Page 40 of Where There's Smoke

With a shaking hand, I brought my cigarette to my lips. No going back or not, this ache in my chest promised not to let up until I did something. What, I didn’t know. But something other than sucking down nicotine alone in the lingering heat of a desert afternoon in a hotel parking lot. Whatever conclusion I came to about what the fuck was going on, it didn’t do me a damned bit of good out here.

I dropped my cigarette and crushed it under my heel as I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. Typing out my text message took a few tries; my fingers were too infuriatingly unsteady to hit the tiny keys, but after some cursing and backspacing, the only four words I could think of were on the screen:

It wasn’t a mistake.

My thumb hovered over the Send button for a moment. Holding my breath, I pressed the button. Before the ‘message sent’ confirmation even flashed on the screen, I had another cigarette out of the pack and between my lips.

Christ, Jesse. You’re going to drive me to chain-smoking.

My heart beat faster, though I didn’t know how much of that was the double hit of nicotine and how much was from half-panicked nerves.

Not sixty seconds after I sent the message, my phone chirped. Cigarette balanced between two fingers, I pulled up the new text.

Sure about that?

I exhaled. No. No, I wasn’t sure about that. It may have been a huge fucking mistake, but…no, it wasn’t. And this wasn’t getting any closer to ironed out via text messages.

Pocketing my phone, I crushed my half-smoked cigarette under my heel beside the first one. Then I went back into the hotel. I took the stairs to kick away some of this nervous energy. That, and waiting for the slow-as-death elevator to get me to the third floor would just give me too much idle time for second thoughts and backing out.

On the third floor, I walked past my room. Ranya’s. Those occupied by other staffers who’d come up for tomorrow’s rally. All the people who didn’t need to know about this. On to the room of the one person whomighthave a better grasp on what the fuck was going on than I did.

At his door, I hesitated. Then I took a deep breath and tapped just loud enough for him and no one else to hear. But of course, the sound fucking echoed all down the hall, and for a few seconds, I was sure every damned door was about to fly open.

None of them did, though.

Including this one.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled.Come on, Jesse.

Maybe he didn’t hear me. That was it. Maybe…if I just…

I knocked a little harder. A moment later I wished I hadn’t, because quiet footsteps on the other side told me hehadheard me this time.

The chain on the other side rattled and slid—which way?—and the deadbolt clicked. I gulped.

Then the door opened.

Preoccupied or not, I couldn’tnotnotice how he looked. Fuck. He already had on his tuxedo shirt and slacks, and his bow tie hung untied around his neck. A few more minutes and a black jacket, and he’d have eliminated any chance I had of forming a coherent thought.

His expression was almost blank. Almost neutral. Only the slightest lift of his eyebrows and the suggestions of crevices between them hinted at something other than complete apathy. The man could put on an act, but thecracks were showing, and the more they showed—his Adam’s apple bobbing, his lips tightening—the more my own cool exterior threatened to crumble.

I cleared my throat. “Can I come in?”

He stepped aside. I walked past him, and he closed the door with a quietclick. Still trying to find the right words, I took a deep breath, but Jesse spoke first.

“Look, obviously we shouldn’t have done it,” he said coldly. “Can we just let it go and move on?”

I faced him. “You didn’t believe my message?”

One eyebrow rose in unmistakable “fuck no, I didn’t believe you” fashion.

I exhaled, wringing my hands to keep from going for my cigarettes. “I mean it, Jesse. This is…this…it’s complicated. That doesn’t mean it was a mistake.”

“How could it not be?” he snapped.

“Look, I’m your campaign manager. It’s up to me to keep this all together between now and the election. I owe it to you to put that responsibility first and foremost.”

Jesse looked away, his lips thinning into a bleached line.

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