Page 51 of The Senator

I went to the garage and grabbed the mop to clean up the mess I’d made by not taking off my shoes when I came inside. While I was cleaning up, Vani returned home, so I helped her carry things in from the car, and then she told me we needed to talk about something, so while I helped her put away groceries, she proceeded to explain to me that she’d decided to go to the new grocery store at Reston Town Center—where she ran into Blaire and Mitch.

“And, Spence, they were wearing matching wedding rings. Do you think they got married?”

“Fuck, probably. Sean said Blaire was screwing Mitch while we were each dating him, so who knows. I mean, Blaire was clearly out for himself, and if what Sean said was true about Mitch’s financial situation, then I could definitely see where Blaire would marry him for money.” My mood had gone from bad to worse.

“Who did Mitch work for before he came to work for you?” Vani put some plastic containers into the fridge. Clearly, we’d abandoned any thoughts of making sides ourselves without Nash there to oversee that we didn’t poison anyone.

“He worked for Representative Schneider from Ohio, but he was recommended to me by Judge Blackwell, my father’s old college buddy who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals. I ran into Blackwell at a bar association luncheon where we were both speaking, and we sat together to eat. I mentioned Tina was leaving, and he told me about Mitch.”

We puttered around the kitchen for a while, me opening the mail, while Vani stacked her last-minute gifts under the tree. She came back into the kitchen with a sad smile on her face. “I wish Nash was here. It feels empty without him.”

That reminded me that I was supposed to Skype with him. “Shit! He called just as you came home. I was supposed to get on Skype with him.”

I glanced at the clock to see an hour had gone by. What a jackass I was to forget about him.

“He’s been waiting an hour.” I hurried upstairs to try to get him on Skype. I quickly logged into my account, seeing five notifications of a missed call. I tried to call back, but it went unanswered, so I reached for my cell, seeing it was dead, yet again.

I quickly went in search of a charger, finding the plug where mine usually resided was empty. “Vani!” I bellowed.

“What?” she yelled back, which made me laugh. Old habits would die hard.

I ran downstairs, nearly busting my ass on the slick hardwood in my socked feet. I found her in the laundry room folding towels. “Can you call Nash? He was waiting for me to Skype, and I missed him. My phone’s dead, and my charger is missing!”

Vani sighed and went to her purse, retrieving her phone and turning it to me. “Mine’s dead as well. Let me plug it in and try to call him. How could you forget?”

“You came in with groceries and… Don’t start, Vanessa. Just call him, please.” Vani called again, and it went to voicemail. She called a few more times, but again, all the calls went to voicemail.

“What should I do?” My heart was clenching at the fact I’d forgotten Nash needed to talk to me. Vani showed up, and I completely blew him off, which was a horrible thing to do to the man I loved.

Vani shook her head. “You’re so bad at this, Spence.”

“Yeah, well, you wanted to talk to me, and you’re my…” My mouth snapped shut.

Vani gave me a gentle smile. “Not anymore, Spencer. You have a new priority, and he’s probably wondering what happened to you.” She’d plucked the thoughts from my brain.

She unplugged her phone and reached out her hand, where I placed my phone, watching her plug it in with her charger. I remembered mine was in the Navigator, which was with Nash. Damn, I had to get better at being a partner to the man, especially if I wanted him to stick around.

I’d been calling Nash’s cell phone for hours, though it seemed like days! Vani, Cole, and Jay had attended the bell concert, and after they returned home, we heated up a couple of frozen pizzas and ate together, while they told me about the concert. After, we went to the family room to relax with a Christmas movie—or so I thought. The rest of them found something else to do.

Vani pulled out the family photo albums to share photos of Christmases past with Cole. The pictures of Jay as a kid had me ready to cry as I looked at the young man that my son had grown to be. I was proud of him, and seeing how well he treated Cole, I knew he’d be a great boyfriend to the young man.

After everyone went to bed, I walked into the master and stared at the king-sized bed I’d grown accustomed to sharing with Nash. I knew his scent was on the sheets, but without him there, playing the part of my own personal bed warmer, it looked like a lonely island.

I went to the den and grabbed a book from the shelves that I hadn’t read in years, and I sat down in the leather recliner, not turning on the television so as not to disturb the sleeping folks in the house.

I opened the old Zane Grey novel I’d had since high school. It had been a Christmas gift from my parents when I was fifteen and developed an affinity for the writer, mostly because I was interested in a farm boy from school who spoke the way Zane Grey’s characters spoke in the books. It was a leather-bound copy of a collection of short stories that were published in the late seventies, long after the writer had passed. When I saw the handwritten message inside it from my father, my heart seized with pain.

To my son—You are my biggest accomplishment! I’m proud of you every day, and I look forward to your successes, as much as I’ve enjoyed my own. Love, Dad

I felt the tears fall, and of course, I blamed the liquor I’d steadily consumed all evening. No, it wouldn’t make anything better, but a little self-medicating hadn’t seemed like a bad idea.

I moved from the chair to the couch, my back starting to bother me from the snow shoveling I’d done with Jay earlier that day. If I wasn’t so fucking lazy, I’d get up and take a hot shower.

Hell, if Nash was home, we’d take a bath, but he wasn’t home, was he? He was spending the holiday with his biker friends. I didn’t like it one bit. There was something about that Denny guy that rubbed me the wrong way.

I prayed that whatever he’d wanted to talk to me about earlier had nothing to do with him wanting to leave me behind for that Denny character.

I was a lot of work, but maybe if I put in more effort? Hell, I owed him everything I had inside me. I knew he’d discussed with Vani how much damage his past could do to my reputation, but hell, I’d already annihilated it, so how much worse could it really get?

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