Page 45 of This Means War

Lydia, to my surprise, hadn’t argued. In fact, the entire time my dad and his team were here she was the picture of demureness. Agreeing with everything he said, speaking only when spoken to, and not pranking me a single time. She started to remind me of Ashley and, while my dad seemed pleased by the change, I found myself wishing she would show me even a glimpse of her usual self.

The other part of my dad’s plan, had been for me to continue to work with Tom while he and his team simultaneously worked to uncover some of Tom’s past illegal dealings. Apparently, there were rumors in the campaign circuit that Tom had bribed officials, forged proof of residency documents, and even managed to erase a misdemeanor from a candidate’s record. If we could expose even one of these past crimes and get others to come forward to speak against him, then we in turn could come forward about the fraud he’d committed while working for me. Basically, Lydia’s and my word against Tom’s word didn’t make a very strong case, but if we could show a pattern of this type of behavior on his part, then we could likely exonerate ourselves.

Unfortunately, my dad didn’t have any luck with this part of his plan, because, as it turned out, elected officials weren’t keen on digging up the past. I guessed that, like myself, they’d been unaware of what Tom was doing until he’d already done it and therefore found themselves stuck going along with his plan or risk getting jail time.

Things had been looking grim, but then, miraculously, we’d caught a break. On our way home from one of our prescribed dates, Lydia asked if we could stop at the store to grab some more orange juice.

“Oh look, Hilda is here,” she’d said cheerfully as we’d headed towards the check-out line. “Let’s go say hi.”

“Well, if it isn’t the happy couple,” Hilda greeted us like old friends, and she and Lydia chatted amiably for a few minutes before a line formed behind us, and we were forced to leave. Two steps outside the store Lydia froze, her eyes wide.

“Oh my gosh Cole…Hilda.”

“What about her?”

“Well, I didn’t want to mention this before, because I thought you’d be mad, but that day at the courthouse when we caught her snapping pictures of us, she’d actually been taking a video. I don’t think she even realized she was doing it, but when I snatched her phone, I saw the recording timer going.”

My eyes got wide then too. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Maybe.” Her gaze met mine. “Cole, there’s a chance Hilda got our whole encounter with Tom on video.” We stood in an awed silence for almost a whole minute before we both turned in unison and dashed back into the store.

Hilda, it turned out, had deleted the video she’d taken in order to free up space on her phone, but my dad put one of his tech people on it who was easily able to recover the video. Not only that, but they’d enhanced the audio so that despite the fact that Hilda had been filming us from a distance, we could hear every word the three of us had exchanged, including us telling Tom to fix the date on the license.

With that evidence in our possession, we had no trouble getting ourselves exonerated from the fraud that had been committed. I fired Tom, and last I heard he was lawyering up in order to deal with the fallout from his crime. A part of me felt bad for him, but then I remembered his laundry list of crimes and the way he’d always treated Lydia like a problem that needed to be taken care of and my sympathy had vanished. The guy had risked both Lydia and me getting convicted of fraud. Sure, he’d done it for my campaign, but not only had I never asked him to do it, I’d specifically asked himnotto do it.

With Tom and his crimes out of the way and our correctly dated marriage license resubmitted to the state, my dad had immediately put his spin team to work. Before Lydia and I knew it, our one-night stand had been spun into a tale worthy of theHallmark channel. Two childhood friends reconnect at a wedding, fall instantly in love, and live happily ever after. Three weeks ago, they’d run a news article to that effect featuring side-by-side photos of us together as kids and us together again on Josh’s wedding day.

Each week since there had been another article, all intended to make the voters love Lydia and me as a couple, so that when news of our pregnancy came out, no one would care too much about the whole conceived out-of-wedlock thing.

The first of these had been about Lydia’s career as a track and field coach. Her team had ended up winning their division championship and my dad’s people had captured a photo of me giving Lydia a victory hug at the end, the caption of which had read, “Mayoral candidate Cole Jacobson hugs new wife Lydia Jacobson after her track and field team secures division championship.”

The next article was an expose´ about Lydia’s role in my campaign. They’d taken photos of her doing a book reading at the local library and attending a fundraising dinner for a local organization that supported kids in the foster care system.

Last week’s article showed Lydia and me at Holland’s annual summer street performer series where Lydia, in her typical fashion, had managed to befriend one of the performers. The accompanying picture featured the three of us up on the stage, Lydia laughing as she joined in the singing, me standing a few steps back just watching them, asmile on my face that I remember having nothing to do with the performer and everything to do with the woman now sitting next to me on my couch.

“Yeah.” I clear my throat, forcing myself to tear my gaze from the picture displayed in this most recent article. The big, carefully timed announcement of Lydia’s pregnancy. Over this next week, we’ll find out whether or not my campaign will take a hit. I should feel nervous, but I’m honestly just relieved to have it all out there. “All that’s left now is to wait.”

Lydia sighs. “Well, we did what we could. I just wish we’d been able to nail Arnold for the whole smartboard debacle.”

“Me too.” I purse my lips. The one thing my dad had agreed with Tom about was that we couldn’t risk exposing Arnold for his corruption without risking him attacking us in return.

“We want to control the narrative, Cole,” he told me sternly, when I pushed back on this. So, Arnold got away with his smartboard scheme, but I have my eye on him from now on. He won’t get away with anything else.

“And I couldn’t be happier about not having to hide this giant bump anymore,” Lydia settles her hands across her stomach, which has expanded to the size of a small melon. Not wanting the pregnancy news to break early, my dad had been attempting to have Lydia conceal her bump with flowy clothing and cardigans designed to hide her midsection. I realize, as I take in her form sittingnext to me on the couch, that this is the first time I’ve seen her in an article of clothing that highlights her baby belly rather than hiding it. I have a weird urge to reach over and touch it, but I stop myself because, contrary to the show we’ve been putting on for the public, Lydia and I don’t have that type of relationship. The type of relationship, I mean, where I’m allowed to just reach over and touch her whenever I want to. I suck in a breath against the rush of longing that settles over me. I so want to be able to touch her whenever I want to.

“Of course, I might be singing a different tune at my last dress fitting tomorrow,” she continues, now busy smoothing the fabric of her shirt down over her bump. “I thought the seamstress was going to cry when Jamie told her I was pregnant with twins.”

I force myself to pay attention to what she’s saying instead of imagining what it would feel like to reach over and sweep that stray strand of hair off her face. Pain. It would feel like pain, since she’d probably slap me across the face.

“Oh right, Jamie’s wedding.” I lay my head back against the couch and close my eyes, hoping to ease some of the tension that’s been building inside me these last few weeks. “When is that again? Two, three weeks?”

“Cole, I’ve told you a hundred times the wedding is this Saturday!” Lydia exclaims in frustration before noticing the grin spreading across my face. “Ugh, you jerk.” She slugs me playfully on the arm.

“Sorry,” I laugh, “but you can’t expect me tomiss the opportunity to rile you up after you’ve been talking nonstop about the wedding for the last month. I think at this point I might know more about the wedding than the groom himself.”

“Well,” Lydia tilts her chin up haughtily, “excuse me for being interested in my best friend’s wedding Cole. She’s only getting married once, you know. So maybe you think what type of flowers are in her bridal bouquet is an insignificant detail, but this is her wedding, the one she’s been imagining since she was a little girl. Everything should be perfect.” Her voice cracks ever so slightly at the end, and a spasm of guilt stutters over me. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize she’s not really talking about Jamie right now. She’s thinking about our own wedding. The one that took place at city hall, without any flowers at all.

Before I can even start to figure out the correct response though, her phone rings. “Oop,” she lifts it up and waves it in my face. “Speak of the bride. I better take this.”

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