris could only imagine.
Besides, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, it had been really nice to have Jamie sleeping in his arms. It had been a long time since anyone had trusted him as swiftly and completely as Jamie trusted him now. It felt good.
But today, he would have to resume his persona as the stoic Secret Service agent. He couldn’t afford to slip up in front of the other two that would have to pull detail with him today. He already had a warning—he couldn’t afford another.
* * * *
Chris was quiet in the car on the way to the picnic. Not that it was really much of a problem, seeing as Jamie’s mother called him to see if he was alright. News travelled too fast in the White House. Jamie spent a good ten minutes of the drive reassuring her that he was fine, that the gun had just fallen off the nightstand and he’d forgotten to replace the safety. He didn’t want to tell her that he’d had another nightmare—it would only worry her more.
The first week that he’d been in the hospital after his burn out, they had tried Jamie on medications to help him sleep. The results had been awful. The meds made him constantly drowsy, so they gave him something to wake up again, which in turn made him paranoid and jumpy, which in turn made him hallucinate. Jamie decided that he would rather have the nightmares and live medication-free than be like that. Boomer helped, but Jamie couldn’t fathom how the dog had managed to shut himself out of the bedroom last night.
President Barratt had not been completely assured that Jamie’s decision to forgo meds was the best idea, but he was an adult and completely capable of making that decision for himself. All the same, he didn’t want to give her any ammunition.
Five of his friends—three girls and two guys—were there when Jamie arrived at the beach, already sitting on blankets strewn over the sand, picnic hampers open, champagne bottles popped. A general cry of greeting went up and Jamie spent a good few minutes hugging everyone, the girls peppering his face with kisses and the guys clapping him on the back or the shoulder. Jamie was naturally very tactile, and his old friends were more than used to getting hugged or tackled by him. Boomer pleased himself by running off and down to the waves.
For a while, Jamie was too wrapped up in the hellos to remember Chris had got out of the car with him and was standing a short distance away, but as soon as he was done, he made a point to introduce him.
“Everybody, this is my…Chris…” Jamie shook his head and laughed. His friends laughed with him—that had come out wrong and they all knew it. “I mean, this is Chris. He’s my…er…if I saidbodyguard, I’d feel a bit like Whitney Houston. He’s my Secret Service person. He’s a great guy, so be nice.”
He turned to look at Chris, but the man wasn’t smiling back, despite everyone cheerfully greeting him and waving. Jamie frowned, but one of the girls dragged him back into the group and once again he was involved in conversation.
They had all known each other since they had been small; they had spent summers and Christmases together; they had experimented with each other and matured together. The group wasn’t so much close as they had shared a lot. Even if, as adults, they had nothing else in common, they could still meet for picnics every once in a while and update each other on their lives. Jamie hadn’t seen any of them since being deployed to Afghanistan two years previous. It felt amazing to be with them again. It felt like everything was getting back to normal.
After a while, his thoughts went back to Chris. He kept glancing over his shoulder to find his Secret Serviceman standing stoically nearby, just like the other two, who were keeping a watchful eye on the perimeter. He pulled himself up and dusted sand from his jeans before making his way over.
“Hey. Don’t you want to come over and sit? Meet the guys?”
Chris glanced at him coolly. “I’m fine here, sir. Thank you.”
The look, the tone, both felt like a slap in the face to Jamie. He frowned again, not quite sure what to make of it.
“Chris? Everything okay?”
“Yes, sir.” There it was again. “Enjoy your picnic.”
And just like that, Jamie was dismissed. He backed away, the good feeling that he’d had since he woke up slowly ebbing away with Chris’s rejection of him.
