Page 113 of Incisive

I’m in it to win it and won’t take any victory laps before the votes are counted.

That’s what I want everyone to think, anyway. That I’m in it to win it, I mean. While there have been times I felt tempted to take Jordan up on his offer to invent an excuse to get me out of the campaign, I know deep in my heart there is no other course.

Because if I don’t see this through to the end I’ll always regret it. It’ll be one more weakness, one more failing that haunts me even as part of me doesn’t want this and wishes I’d never filed the papers to run in the first place.

Elliot Woodley doesn’t really exist. Not the version the rest of the world believes in, anyway.

The public sees their President, confident and sure, young and healthy and even GOP operatives grudgingly admit in secret they’re only running a candidate against me so the public doesn’t forget they exist.

They don’t see the man lying in the dirt and screaming in pain. What everyone else takes away from that piece of my history is that I’m a “hero.”

They don’t see me kneeling in front of Jordan and Leo.

They don’t see my men holding me when yet another nightmare wakes me up screaming and crying.

They don’t see “me”—just the idealized, stylized version of me they want to believe in.

My opponent, Governor Derrick Anthony Chastings, was the last man standing after the GOP primaries. Problem is, he has the personality of a drunk snail. The seventy-year-old former governor of Alabama barely eked out a win at a very contentious party convention, and only then because he was hooked into plentiful streams of dark money from a variety of PACS. The only reason he was appointed governor of Alabama in the first place was due to the same plane crash eighteen years ago that Susa Evans and George Forrester both barely survived. Chastings’ predecessor was on the flight.

He managed to win re-election, barely. He was turfed out in the GOP primary four years later.

His poll numbers are dismal across multiple demographics and even FNB and Fox agreed that I wiped the floor with him during our three debates.

Despite all of this, I still find it difficult to believe my re-election will be this…easy.

Election Day arrives, nasty and cold and rainy in DC, with the weather slated to clear by noon. My personal day starts at five a.m. with lots of ibuprofen, coffee, and my PDB, followed by a few sit-downs for the major news networks—yes, even FNB, those fucks—before I head out for three final campaign appearances that no one really thinks is going to budge the needle.

Most everyone who hasn’t cast their vote yet already knows how they’re going to vote and there’s little to no chance of me swaying someone’s opinion my direction just because of a grip-and-grin rope line on an airport tarmac.

Yet I still go through the motions, putting one foot in front of the other until I return to DC early that evening and head straight to the hotel where we’re holding the watch party.

I wish I could hole up in the Executive Residence tonight but that wouldn’t look good. Not unless there’s a crisis worthy of it.

Frankly, I’ve been blessed enough to avoid those during my first term. Other than natural disasters and overseas events fortune’s smiled on me and I haven’t had to deal with any major home-grown crises.

I’m in the suite’s bedroom and taking a few minutes to myself just to breathe when Jordan knocks and enters.

“Phone, Mister President.” He hands me my official “private” cell phone. Very few people have this number.

Tension knots my guts as I take it. “Elliot Woodley.”

A woman speaks. “El. How ya doin’, buddy?”

I relax. “I’m hanging in there, President Samuels.”

Shae cackles. “Hey, I’m a civvie now, dude. You can call me Shae. You’ve damned well earned that privilege.”

“Any sage advice for tonight?”

“Yeah—alcohol. Just a little. Enough to soothe your nerves but not enough you’ll be sloppy on camera later.”

I laugh. “I don’t remember you drinking on election nights.”

“Exactly my point, my friend. Kev is on his way over there now. No offense, but the hubby and I are having an at-home date night watching election returns after the kids go to bed. I didn’t have it in me to negotiate the press tonight and keep a smile plastered in place. Kev lives for this shit and you know it. I sent him as my rep for tonight.”

“I’m honored you’re loaning him to us for tonight.”

Another chuckle fills my ear. “Feel free to let him do a few network hits for you as my surrogate. He can speak for me.”