Page 74 of Where There's Smoke

I nodded. “Yes. And Clinton’s exploits weren’t nearly as recent. Jesse is still young, he still looks young, and voters will keep thinking about what he was like when he was younger. As a result, they’ll think of him as a kid. No one wants a kid in office, so we have to counter this.” I looked at Lydia and Ranya. “I’m going to need you two to help me with this part, because we’re going to be shuffling Jesse’s schedule around a bit. I want Jesse and Simone as visible as possible at some formal events and dinners. And for the love of God, get him visible and photographed around younger voters. For that matter, we need some younger politicians seen with him. People who won’t make him look young by comparison.” I smirked. “Keep him away from his uncle.”

Ranya giggled. “Oh, Jesse will be crushed.”

“Yeah, probably. And while you’re at it, get hold of Simone’s assistant. Let her know I want Simone to take extra care in how she dresses for events. I need elegance, class, and sophistication.”

“So I suppose I shouldn’t tell her you want her to look older?”

I laughed. “No, don’t tell her that. Sophistication is the name of the game here.”

“Got it.” She nodded and started writing on her notepad, mumbling to herself, “Tell Simone to wear jeans and a propeller beanie…”

Chuckling, I shook my head. Ranya was about the only one who could get away with cracking jokes during discussions like this. It was probably because she was the only one with the balls to smart off to me, and because I knew she’d do anything and everything I asked without bitching or putting in a half-assed effort. Plus she could settle Jesse when he was wound up, which was a lot these days. Someone like Ranya had room to banter.

“All right,” I said. “To recap. I want Jesse around younger voters. Find dirt on Casey so we can put a positive Jesse spin on it. I want him and Simone portrayed as sophisticated and mature—”

Ranya snorted and quickly put a hand over her mouth. I tried to glare at her, but her mortified expression made me laugh, and when I laughed, so did everyone else in the room.

“Let’s just make him look a little less young, all right?” I said, still chuckling. “Make them both look like something other than a couple of kids playing house and pretending to be adult enough for politics.”

Ranya cleared her throat. “You know, if we want to get Jesse around younger voters, maybe we should get him in front of some college kids. That’ll provide a contrast between him and them, and endear him to the younger demographics.”

I smiled. “Ranya, if you ever want to get out of this PA stuff and try your hand at managing a political campaign, do let me know.”

“No, thanks. I just do this as a hobby.”

The other staffers snickered.

“Well, hobby or not,” I said, “you’re absolutely right. Andre, Ranya, and Lita, you three work out a strategy and focus on getting Jesse into college campuses. And not just universities. If Podunkville, California, has a community college, I want Jesse doing a Q&A there. Those places are almost more important than the universities, because Jesse will connect with the voters Casey makes a habit of forgetting. Any other ideas?”

After a good solid hour of coming up with strategies for digging up dirt on Casey and making Jesse shine to the voters, I called the meeting to a close. The staffers took off, and Ranya disappeared to her room to conjure up some bullshit to feed Greg the Mole when he returned.

With a little time to myself for once, I went down to the hotel bar and ordered a drink. While I waited, I flipped through a binder Lydia had prepared for me with all manner of data relating to poll results and fundraising information. Not exactly exciting reading, but I obsessed over numbers during campaigns.

A beer and a half into poring over those numbers, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The information on the page stopped making sense, and I turned my head, listening.

From the blur of half a dozen people talking over the top of each other, Jesse’s voice reached my nerve endings and raised goose bumps down the length of my spine. Frustrated or not, I couldn’t even try to tell myself the response was an unpleasant one; the fact that we weren’t involved anymore didn’t change the fact that his very presence turned me on. If anything, it enhanced the effect he had on me. Time and again, like smoke to a quitting addict, and it wasn’t getting any better.

And he wasn’t getting any farther away.

Not at all.

Heart thumping, I closed the binder and pretended to be relaxed as Jesse, sleek and suave in a tux, crossed the sparsely crowded room with his uncle and Ranya. Closer, closer, until there were handshakes and small talk and “how was dinner with the family?” and thank fuck for the alcohol or I might not have been able to breathe. What I wouldn’t have done to get him out of this bar, out of that tux, and—

Breathe, Hunter.

Only a few months. Just had to stay sane between now and the election. And probably the inauguration. And however long it took for Jesse and Simone to divorce. And however long it took after that for Jesse to come out.

Fuck, who was I kidding? I’d been the skeleton in a man’s closet one too many times and didn’t want to go down that road again.

Even if the sex was amazing. And the man made me trip over my own feet. And he had a smile that was like Ctrl+Alt+Delete on my brain.

Get it together. Come on.

After all, whatever the fuck happened once everything died down—ifeverything ever got around to dying down, which they usually didn’t after a successful campaign—the fact remained we had to work together for the time being. I worked well under pressure. Shit, I was at my best in the worst crises. But this? This was bullshit. How the fuck was I supposed to make sense of page after page of poll results, surveys, projections, numbers, numbers, and more goddamnednumberswhile Jesse was in the room?

Might want to figure it out, Hunter.

“Anthony?”

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