Page 12 of Where There's Smoke

“Part of the deal.” I shrugged. “Keep your distance from your staff, you’ll be seen as cold. Considering you’re a celebrity, that’s especially bad news, because it’ll look like your staff is too far below you to even get the time of day. If you know every staff member’s name, you’ll be seen as friendly and accessible, but gettoofriendly, and suddenly you’re having an affair with an unpaid staffer.” I paused. “Especially since your campaign is starting out with the emphasis on your rock-solid marriage, everyone and their mother is going to be sniffing around for a reason to call your relationship with Simone into question.”

Jesse’s posture tensed.

Roger laughed. “Somehow I don’t think Casey has a leg to stand on in that department.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “But that won’t stop him from trying to bring Jesse down to his level. Put them on an even playing field where relationships are concerned.”

Jesse didn’t relax in the slightest. “How do we deal with that?”

“By focusing on every positive angle we can. Your solid relationship, your credentials, things like that. What we’re not going to do is get on the smear-campaign bandwagon with Casey. Most opponents like to harp on Casey’s personal issues, but that can backfire. Smear campaigns are effective, but it’s too easy for them to makeyoulook bad. That, and voters are sick and fucking tired of finger-pointing and mudslinging. We stick to the issues and the reasons you’re the best candidate while Casey tries to smear you, it’ll just make you look good. For that matter, bullying is a touchy issue for people right now. If we sit back and let Casey rip you to shreds while you take the high road, he’ll just make himself look like a petty schoolyard bully, which will work in our favor.”

“So, what if Casey doesn’t go for the smear-campaign tactic?” Jesse asked.

“Oh, he will. He always does. I don’t think he knows any other way to campaign. And I assure you, he’ll do everything he can to find anything he canabout you. So, if you have anything in your past he might dig up, I don’t care if it’s a speeding ticket when you were sixteen or a joint that was smoked while you were in the same room when you were in college, now is the time to tell me. You won’t like me if I get blindsided by something that Casey can use against you.”

Roger and Jesse exchanged a brief look that turned my stomach.Oh, God, Jesse. What are you hiding?

“Anything, Jesse.” I shot his uncle a glare.So help me, if you know something…

Jesse fidgeted, coughing into his fist. “Well, I… You’ve probably heard what the tabloids said about me during my college years.”

“I’m familiar with what they’ve said, yes.” Not that I’d spent half the night looking up every word that had ever been printed about him. Or every photo that had ever been published of—“How much of that was true?”

“Most of it,” he said with a casual shrug. “Yes, I flunked out of two classes my freshman year because I drank and partied too much. Yes, I slept with a lot of women. Yes, I nearly got expelled because of my grades.”

“Though he straightened out,” Roger said. “Took an extra semester to graduate, but…”

I nodded. “Good to know. Casey and the media might have a field day with some of that, but you still graduated with a reasonably solid GPA and then went on to do well in law school. And you made it through without using your father or uncle’s influence, yes?” I raised my eyebrows, hoping he heard the unspokenthe only right answer here isyes.

“Yes,” Jesse said without hesitation. “Just needed a year and a half or so to get it all out of my system, I guess.”

“Anybody asks you about it—interviewers, reporters, whatever—just be straightforward and honest about it. Don’t deny it; don’t dress it up. Got it?”

Jesse nodded.

“And the women you were with,” I said, not envying every last one of themat all, “anything there that might come back and bite you?” I looked him in the eye as if even the slightest avoidance of eye contact might give away any of the thoughts Ididn’thave last night while Iwasn’tflipping through hundreds of pictures of him online.

Resting his elbow on the armrest, Jesse chewed his thumbnail. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“No girls having abortions or illegitimate kids?”

“No,” he said with a hint of frost in his tone. “Never.”

“What about intoxicated girls? Inebriated to the point they might—”

“I have never touched someone who couldn’t give consent,” he snapped.

I put up a hand. “Jesse, I’m not implying anything. This is the shit people are going to dig for.”

He took a breath and released it slowly. “I never had any problems with women. I drank and partied, but I never combined that with meeting women. Any girl I was ever with was as sober as I was.”

“Good to know. What about drug abuse?”

Color bloomed across Jesse’s pronounced cheekbones. “I…had a bit of a coke habit.”

“Define ‘a bit of’ and ‘habit’ in this context.”

“It was a few months in high school. I tried all kinds of shit, got kind of heavily into coke for the last part of my senior year.” He shrugged. “Never did it again after that. Still smoked pot for a while, but dropped that about the time I quit drinking in college.”

---