“And your parents never come to DC?”
“Nope. They have no desire to. And I despise flying, so I don’t go back to Nebraska more than I have to. I hold video conferencing with constituents at my office there while I’m here. I’ve framed it as saving their tax dollars. My staff out there reminds them that with my ‘disability,’ travel is trickier for me.” He wears that playful smirk I know will be my undoing. “I hate using that as an excuse, but it works in my favor.”
We sit there, me massaging his scalp as we gaze into each other’s eyes and talk. I can’t remember the last time I did this with someone.
I could talk to him all night.
“What’s your big goal?” I eventually ask. “Long-term?”
“You’re going to think it’s silly.”
“No, I won’t, pet. I swear.”
He nuzzles me again, like he’s having trouble believing I’m really here.
Or maybe he’s having trouble believing he’s here. “I always said I’d run for president one day. The longer I’m here, though, in DC, I’m not sure if that’s what I really want.”
“No rush to decide that.”
“I know.” He closes his eyes and presses his lips to my flesh. “I’ll run for re-election next year, and if they send me back, I’ll work my butt off. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’m only thirty-one, so it’s not like I can run for president yet. I’ll see what happens over the next several terms. At some point, maybe I’ll run for the Senate. Once I’ve served one or two terms there, that’s when I’ll seriously think about whether I should try to run for president.”
“A test run first?”
He nods. “At least one. Maybe. If I decide to do that. Hardly anyone ever wins the first time out. Especially if they don’t know who you are. I’m a white guy from the Midwest. Like anyone’s going to really notice me the first time around.”
He’s wrong, though. He’s gorgeous, he’s brilliant, he’s got an economics degree, he’s a decorated combat veteran with a missing leg, and he’s a man of integrity.
Absolutely, people will notice him the first time around.
That simultaneously fills me with excitement…and fear.
Excitement, because my pet might very likely be POTUS, one day.
And fear…because unless he finds the nerve to come out before then, he probably won’t be my pet anymore when he runs.
That might very well break my heart.
Chapter Twelve
Now
As we ride over to Capitol Hill with a couple of his staff, I peruse the day’s White House mess menu. “Mr. Woodley, here are today’s lunch choices.” Yes, he could order whatever he wants from the kitchen, but he prefers to order from the daily menu instead of asking for special treatment.
It’s one of the things I love about him. His years in Washington haven’t turned him jaded or conceited. He’s still a sweet guy, a common man uncomfortable with special attention paid to him.
I list several choices, starting with the one I want him to eat. He’s horrible about eating right when he’s stressed and I’m not around to make him eat, and I want to get some healthy food in him today. He’ll need it. He’s probably defaulted to cereal for dinner several nights over the past week, if I know him.
And I do know him.
This is another of our secret dances. He is well aware that the first menu item I list is what I’ll order for him, whether he asks for it or not. He has the chance to shake his head when I say that, if he really doesn’t want it, but that rarely happens.
He nods. “A salad and the meatloaf, please, Leo.”
“Yes, sir.” I send the kitchen a text for his order and mine, an approximate time to deliver it to Elliot’s office, and that I’ll confirm the timing with them right before he’s ready to leave the Senate to return to the White House.
He’ll prefer to eat in private instead of at the Capitol, although I’m sure he’ll receive several lunch invitations today. At least he can use today’s trip as an easy excuse for not staying and eating there.
Preparations to make, you know. Things to do before he leaves. Busy, busy, busy.
After we arrive, I drop back so staff can talk to him and I follow, peeling off to wait once he’s in the Senate chamber. I’m an expert at blending in with the wallpaper. Part of my job is to focus solely on Shae—or on Elliot, in this case—and not be noticed by anyone else.
Which allows me the chance to observe and gather intelligence I can pass on to Elliot or Shae, or sometimes even to Kev, depending on the situation.
One of my jobs as Elliot’s body man is to mind his phones. Which, today, leaves me juggling four phones, mine and his work and personal cells, because I’ve left our burners locked in his desk. Obviously, we don’t need them if we’re together.
He’s not on the Senate floor more than ten minutes when I feel his personal phone buzz in my right pocket. I quietly excuse myself and step out to the cloakroom, where I can check it.
Thanks to Caller ID, I know it’s his sister, Stella.
Silently groaning, I answer. Maybe it’s something I can deal with for him, rather than him having to engage with her later. “Vice President Woodley’s phone.”
“Who is this?” I see her biting, snarky tone remains untempered with time or experience.
“This is Leo Cruz. I’m monitoring Vice President Woodley’s phone while he’s unavailable.”
An exasperated sigh grates against my eardrum. “Well, get him. I need to talk to him.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but he is currently unavailable. He’s—”
“Ha. I seriously doubt that. He’s been ducking me for a week. Get him. Now. I want to talk to him.”
Hmm. This will be a later topic of discussion with my pet once we’re alone and I can ask him about it. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but he’s—”
“You fricking heard me. And I want your name again. He’s my brother. I’ll get you fired. Get him. Now.”
Whelp, I’m done being nice. “Are you near a TV?”
“What? Why?”
I grit out the words between clenched teeth. “Are. You. Near. A. TV?”
She hesitates, not used to people challenging her. She’s met me several times, but she likely won’t remember me because, to her, I’m just another suit-and-tie flunky. “Yes, why?”
“Put it on C-SPAN.”
Then I hang up on her.
Fuck her.
Stella Woodley is three years younger than Elliot and was spoiled rotten as a child. Unfortunately, she never grew out of that stage. She’s currently employed by a very conservative organization that, on its surface, appears to be a non-profit foundation which works for educational reform.
However, that’s not their true purpose. The dark-money billionaire backers who fund the organization are fundamental Evangelicals who want a return to a religious-based public education. Among the organization’s goals are banning the teaching of evolution from schools in favor of teaching creationism, diverting federal funding toward church-run private charter schools, that kind of bullshit.
The people Stella works for are also involved ears-deep with the people who are responsible for putting on the National Prayer Breakfast every year, a shadowy religious group of supposedly “loosely affiliated” people who sure as hell manage to coincidentally do some pretty shady shit together on the regular under the umbrella of “prayer groups.” I’ve managed to keep Elliot far away from them ever since I met him, because they’d love to get their hooks into him, I’m sure.
Oooh, yes, believe me, I’ve researched the hell out a lot of things over the years, have my fingers on a lot of pulses. One of the benefits of my particular profession.
Stella’s also a hypocrite of the biggest order but apparently loves that dark money flowing her way. In another of her gigs, she serves as the campaign manager for her best friend, US Representative Grace Martin. Grace ran for and won Elliot’s old seat from Kraige Panley, the conservative Democrat who was appoin
ted to it after Elliot stepped down to run with Shae. The guy served two terms before Grace won it, when he was running for his third term.
A Republican, Grace has been accused plenty of times of being a RINO, and she is liberal in some ways. Because she’s Stella’s best friend, and because she did seem to be far more liberal than the incumbent back then, Elliot indirectly endorsed her over her Democratic rival when she ran the first time, mostly because she claimed to be pro-choice and the incumbent was pro-life. It wasn’t an explicit endorsement, but he attended a campaign dinner for her in Nebraska, which was seen by everyone as tacit approval, and pushed her ahead just enough in the polls to help her win over Panley in a real squeaker that pissed off the DCCC and DNC in Nebraska.
Fortunately, Elliot being VPOTUS helped the national party quash the state org’s whining.
Elliot flat-out told them to front a better candidate the next time, one who would stand up for the rights of women.
That wasn’t the incumbent’s only short-coming. Kraige Panley, it turns out, had a DUI, a personal bankruptcy, and some whispered innuendo about recent sexual harassment in his background. The last item didn’t emerge until just weeks before the election where Grace beat him, and those rumors were never fully verified.
Voters were willing to overlook financial issues, and personal issues, but the married father of four was torpedoed when it looked like maaaaabye he was a louse.
In retrospect, Panley was a better congressman, because at least the House Majority Whip could keep him in line with the rest of the caucus. While he would sometimes break ranks to vote with the GOP about things like abortion, he only did so to make a moral statement when his vote really didn’t matter one way or the other, and the majority leadership gave him cover. When his vote was really needed, he voted with the Dems.
Grace seemingly enjoys being courted by both parties. I think sometimes she votes the way she does just to fuck with people and keep them on their toes, not because she firmly believes in something. Initially, Grace said all the right things to win over voters from both sides of the aisle. She certainly seemed to be a great purple candidate. Unfortunately, she has a nasty habit of unexpectedly throwing her hat in with some of the far-right lawmakers to stymie key votes where her more liberal backing of a bill might help it pass.
At least she’s fucked over the GOP in the same way, when it seems to suit her. There was apoplectic howling from the GOP when she sided with the Dems over gun control legislation, when she’d received an A- rating from the nearly defunct NRA. It’s almost like the more she’s being counted on to vote a certain way, that will almost guarantee a last-minute reversal on her part, usually accompanied by heavy press coverage and many cable news network interviews with her.
Like she’s specifically courting the attention.
For reasons I have yet to put my finger on, it bothers me that Stella is in so deep with Grace. I suppose it would make sense if Grace was a conservative ideologue but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
I had to put keeping close tabs on Stella on a back burner once I started working for Shae. Stella’s based out of Indianapolis, but she makes frequent trips to DC and elsewhere for work.
Supposedly.
Still, I’m not sure why Stella’s so loyal to someone who’s such a political disrupter and who has no problems voting in ways contrary to what Stella’s employers are trying to accomplish.
It doesn’t make sense, and maybe I need to pay closer attention to their relationship.
On the surface, there’s nothing Stella’s done that would derail Elliot’s hopes for becoming POTUS.
Below the surface, however, when one delves deep, and especially when one combs through the past…
Let’s just say I’ve never told Elliot what lies beneath that particular iceberg. He doesn’t need to know, and it serves no good purpose telling him at this time.
There are a lot of things I haven’t told Elliot over the years, because he really doesn’t need the knowledge stressing him out. Not just about Stella, either. I only tell him what he needs to know to keep him safe and on the right side of history.
If Stella wants to strong-arm Elliot into stumping for Grace because the woman’s thinking about running for the Senate, or some shit like that, she’s going to be sorely disappointed.
Elliot’s personal phone rings again.
I don’t bother being polite when I answer. “Did you have a message for me to give the vice president?”
“You could have told me he was on the floor.”
“I said he was unavailable.”
“Did I mention he’s my brother?”
“Caller ID told me that. Anything else?”
She hesitates, my obvious lack of fear or obsequious groveling quite apparent to her. I’ve heard that she loves tossing around her status as Elliot’s sister to anyone who’ll listen. “Who the hell are you?”
“If you don’t have a message for me to pass to him, I’m hanging up on you again.”
“Who the hell do you think you—”
“Good-bye.” I thumb the end button.
Damn, that feels good.
She’s really the only person I get to do this with because of the circumstances. I know it’ll make Elliot smile when I tell him. Normally, he ignores her, unless it’s a family thing he can’t get out of during the holidays. Since Shae’s election, he’s been able to have his family come to Washington to visit him, because he uses the excuse that it’s too inconvenient—and expensive to the taxpayers—to risk moving him around the country during a busy travel season. And that he doesn’t want to inconvenience other travelers.
It also means they don’t usually stay with him. The four attic bedrooms are not set up for guests, a deliberate decision on his part. So he can have the photo ops with his family but doesn’t have to put up with his parents and sister for more than a few hours at a time before he ships them off to Blair House.
When his parents actually make the trip. It’s not uncommon for them to beg off and cite being unable to get away from their farm. Elliot will sometimes give them the easy out, too, hinting that he’ll have a really busy schedule and not much time to spend with them. They hate the public scrutiny they receive as the parents of the vice president.
Unlike Stella, who eats it up.
The truth is, Elliot really doesn’t want to go “home,” because Nebraska doesn’t feel like home to him, and hasn’t ever since we met. Don’t think he ignores his parents, though. He video chats with them several times a week, and talks to them on the phone. So it’s not like he never has contact with them.
Besides, during the holidays, if Jordan and I aren’t visiting my family in California—
I blink back an unexpected prickle of tears over that thought. Toying with Stella today has been a great distraction from the real source of my anger and pain.
For the past several years, I’ve engaged in a carefully choreographed deception during the major holidays. Usually, Jordan and I end up spending it with Elliot, either just before or just after—sometimes the day of—depending on how things work out and whether Shae’s traveling. I don’t want either of my boys to be alone, if I can help it.
This year will be different, I suppose.
No Jordan to take into consideration. My poor boy might end up being alone for the first time in seven years, and—
I angrily shove that thought out of my head.
Jordan’s an adult, even if he’ll always be “mine” in my heart and soul. I can’t seem to release him, even though I know I should. I’m always going to worry about him. I can’t help that—I love him.
Stella calls back.
My, she’s a glutton for punishment today. I’m in a shitty enough mood that my sadist is happy to oblige.
“Elliot Woodley’s phoOOONNnnnne,” I answer in an annoyingly upbeat, sing-song voice designed to painfully scrape across her eardrums like nails on a chalkboard.
“Listen, smart-ass. Enjoy this shit
while it lasts, because it’s your last day on the job.”
I snort. “Considering I’m on loan today to Vice President Woodley from President Samuels, because I’m usually her body man, and I’m good friends with President Samuels’ husband, and with her chief of staff, I think it’s safe to say you are wrong about that. Oh, and I happen to be best friends with Vice President Woodley.
“But if it makes you feel better to act like a stuck-up bitch, go right ahead and call about me and tell them I hurt your feelings. You’re never going to push me around, or make me kiss your ass, buttercup. Last name’s Cruz. C-R-U-Z. First name’s Leo. I’m retired Secret Service, by the way. Served with Mr. Bruunt. As in President Samuels’ husband.”
At least she’s paying attention now. After a long moment, when she finally speaks, her tone sounds subdued and respectful. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cruz. Please tell Elliot I called and ask him to call me at his earliest convenience.”
“Good girl. That’s much better. I’ll tell him you called.” I hang up.
That’ll piss her off, I’m sure, which helps improve my mood somewhat.
I’ve dealt with her kind before. When you can prove you’re dealing from a position of power far superior to their own, they usually fold like newspaper.
By the time Elliot’s finished in the Senate, I see the strain of maintaining his Vice President Woodley costume is wearing heavily on my boy, more so than usual.
Guilt hits me, because he’s in misery thanks to me.
I fucked up.
Over the years, I’ve fucked up in a multitude of ways both great and small but this, right now, is absolutely mine to own.
For obvious reasons, I don’t tell him about Stella’s call yet. I’ll wait to do that until we’re on Air Force Two. I’ll have him return her call tonight and monitor it so that I can pull him off it if she tries to rope him into something.
Indiscretion (Inequitable Trilogy Book 1) Page 11