Page 156 of Catfish

Because in the darkness is where I know myself the best.

? Locked Out of Heaven — Bruno Mars ?

Smile.

That’s all I could seem to do when she wasn’t looking at me when we left the small diner outside of town. Where I knew the press wouldn’t get to in time if this little town even watched politics at all to recognize who I am. It was a risk I was willing to take if it means a few moments with her.

You have one hell of a smile, Governor.

She was one hell of everything all wrapped in a black dress with eyes that glimmered so brightly with amusement and untroubled thoughts that it was hard not to. It was difficult not to do a lot of things while she sat across from me, eating like a starved man and closing her eyes at the first bite of her pancakes.

I wanted to be a lot of things in my life, less closed off, not too pissy at the world, but at that moment, I wanted to be a fork.

Yes, a fork because I’d be close to her mouth again.

Locked out of Heaven by Bruno Mars blares through my speakers as she sings along—loudly. Moving her shoulders side to side and snapping her fingers, her window is cracked open as we cruise through the night and back to her car at the restaurant.

I don’t want this night to end.

Don't want to go back to my real life because, right now, I don't feel like Wade Lockwood, the governor of Connecticut, possible future president of the United States. I want to stay...me. The old me that was more relaxed and a little more reckless.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know this song, Governor,” Reagan yells over the music. “You’ll disappoint me.”

“Wouldn’t want to do that, Miss Shelton.”

Ever, actually.

The feeling of wanting to please her and see the way she smirks at me while trying to remain the hardcore woman that she is, makes me want to crack her lips into the action more often.

But I’m playing with the unknown.

Both with myself and my mask of Chase. I want her all the time. Our conversations, the way she looks like she wants to beat the shit out of me at times, when her violet irises glint with apprehension and fervor when I get a little too close.

Yeah, I haven’t lost that much of myself to know that Reagan would love nothing more than for me to pin her against a wall and claim her body in all the ways I know how and even some I would love to make up along the way.

“Un-American,” she bellows out, leaning her body forward in another dance move.

“I’m not singing this song,” I retort.

“You bring me to my knees, you make me testify,” she sings. “You can make a sinner change his ways...uh!”

“Still not happening.”

A few minutes later, after her song has ended and she wants to continue to torture the speakers of my car with an Adele song, we pull into the parking lot of the almost empty restaurant. She points to her car as I park in the spot next to hers, and she gathers up her things.

“Thanks for dinner, Governor,” she quips, opening up the car door. “I’ll see you probably tomorrow or the day after. Depending on what I need to bother you about next.”

She begins to unbuckle her seatbelt, but my hand stops her, landing on top of hers while fully aware that I shouldn't be touching her—alone, at night, at all.

“Come to Ohio with me,” I solicit, watching her eyes trail to my face.

Her brows furrow. “You want us to run away to Ohio?”

“No, I—”

“Because you couldn’t pick a better place like Wyoming or—”

“What’s with Wyoming?” I ask, then immediately backtrack because I’m not supposed to know that she likes it, Chase does. “There’s nothing great about that state.”

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