Page 95 of Forged By Sacrifice

She sank down onto the couch next to me, but she didn’t respond. She watched the TV screens instead.

“Turner is such an idiot,” she said, referring to the talk show on Fox with a senator from the Midwest.

I couldn’t disagree. He was. They all were. Every fricking politician I’d met this week had been an idiot.

Dani made a disgusted sigh and then turned to me. “Where’s Georgie?”

I shrugged.

“What happened with you two last night?” she asked.

What had happened? Everything. Nothing. The most amazing sex I’d ever had, which seemed stupid and cliché but true. We’d fit. Our movements never once awkward or out of place. It had been harmony.

“Why do you have clothes at Russell’s?” I asked instead of answering her.

She stared at me.

“You don’t want to talk about that,” I said as she grimaced. “I don’t want to talk about it either.”

We assessed each other for a moment. Would we both give in and share, like we normally shared everything, or would we hold our nights close to our chests for the moment?

“What did Fenway’s aide say about the gun bill?” She moved on to work.

“It’s exhausting,” I told her.

“What?”

“There’s never a moment of just ‘enjoy.’ There’s always something in the undertone or the subliminal message that I’m supposed to know the jargon for and don’t.”

“You’ll get used to it. But what did he say?”

“That, while the current proposal was heavy on automatic weapons, it felt like it was missing a key component of licensing that his constituents might want to see in something so drastic.”

“That little shit.”

“Wait…what?”

“That’s just code that Fenway is going to put together his own proposal. What an ass. After all we did last term to support their clean water bill.”

“See. This is exactly what I mean. Why doesn’t anyone just say what the fuck they mean?”

“Is this not about Fenway? Is this about Georgie?” Dani frowned.

“No, Georgie said exactly what she meant. I just don’t agree with it.”

“Ah-ha!” Dani looked pleased that she’d gotten me to say something about Georgie and me.

“I’m not cut out for this,” I groaned, leaning my head back on the couch.

I could feel her watching me for a few moments before she spoke.

“Rob?Mac, I know I’ve been teasing, but I truly believe you could make a difference in this town. You have the whole package. It just takes some time to get used to it. You were in the military, where everything was pretty black and white, for years, and you’ve only been at this a few weeks. It’ll come together for you.”

I looked at her to make sure she wasn’t yanking my chain in that typical way my sisters did, but she wasn’t. She was serious. I just wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it after the shitstorm this week had been. “Thanks. The military had lots of politics, too. I guess I was just used to the subtext that they had running beneath their conversations.”

She nodded.

“I’m going to go shower,” she said, rising from the couch. She sniffed in my general direction. “Maybe you should, too.”

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