Page 119 of Secret Service

Boss. Emergency meeting. Old Ebbitt.

Henry’s been calling “emergency” meetings with me a few times a week, always off-site at a bar. I show up, and there’s an ice-cold beer and my best friend waiting for me. He runs his mouth for a few hours about nothing—football, the start of hockey, the smell in the locker room, the junior staffers cluttering up the halls of the White House, traffic in DC—while I stare into the bottom of my glass and let his words flood me.

The Old Ebbitt Grill is a Washington mainstay, the oldest saloon in town. Its current incarnation is across the street from the White House complex and next door to the Treasury. One hundred and fifty years of White House staff have drowned their sorrows at the Old Ebbitt’s bar. The ambience is classic Victorian mixed with 1800s Western Americana.

It’s one of the best places in the city to get oysters on the half shell, and it’s close enough to the White House that I thought about bringing them back for Brennan one night. Oysters, slow jazz, and a Sazerac by candlelight. I thought we could hold hands as we dissected the world, then kiss away the day while we swayed in each other’s arms.

I’m a fool’s fool, and I always will be.

Henry’s at the bar, his tie balled up beside a glass of bourbon. He’s got one heel hooked on the rung of an empty barstool next to him, and three different groups of drinkers are shooting Medusa glares his way. There are no open seats other than the one he’s saving, and the place is wall-to-wall packed. Elbow room only.

Ice melt is still sliding down the sides of my frosted pint glass as I shuffle in beside him. “Hey.”

“Finally. I thought I’d have to leg-wrestle the whole place for your seat.” He tosses back his bourbon and taps the bar for another round.

I spin my beer, watch the ripples ride. Henry studies my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. His eyes narrow. There’s an extra edge to him tonight, like he’s spent some time chewing on something and the rawness has set into his gums.

“You ever gonna talk about it?”

Mon Dieu. I flush to my toes, running hot. Tonight? Now? We haven’t talked about this since he brought me to his place.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Not anymore.

Henry snorts. “Yeah, okay. That’s why you’re like this. A ray of sunshine every damn day.”

My thumbs flick against my glass, nails tap-tapping away. “If you’re waiting for me to snap out of something, you’ll be waiting a long time.”

He braces his foot on the rung of my barstool again, then turns to fully face me. He’s playing with a toothpick, and he slides one end between his teeth and gnaws on it. “You must have felt pretty strongly.”

I nod and say nothing.

He screws up his face as he watches me. The bar is roaring, people talking loud and laughing hard on all sides. We’re both outside it, though.

“Well, you know what they say. Sometimes the quickest way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” He shrugs as I glare at him. “Just sayin’, Sheridan would saw off his left testicle with a butter knife if it meant he could take you on a date.”

“You know about that?”

“Oh yeah.” He chuckles. “I know about that. He’s gone for you.” His eyes narrow. “You got some kind of effect on guys, huh? Here’s two of ’em—”

“Shut your mouth, Henry. Don’t even start.”

He holds up his hands in surrender, expression twisted like I’m the one who insulted him.

My anger is flaring. “Why are you doing this? Merde, this isn’t a joke! Look what I did to—” I snap my mouth shut before I say his name.

He’s been egging me on, and now his trap is sprung. I walked right into it, not even realizing he was setting up an interrogation. His expression softens, like he’s got me to admit something, and he nods to himself.

“There it is. You have got to stop blaming yourself, Reese.” He points the chewed end of his toothpick at me. “You’re not at fault here. He’s a big fucking boy, and he knew exactly what he was doing.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“He didn’t realize—”

“Bullshit!” Henry hisses. “You think he believed Secret Service agents were some perk of the job? I was there when you explained it all to him, remember?”

“It doesn’t matter!”

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