Page 36 of Where There's Smoke

God, what was I thinking last night?

Jesse had told me he was gay, and my campaign manager brain had shut the fuck off when we’d both needed it the most. Damage control should have been my first instinct. After all, there were so many reasons why this could be disastrous to his campaign. The charade of a happy marriage had to stay solid. The media and the public had to keep believing Jesse was heterosexual and married. No one could know about this, and I needed to do everything in my power to make sure no one did.

But had I thought about that last night? No. Fuck no. Because suddenly all those looks I thought I’d imagined were potentially real, and all those thoughts he’d unknowingly put into my head had the potential to come to fruition. I couldn’t resist, I didn’t resist, and now I had to figure out how the fuck we could continue to work together without awkward silences and uncomfortable throat clearing. We’d had enough of thatbeforewe’d crossed this goddamned line.

Now what? We couldn’t talk, not here where we could be overheard. And for God’s sake, Jesse and I couldn’t get caught giving each other any kind of suggestive or flirtatious looks, but then I supposed that wasn’t an issue as long as we couldn’t look at each other in the first place.

It was just a kiss. Okay, several. It wasn’t like we’d slept together. And he’d said himself that his marriage was over. Once we’d broken the ice andtouched, there was no pretending that intense mutual attraction didn’t exist. The only thing that had stopped me from fucking him then and there had been our early flight.

To further his campaign.

His campaign that was every reason not to sleep with him. Or kiss him. Or touch him. Or fuckingwanthim.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes, hoping Jesse and Ranya took it as a sign of stress and fatigue if they even noticed it at all. Christ. This was going to be one long campaign.

Not long after it took off from LAX, the plane touched down in San Francisco. Flanked by two of Jesse’s security escorts, the three of us walked in silence through the airport to baggage claim. Once we’d collected everything—this was, after all, the first of about two dozen stops before we were anywhere near home—Ranya called to confirm our car was on its way.

“The driver left about fifteen minutes ago.” She dropped her phone into her purse. “Assuming traffic is still light, he should be here in the next ten.”

I nodded. “Good. That gives us plenty of time to get to that breakfast.”

“Thank God,” she said. “Airline pretzels will only keep me sane for so long.” She glanced around, then looked at us. “Can you guys watch my stuff for a minute? I’m going to go use the restroom.”

“Sure.” Jesse’s tone was flat. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“You’d better not.”

They exchanged tired smiles, though Jesse’s seemed to take a lot more effort than hers. She narrowed her eyes slightly like she wanted to grill him about it, and when her gaze darted toward me, my blood turned cold.

But she didn’t say anything. Instead she took off for the restroom, leaving Jesse and me alone in the middle of the crowd. We were a good arm’s length and luggage cart’s width apart, with the two security guards on either side like a pair of armed bookends, but we may as well have been on opposite ends of the airport. As hurried travelers rushed past us like water around a stone, I shifted my weight and kept my eyes down, pretending I didn’t feel this conspicuous. Intellectually I knew no one noticed, but I swore we radiated the guilt of two men who shouldn’t have gone there and the tension of two men who had.

I looked at Jesse in the same instant he turned toward me, and we made unexpectedly direct eye contact. He quickly dropped his gaze. Cue awkward silence. Cue uncomfortable throat clearing. Fuck.

Damage control, Anthony. Do some fucking damage control.

I drummed my fingers on the upraised handle of Ranya’s suitcase. “Listen, I’m sorry about…um, about what happened.”

Jesse played with the shoulder strap on his carry-on bag and looked anywhere but right at me. “It happened,” he said coldly. “Not much we can do about it.” He nodded toward the doors. “I’ll go see if the car’s here.”

And with that, he and the security guards merged into the rush of people, leaving me staring at his back while I waited for Ranya.

She emerged from the crowd a moment later. “Where’s Jesse?”

“He went out to see if the car’s here yet,” I said. “Ready?”

Ranya’s eyes darted toward the exit, then back to me, and they narrowed again, this time with the faintest hint of suspicion. But then she shrugged and took the handle of her suitcase. “Let’s go.”

If there was one thing I could say about the campaign trail, it was that the damned thing was almost nonstop busy, busy, busy. There was plenty of downtime on planes and in cars, but even that could be occupied with speeches and campaign strategies, especially when a candidate and his campaign manager had shared a kiss that they really needed tonottalk about.

But it was inevitable that something would get canceled or rescheduled at the last second, leaving us with some unexpected time to kill. I knew it would happen sooner or later. I dreaded it.

And about a week after that night in Jesse’s foyer, in the backseat of a rented sedan in Redding, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out and opened a new text from Lydia:

2 pm event canceled. Chairman wants to reschedule in 2 wks; working on details.

I swore under my breath, resisting the urge to throw my phone out the damned window. Last-minute cancellations were a pet peeve of mine even when they didn’t leave me facing down an awkward, unavoidable conversation.

Jesse glanced at me in the rearview. “What’s wrong?”

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