Page 65 of Bi-Partisan

“I can show you to my bedroom, so you can put your stuff down and change out of your scrubs,” I offer.

“Actually, would you mind if I use your shower? I kind of smell like animal,” he says with a slight grimace.

“Yeah, of course. I can order dinner while you’re in there,” I suggest.

He smiles. “That sounds perfect.”

Forty minutes later, we’re cuddled up on my couch in lounge clothes with Chinese takeout containers spread out on the coffee table.

“What do you want to watch?” he asks as he portions chicken fried rice into a bowl.

I take a deep breath and hold it. Might as well get this out of the way. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to you about something,” I say carefully.

His body immediately goes tense, and I mentally curse myself.

That sounded a bit ominous. “Something good, I promise—at least, I hope you think it is,” I add quickly.

He relaxes a little and pivots to face me, abandoning his food for a moment. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s about next month’s break,” I start, and he nods to continue. “I initially wanted to try to spend at least a few days here, maybe a week, so we could actually spend some time together, seeing as I won’t be in session. But I dropped a bit in the polls, so I kind of have to go home for all of August.”

His shoulders slump a little. “Oh. Do you know why you dropped in the polls?”

“Mina thinks it’s because of the rhetoric Mitchell keeps spewing about my loyalty to the district,” I say, semi-reluctantly because I know he’ll probably read between the lines and realize it’s about him. “But both poll results were within the margin of error, so really it could be any number of things. No matter the reason, the race is close, and since there’s only four months until the election, I need to start putting a lot of focus on campaigning—events, meeting with constituents, making sure people are registered to vote.”

He nods. “I understand. When would you be leaving?”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I say, smiling. “I was hoping that maybe you could come with me for a few days.”

“You want me to go home with you?”

I nod. “If you can get the time off work. I know your schedule might already be set.”

“It is, but I can try to trade shifts with one of the other doctors, depending on how long.”

“Well, it would actually be more like the end of July—the 28th through August 2nd. So Thursday through Tuesday.”

“Would this be for campaign purposes?” he asks tentatively.

“Yes and no. Mostly, I just want to show you around Raleigh. I blocked off Friday through Sunday and told both Ben and Mina to consider me unreachable unless it’s an emergency. If it’s alright with you, there is one campaign thing I’d want you to go to with me.” I reach out to briefly brush our fingers together. “But I’m not going to force you to go, so if you don’t want to, all you have to do is say so. I still have to go, obviously. But if you wanted to venture around Raleigh by yourself while I’m at the farm, or even head back to DC that morning before I go, that would be fine.”

“The farm?”

“Yeah, it’s a tour and photo-op at a rescue goat farm I helped apply for a federal grant for last year. But I kinda thought that out of all the campaign trail things I could bring you along for, that would appeal to you the most,” I explain.

His face softens in the way I’ve come to notice it always does when he talks about animals or his job. “I don’t think I’ve been to a farm since my large-animal rotation in vet school.”

“Does that mean you want to go?” I ask, barely keeping the hope out of my voice.

“Well, I agreed to go to things like that when we started this charade, even if things are a little different now,” he points out.

“Yes, but I also promised that you wouldn’t have to do anything that was out of your comfort zone,” I counter. “I know how things started out between us, but now that we’re real, whatever agreement we had in the beginning is effectively null for me. From here on out, we can just pretend we started dating like two normal people, and you can be involved as much or as little as you want.”

“Except you’re still a politician, Jamie. Even if we’d started dating under more normal circumstances, wouldn’t there still be an expectation that I make public appearances?”

“Fuck expectations,” I say, even though I know he has a point.

“How big of an event is it?” he asks.

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