Page 32 of Where There's Smoke

I barely kept myself from lashing back at him, but something in his voice gave me pause. Jesse wasn’t normally so defensive. Nothing flustered the man, nothing got under his skin, but this subject had his hackles up. As well it should, I supposed. I didn’t imagine he enjoyed playing the happy husband when his marriage was dead and gone.

I ran a hand through my hair and exhaled. Then I gestured sharply toward the door leading out to the veranda. “I need a cigarette.”

“Fine.”

I half expected him to stay inside and wait for me to have my smoke, but he got up and followed me out. I figured he wouldn’t want to continue the conversation until I’d gotten my fix and he’d had a chance to catch his breath or cool off, whatever he needed to do. But no, apparently we were doing this now.

I couldn’t get my fucking cigarette out fast enough. Fumbling with it and, subsequently, my lighter, I swore under my breath, desperate for that hit of nicotine. After a long, aggravating moment, everything cooperated. I held the flame to my cigarette, lit it, and set my lighter on the table as I pulled in that glorious lungful of smoke. Still watching him, trying to read his posture or his expression or something, I turned my head and exhaled.

Once the nicotine was safely working its magic on my nerves, I said, “How long has this been going on?”

He glared at me.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Look, I just want to know what I’m working with here.” I took another drag, a smaller one this time, and blew it out. “If this is some conclusion you two have come to recently, okay. Private matters are private matters. But is this going to come blindside me as something that’s been going on for months?”

“We’ve…” Closing his eyes, Jesse pinched the bridge of his nose and fell silent for a moment. Finally he drew a breath, opened his eyes, and kept his gaze fixed on the pool as he went on. “It’s been over for a while.”

I picked up my lighter just to give my free hand something to do. “Is ‘a while’ a month? A year? Since the second date? Throw me a bone here, Jesse.’”

His lips tightened, and I swore I could hear his teeth grinding with frustration.Tough shit, buddy. Drop this kind of information on your campaign manager this late in the game, expect to get grilled. Them’s the rules.

Jesse pulled one of the chairs out from the table where we’d had our first conversation. The legs scraped across the cement, emphasizing the silence. He took a seat, and for a long moment, he rested his elbow on the table and chewed his thumbnail, looking at the pool with unfocused eyes.

About the time my cigarette and patience were both approaching their ends, he spoke. “We’ve been discussing the divorce for the last few months. To tell you the truth, it should have happened a long time ago.” Even softer, possibly to himself rather than me, he murmured, “I never should have married her in the first place.”

Oh crap. That wasn’t a good sign.

I took one more drag from my dying cigarette. Absently turning my lighter over and over in my other hand, I said, “Why the charade? I mean, you’re hardly the first politician to get divorced. Your uncle’s been married how many times?”

Jesse swallowed but didn’t look at me. He stared at the pool, and I watched through the thin smoke as soft ripples of turquoise light played along his sharp jawline and teased an extra glint out of his blue eyes.

I smothered my cigarette in the ashtray on the table. “Something wrong?”

He stayed focused on the pool and took a long breath. “Roger thinks it’s best if I keep it quiet. Thinks it’ll be…” His shoulders sank. Then he rested his elbow on the edge of the table and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “It’s not the divorce itself. Roger thinks if Simone and I keep up this charade, then…”

I flipped my lighter between my fingers. “Hmm?”

Lowering his hand, he turned toward me, and his eyes looked utterly exhausted. When he spoke, his tone echoed that heavy, bone-deep fatigue. “As long as Simone and I are happily married, the public won’t find out I’m gay.”

My lighter clattered to the concrete at my feet.

Chapter 8

Jesse

The metallicclankof Anthony’s Zippo hitting the ground echoed around us. I looked at the lighter, then at him, and we locked eyes.

His were wide, his lips apart, surprise etched into every line of his face. My heart pounded, fear and panic and God knew what else surging through my veins with every second of silent stillness, like Anthony had just dropped a grenade and neither of us knew if it would detonate.

“You’re…” Anthony blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

I set my jaw and looked away from him, shifting my gaze back toward the pool. “I’m gay. Roger’s one of the only people who knows about it, and he…” Shaking my head, I made a sharp, aggravated gesture, then ran my hand through my hair and sighed. There it was. It was out there. Anthony knew, and there was no taking it back.

Anthony’s shoe creaked softly. A second later, his lighter scraped on the concrete. The sounds were almost whisper quiet, but I swore they echoed off the walls just like the lighter’s fall had.

I looked up as he slid the Zippo into his pocket. He didn’t meet my gaze. Didn’t say a word. He just reached for the chair opposite me and pulled it out from the table.

As he eased himself into it, he said, “You’re gay. Seriously?”

---