Page 25 of Bi-Partisan

“What is your gut telling you right now? Don’t think. Just answer.”

“I want to do it,” I admit. “I want to help him. I just don’t know why.”

“Do you need to know why?” he asks.

“Have you met me?” I ask sarcastically. I don’t need to see him to know he’s rolling his eyes.

“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “If you really need an answer, my guess as to why would be because you’re a helper. You became a vet because you wanted to help animals. You volunteer at animal shelters. You run marathons for charity because despite your general dislike of people as a concept, at your core, you still want to do something to help them. The congressman needs your help, so of course you want to help him.”

The answer makes sense on paper, but something about it doesn’t feel like it’s getting at the whole truth. But I’m way too emotionally drained to come up with a better one, so I’m going with it. “Yeah, you make a good point.”

“When did you say you’d get back to him?”

“By tomorrow morning,” I say.

“Then I would try to go to bed and see how you feel when you wake up. You sound exhausted, and thinking about it anymore won’t get you anywhere,” he reasons.

“That’s a good idea.” I take a deep breath to regulate myself. “Thanks, Case.”

“You’re welcome. Get some sleep.”

“I will,” I promise. “Bye.”

After I hang up, I stare at my phone for a moment. I should probably do what Casey said—what I wanted to do before I called him. But what he said about listening to my gut and wanting to help rings in my ears. My gut is saying that I want to do this, and I don’t often have gut feelings, so maybe I should just listen to it.

I take another deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, before I can change my mind, I text Jamie.

Chapter 9

Jamie

Song: CHRONICALLY CAUTIOUS – Braden Bales

There’s a quiet knock on my office door, followed by Mina’s muffled voice. “Sir?”

“Come in,” I call as I sit up from my office couch that’s barely big enough for me to lie down on.

She pokes her head through a crack in the door. “Riley made a pot of coffee. Do you want some?”

“Last I checked, getting me coffee wasn’t on your list of job duties,” I say as I scrub a hand over my face, trying to wake myself up a bit from the half nap Mina had all but forced me to take an hour ago. I try not to make a habit out of napping in my office, especially at 11:00 a.m. Some congresspeople don’t care, sometimes practically living out of their offices, but it’s always felt unprofessional to me. I’m barely functioning on nine hours of sleep spread across the past two days, though, so when Mina gently shoved me into my office after spacing out for the fifth time, I didn’t fight her on it. I didn’t fully fall asleep, but at least my headache is gone.

“No, but it falls perfectly within friendship duties,” she says.

I offer her a tired smile. “No, thanks. As much as I want the caffeine, it’ll probably make me feel sick—or sicker.”

She nods, and I can tell she wants to say something about that, but instead lets the comment drop as she slips into the room and closes the door behind her with a soft click. She makes her way over to the couch and sits, one leg tucked under her, pivoted to face me. “I wanted to check in before Adrian gets here.”

“Has something happened in the past hour that makes us need to change the plan?” My heart rate kicks up a notch, and now I’m wide awake.

“No, we’re good on that front,” she assures me. “I more meant check in to see how you’re doing. We haven’t really had a chance to talk.”

“Oh.” I shift to match her posture, relaxing a little. “I’m fine, considering,” I say with a shrug.

She levels an unamused look at me.

“I’m not minimizing anything,” I say defensively. “I just haven’t really had time to process things yet. I’m too on-edge.”

It’s why I haven’t slept. The only time I’ve felt any sort of reprieve from that was last night while I was at Adrian’s. His presence calmed something in me—barely, but enough that I felt like I could breathe. I’m not going to admit that to her, though.

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