AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I kinda scared myself.”
Chris sniffed and smiled, brushing back Jamie’s hair. “Well, try not to do it again, okay? I don’t know if my heart can take it.”
Jamie’s smiled widened, but his eyes fluttered closed and stayed that way for a few seconds. When he reopened them, his smile turned a little more playful. “Hey, Chris, are there any hot nurses? Because I think I may need a sponge bath.” Jamie leaned forward minutely and whispered to him conspiratorially, “I didn’t manage to get a shower after we had sex this morning and I’m still covered in come.”
Chris burst out laughing, and this time tears really did fall, rolling down his cheeks. He kissed Jamie’s hand again and tightly held it. “Oh, my God,” he said and chuckled. “You’re the worst!”
“You love it,” Jamie murmured. The machine next to him whirred and he made a face. “No, not again…”
“Shh, it’s just morphine,” Chris replied, again stroking back Jamie’s hair. “You just sleep. I’m right here.”
He watched as Jamie’s eyelids shut again as the morphine flooded his system, chest rising and falling gently. Chris stood and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you,” he whispered, touching his cheek to the soft dark hair.
“You know, by rights, I should get Secret Service to haul your ass out of here.”
For the second time that day, Chris looked up to find President Barratt standing in the doorway. He straightened hastily and wiped his face but kept his gentle grasp on Jamie’s right hand.
“You do what you have to do, ma’am,” he replied.
She studied him from across the room, her expression blank and her arms crossed over her chest. After a moment, she let them drop and walked forward, standing next to him. “It wouldn’t do any good if I did,” she murmured.
Chris glanced at her, but she didn’t raise her eyes from Jamie’s face.
“He has three cracked ribs and a fractured radius on his left side—nothing too terrible. Apart from keeping him doped up, there isn’t much they can do for him apart from prescribe some bed rest, so they’re discharging him in the morning and I’m taking him back to DC. He’ll be glad to get off the morphine, even if he suffers because of it.”
Chris nodded, his mouth dry. He could only imagine how awful it must be for Jamie every time that machine injected more of the potent painkiller into his arm. How much did it feel like the heroin that had been forced into his veins a few months earlier by Brett Reiss? Chris hoped that the man was on the other side of the earth, because if he ever saw Reiss’s face, he would beat the life out of it.
“I apologize for my outburst this morning,” President Barratt said, breaking Chris’s train of thought.
“There’s no need to apologize, ma’am…”
“Yes, there is,” she interjected. “I was harsh, more to my son than to you, but I still apologize for it. I thought I had another one out to exploit him at his most vulnerable, but I’ve heard and seen enough this afternoon to be persuaded otherwise.”
Chris looked at her again, hardly daring to breathe. “Ma’am?”
President Barratt finally tore her eyes away from her son’s face and focused on Chris. Her expression wasn’t full of warmth or forgiveness, but it wasn’t the look of complete betrayal he had seen this morning.
“This isn’t the time or place for this discussion, Agent Roberts,” she said finally. “We’re going back tomorrow, so I’ll have somebody drive you back to the Hamptons and you can collect your things. I’ll ask Natalie to schedule an appointment in the next couple of days where we can talk properly.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Chris replied, recognizing his cue to leave. He gave Jamie one last kiss on the forehead and let go his hand, fighting back tears again as he left the room.
Jamie was going to be okay. Whatever happened from here on out, Jamie was going to be okay.
Chapter 21
Chris felt very peculiar being back in his apartment. It was too empty, too small—nothing like the Barratt’s house in the Hamptons with Jamie and Boomer and the giant bed they had slept in that was neither too soft nor too firm. He hated waking up alone, hated watching movies by himself, and hated that Jamie wasn’t there to steal a fry from his plate when Chris’s attention was focused elsewhere. He tried to go for a run, but that just made him think about Jamie, too, and the morning jogs they had taken on the beach.
He was on his own for only a day, but it was the longest and loneliest day of his life. He was pining and it was pathetic, made worse by the fact that Jamie wasn’t answering his texts, and the more messages Chris sent, the more desperate he became.
Natalie finally called him with an appointment time.
Chris dressed as smartly as he could in his best crisp suit and tie, determined to make the best impression on the president from the second he walked through the door. The last time he had done this was two years ago, where he had walked through the door and had to be checked through security and issued a visitor’s pass. All his credentials had been suspended for now.
Natalie met him after the checks and escorted him right to the door of the Oval Office before pulling him into a brief hug.
“Just be honest with her,” she said. “Lay all your cards on the table and she can take it or leave it. I hope it goes your way.”
She gave him a swift kiss on the cheek before spinning him around and rapping loudly on the door.
