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“What happens if a different senator is elected?” I asked. “You know… given your… profession.”
“No, I’m not worried.” He sounded so certain.
“Why not?”
“Because no one person has the power to change shit that much. If there’s anyone I need to keep an eye on, it’s the local cops and DA. But I don’t remember the last time anyone was pulled in on charges that actually stuck. Are you worried about that?” he asked, fingers moving down to rub the tension out of the sides of my neck.
“What do you mean?”
“With me. With this, us, are you worried about my career?”
Us.
My heart squeezed at that.
If there had ever been a question on whether this was just about sex or something more, that little squeeze definitely cleared it up for me.
“Honestly, I really haven’t given it too much thought,” I admitted. “I’ve been a little busy trying to fight the attraction.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed you, as much as that hurts my pride a bit to admit, and I didn’t want to make things awkward by giving in.”
“I don’t feel awkward. Do you?” he asked, hands moving to my shoulders, pressing into knots I’d been living with so long that I didn’t even know they existed until he started to work them out.
“No,” I admitted. “But…”
“But what?”
“I have to leave,” I said, surprised when tears flooded my eyes at the idea, making me need to blink them rapidly away before they started to overflow.
I wasn’t going to pretend that they were there at the idea of leaving the home I really did love. Or the city as a whole.
No.
They had everything to do with my growing feelings for this man who’d been nothing but good to me. And the idea of losing something that I believed could be really amazing.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” Elian said, finished with the knots, and wrapping both arms around my chest instead.
“I can’t ask you to try to fix this for me.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I can’t make promises, but I am going to look into it,” he told me, leaning down to press a kiss to my head. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Elian
“Seeing this?” Serano asked, standing in front of the TV in the living room the next morning, drinking some of Elizabeth’s coffee that I imagined he wouldn’t admit—even under torture—that he enjoyed.
She’d still been out cold when I’d come out to start making breakfast, but I figured her internal clock would have her getting up at any moment, so I started to make another cookie batter latte for her.
“What is it?” I asked, glancing over, but only able to make out the face of a female news anchor with her too-perfectly coiffed hair, making it bounce in one big unit as she nodded seriously.
“Senator woke up,” he said.
Almost as if on cue, Elizabeth’s phone started to ring. Going to voicemail. Then starting up again.
I walked over, toggling down the volume switch.