Where There's Smoke

by L. A. Witt

I narrowly avoided choking on the bite of waffle. Recovering quickly, I reached for my coffee cup and took a quick sip. “What?”

  Her forehead creased. “Is there something going on between you two?”

  “What—” I paused to clear my throat. “Why? What makes you think there is?”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Jess, I know you. Just…is there, or isn’t there?”

  I set my fork down. Resting my elbows on the table, I clasped my fingers loosely together above the waffle I probably wasn’t going to finish. “We’re…um…”

  She giggled softly and raised her head. “You know, I’ve never seen someone get you this tongue-tied. It’s cute.”

  My cheeks burned, and I dropped my gaze. Suddenly interested in my breakfast again, I picked up my fork but didn’t get any farther than just picking at the barely touched waffle.

  “I’m serious, Jess. And I…you know I won’t be mad.” A faint smile played at her lips. “I’d only be mad if you told me you’d taken up smoking.”

  “Taken up smoking?” I furrowed my brow. Then I remembered the way she’d looked at me in the airport yesterday after she’d kissed me. After I’d kissed Anthony. After he’d had a cigarette. Heat rushed into my cheeks, and I chuckled. “Okay, okay. Yeah, there is…I mean…” I gestured with my fork and shook my head. “Something going on, I guess.”

  “Something? You guess?” Simone raised her head, and the faint smile turned into a tired smirk. “Well, is there or isn’t there?”

  “I’m…not sure.” I sat back, tapping my fork against the plate. “Things are complicated.”

  Her humor faded. “Because of us?”

  “Yes and no. I mean, the election is the big one.” I sighed. “Kind of hard to find a moment’s privacy.”

  She looked around the room and shrugged with one thin shoulder. “You could always bring him in here.” Her eyes darted toward me, and she winked. “I’ll leave you two alone for a while.”

  I laughed, but it was forced. “I…don’t think I could do that. Kick you out so I…” I shook my head and watched myself pick at the waffle with my fork. “Thanks, but no.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Oh, it was tempting. I wanted Anthony bad enough I was willing to abandon tact and common sense to have him, but…no. I wouldn’t sleep with him at home while she was there, and I sure as hell wouldn’t kick her out of here. This was uncomfortable enough without adding a “don’t knock if there’s a scarf on the doorknob” clause to our arrangement.

  “Well, if you change your mind, just let me know.” She looked at her cell phone. “We still have some time before we have to go. I’m going to run to the gym downstairs and get in a quick workout.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but hesitated. Her eyes narrowed just enough to tell me she heard loud and clear what I didn’t say. We’d had this conversation enough times, we both knew the script.

  Are you sure you should be working out after—

  Jesse, back off.

  I’m just worried about you. I don’t want you to get sick or—

  I’m fine. Back off.

  I’d back off, she’d work out, and I’d spend the whole time hoping to God she didn’t pass out.

  Simone changed into her workout clothes and left the room. Alone in the silence, I sat back in my chair and pushed the cold waffle away. I didn’t eat any more. At least that meant my breakfast didn’t end up going the same way hers did.

  * * * *

  After that appearance together in San Diego, two in a row on the California side of Lake Tahoe, and a rally in Oakland, Simone and I once again had separate itineraries for a few days before we’d both return to LA for the primary. She flew out early in the morning, and I went straight from the airport to three back-to-back events. Rallies, dinners, speeches, interviews—I couldn’t even keep track anymore.

  “You know, everything on this campaign trail is starting to blur together,” I said to Anthony as we drove down the coast in the dark after yet another event.

  “They tend to do that.” Anthony dropped his phone into the console between us and sat back in the passenger seat. “And it’s just going to get crazier after the primary.”

  “Great. Assuming I win the primary, right?”

  “You’d damn well better win it. I didn’t work my ass off for you to lose this early in the game.”

  I glanced at him. A few weeks ago, that look might have made me gulp and fidget, but I just rolled my eyes and looked at the road again.

  “Well, at least Ranya will be back by the time the primary is over,” I said.

  “Don’t know why you let that girl take vacation time,” he said in a playfully stern voice. “How dare she?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “Better she goes on vacation now,” he said. “After the primary, you’re gonna need her.”

  “No shit.”

  “How are you holding up for now, though?” he asked. “I mean, in general, and with her being gone?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll manage. I’ve still got you to keep me in line and tell me where to be.”

  Anthony laughed. “Yeah, but I am not your assistant. Make no mistake.”

  “True. My assistant has a sense of humor and brings me fried chicken from time to time.”

  “Ugh.” Anthony shuddered. “Sense of humor? Check. Fried chicken? You’re on your own.”

  I clicked my tongue. “Man, what good are you?”

  “I’m keeping your campaign in some semblance of order.”

  “Order? This is order?”

  He chuckled. “Just be glad you don’t have a chaotic campaign to compare to this one. I assure you, your campaign is running smoothly and flawlessly as only a Hunter-managed campaign can.”

  I laughed. “So other candidates don’t have slave driver campaign managers to keep them on their toes and in line?”

  “Well, certainly not good-looking ones, anyway.”

  “Cocky son of a bitch.”

  “I don’t deny it.”

  We both laughed. The conversation dwindled, and after a while, we both fell silent. He pulled his phone out of the console to check his e-mail or something, and I stayed focused on driving. This was becoming the norm for us; especially when we were alone, we could only keep the bantering and small talk going for so long before frustration set in. Being out in the sticks like this, with no supervision and a few too many cheap motels along some of the more populated stretches, was dangerously tempting.

  I forced myself to think of anything but the man sitting next to me and the empty backseat behind us. As the highway wound into the night in front of my high beams, my mind drifted back to that morning with Simone in San Diego. If this campaign was worsening anything faster than the tension between Anthony and me, it was the very, very different tension between Simone and me. Three times since that morning in the hotel, I’d caught her making herself sick, but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Not without throwing gas on the fire. And every time I heard her retch behind a closed door, caught the scent of a breath mint, or noticed the shadows beneath her cheekbones and the cavernous depressions beneath her collarbones, the helplessness burrowed deeper.

  She fought a constant battle with this, but these severe episodes—when she threw up more than she kept down—usually only lasted a few weeks. The election and our divorce were still months away. Something had to give before then, or she’d do irreparable damage, if not kill herself.

  Something had to give, but damned if I knew what. If I dropped out of the election, the guilt would send her into a tailspin. Modifying her schedule, getting her out of the spotlight, or just getting the divorce over with now…if it didn’t stress her out, it would tip off the media. As it was, the media was waiting in the wings, frothing at the mouth for a scandal to tarnish my campaign, and the second the boat rocked, they’d be all over it. I couldn’t have cared less about how that would affect the campaign, but what would it do to her?

  �
��Jesse?”

  Anthony’s voice made me jump.

  “What? Sorry…”

  He gestured up ahead. “Our exit is coming up.”

  “It…” I glanced at a sign just before it whipped past us. “Oh. Thanks.”

  As I changed lanes, he said, “You all right? You kind of, I don’t know, spaced out there for a bit.”

  I swallowed. “I was just thinking.” Taking a deep breath, I held the wheel a little tighter. “Simone isn’t handling this well.”

  “She knows?”

  “What? No, I mean the election.” I paused, tapping my thumbs on the wheel. “But yes, she does know.”

  “She does?”

  I put up a hand. “Anthony, the woman can see right through me. I couldn’t lie to her if I wanted to, so when she suspected something was up…” I shrugged.

  “And she can be…” He paused. “She can be trusted with this?”

  “Absolutely. Divorcing or not, I’d trust the woman with my life.”

  “Good,” he murmured. “That said, define ‘isn’t handling this well.’”

  “She’s losing weight.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Isn’t there anything she can do?” He absently scratched his jaw as he looked at me in the low light. “See a therapist or something?”

  “If you can talk her into it,” I said. “Be my guest.”

  “How bad does this get?” he asked. “Forgive my ignorance here. This isn’t something I have any experience with.”

  “Depends. Sometimes she comes out of it on her own. Sometimes she ends up in the hospital.”

  “What kind…” He paused, clearing his throat. “What kind of hospital?”

  I glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Like, to treat her physically or…”

  “Mentally?”

  He nodded.

  “Either-or. She’s been near suicidal a few times, and she’s starved herself nearly to the point of organ failure before.” I sighed. Just this train of thought exhausted me. Simone and I had been down this road so many times, and it scared me every time she went through one of these episodes. I was helpless to stop her, powerless to help her, and I hated myself for being the one who drove her to it this time.

  “Answer me honestly,” he said. “Can she handle this campaign?”

  I rested my elbow below the window and rubbed my forehead. “Honestly? I don’t know. Sometimes I think she can, and sometimes I just don’t know.”

  Anthony was quiet for a long moment. “I didn’t realize her condition was this serious.”

  “It is.” I rubbed the back of my neck and blew out a breath. “The media likes to harp on the whole slant about her doing this to lose weight, buckling under societal pressures to be thin, which makes her sound shallow and weak. They couldn’t be farther from the truth. She’s a strong woman. Honestly she is. It’s just, sometimes she gets into these downward spirals, and it’s really, really hard for her to get out of it. It drives her crazy because she thinks that makes her weak or stupid or whatever, and the damned media just reinforces that every time they sink their teeth into this.”

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “And now we’re kind of between a rock and a hard place.”

  “How so?”

  “She’s already an active part of your campaign,” he said. “And thanks to your uncle’s harebrained idea about using your marriage as an election tool, she’s expected to be completely and visibly supportive of you. If she drops off the radar now, it’s just going to draw attention to her, which will ultimately draw attention to her condition.”

  “Which will only make things worse.”

  “Exactly,” he said with a slight nod. “I have to say, I admire you for being able to cope with all of that as gracefully as you have. Sounds like you’ve been a tremendous support for her.”

  “I’ve tried to be,” I said, barely whispering. “Which is why I feel so guilty about what she’s going through right now. It’s because of our marriage, me being gay, my campaign.” I sighed and thumped the wheel with the heel of my hand. “I’ve tried to help her and be there for her, but now I think I’m just making it worse.”

  “How does she feel about the divorce?”

  “At this point, I think it’ll be a relief. No more faking it, no more pretending to be the happy wife.”

  “And she knows. About us.”

  I nodded. “Guess that’s a little weird, isn’t it? Talking to you about my wife?”

  “Well, you two are pretty much married on paper only now, aren’t you?”

  “On paper. And in the press. And on TV.” I rolled my eyes. “But yeah, it’s over.”

  “Sorry to hear it.” He paused. “Are you…I mean, I know you two are done, but this…is whatever the hell we’re doing going to make things worse for her?”

  I shrugged as much as I could with all this weight on my shoulders. “She’s free to see other people too. It’s just this whole posing as a happy couple that she can’t deal with.”

  “I can imagine. But should we be doing this?”

  “We haven’t been doing anything.”

  “Not for lack of effort or desire. Right?”

  “Good point. And we probably shouldn’t, but…” I exhaled hard and shook my head. “Fuck, Anthony, I don’t want to rub anything in her face, and I wouldn’t have told her if I could have avoided it. But as far as continuing with this?” I glanced at him before shifting my gaze back to the dusty highway. “At the risk of sounding incredibly desperate, I need this.”

  “You’re not the only one, Jesse.”

  I glanced at him again, and the flicker of streetlights flying past us lit up his eyes enough to reveal his palpable hunger. I gripped the wheel tighter and stared at the road ahead.

  We passed a sign for a no-name, cheap motel. Then another. Just like the ones I’d used back east for the kind of anonymous sex on which roach motels thrived. Forty bucks and an hour or so could—

  No. No, it was too risky.

  Risky, but so, so tempting. It was bad enough just having the two of us out here in the car in the dark without Ranya or Roger or Simone to keep us apart. With just Anthony and me out here, nothing but good sense and fraying restraint kept us from paying cash for a room, slipping in an extra fifty for the clerk’s promise to be discreet, and just getting this out of our systems. Or, when the motels faded into the rearview and there was nothing but parking lots and side streets, it was all I could do not to pull off the highway, pull this car over, and pull him into the backseat.

  Rapid tapping worked its way into the otherwise silent darkness. I couldn’t see his hands, but I guessed Anthony was drumming his fingers on the armrest. He kept almost perfect time with my pounding heart, tapping out its frustrated cadence. I fidgeted. Then he did. I hadn’t been this wound up since the night I met him, and that was a very different kind of wound up.

  At that thought, I laughed softly.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Just thinking.” I glanced at him. “You really didn’t like me in the beginning, did you?”

  Anthony gave a quiet, almost self-conscious laugh. “Oh, it’s not that. You’re a risky candidate to promote, and I thought your uncle had shot you in the foot by having you do that interview up front. So I suppose you could say I didn’t start out with any kind of optimism. About you, the campaign, any of it. Was nothing personal.”

  I chuckled. “And here I thought you were put off by my irresistible charm.”

  Anthony laughed softly and slid his hand over my knee. I shivered, instinctively glancing around in case anyone might see. The darkness ensured we wouldn’t get caught, but contact, even something this platonically intimate, gave me a thrill.

  And before I could tell myself it would lead to no good, I put my hand over his. If I had a brain, I’d have just kept my hand there for a moment or two, then put it back on the wheel, but I didn’t. I didn’t want him lifting his away, and who was I ki
dding? I liked touching him. God, I loved it, no matter how much every second of warm contact eroded my restraint.

  Then Anthony broke the silence. “I’ve been going crazy,” he said, his voice low as if someone else might overhear. “I swear to God, if I don’t get you alone soon…”

  I shivered again, gripping the wheel tighter. “You’re not the only one.”

  He squeezed my leg. “I’m not kidding, if this—”

  He stopped abruptly when I made a sharp right turn down a side street.

  “Wait, where are you going?” he asked. “This is the wrong way.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  His hand tensed on my thigh, but he didn’t move it.

  Heart pounding, I turned down another side road. I loved these back roads in the middle of nowhere. No one was out this late at night, and there wasn’t a soul to catch me turning this dusty rental car off onto a deserted dirt road.

  “Jesse…”

  I stopped on the side of the road and killed the engine. Then the lights.

  Our eyes met in the darkness.

  He swallowed hard. “Jesse, what are we doing?”

  I said nothing. I just unbuckled my seat belt and leaned across the console.

  Anthony obviously figured it out, because he slid his hand around the back of my neck and met me halfway.

  And he kissed me.

  And restraint ceased to exist.

  Chapter Eleven

  Anthony

  This kiss was breathless and unrestrained, the type of kiss that had to lead to something more. Something we didn’t have time for—and couldn’t risk getting caught doing—and couldn’t wait another damned minute to do.

  Anthony. Anthony. Jesus Christ, what are you doing?

  I broke the kiss but didn’t let go of Jesse. Panting against his lips, running trembling fingers through his hair, I whispered, “You should know every time I kiss you, I’m that much closer to losing control.”

  “I want you to lose control,” he growled.

  “You want me to?” I closed my fingers around his hair, shifting in my seat in a futile effort to get comfortable when I was this hard. “Oh, you have no idea what you’re asking for, Jesse.”

  He shivered and pulled me closer. “I know exactly what I’m asking for,” he whispered and kissed me again.