Page 336 of Incisive

I hand Leo his drink and he knocks back half of it in two swallows. “What’s next?” he asks.

“Picture time,” Casey-Marie says. “Stay sober for a little longer.”

“Fuck,” Leo mutters, staring into his glass. “I think we’re past that stage.”

“Well, we’ll let you sit and claim your knee’s bothering you, and put Jordan in the middle on the sofa. Something like that.”

“Does that mean I can finally dothisin public?” I pull Jordan into my arms and kiss him.

Leo leans back, smiling. “Yeah,that’swhat I like to watch.”

Casey-Marie snaps her fingers at us. “Gentlemen, focus now, fuck later.”

Who says I don’t take instructions well?

Liam, Ward, and Daniel release their statement an hour later, and at this point the media is so confused by everything they have no idea where to focus first. If it was just one triad, that’s a clear and easy target. Shooting fish in a barrel with a cannon.

This?

This is like trying to take down a flock of Canadian geese with a straw and spitballs, and nearly as ridiculous.

It’s almost midnight as we snuggle in bed after exhausting each other. No Mister President, no Master, no pet or boy.

Just three guys no longer weighed down by a massively heavy secret.

Anddamn, does it feel great.

CHAPTEREIGHTY-SIX

Sure enough, the relationship “scandals”drop from the headlines three days after they break because of a wave of severe winter weather that sweeps through the country, all the way down into Texas and as far north as Michigan.

We have FEMA on the ground and ready to go as soon as the weather improves. The average person caught in this mess, or with family impacted by it, gives zero shits that I claim two men as my husbands.

What they care about is that I am proactive in declaring federal disaster areas, shipping relief into their regions, helping their states get their roads plowed and their power turned back on, and not letting Grandma freeze to death because she can’t pay her fuel oil bill.

I did face some howling from conservatives and Independents alike for signing an EO that put a price increase freeze on heating oil and natural gas and awarded grants and waivers for them to help save fricking lives.

I’ll take the outrage over that, and gladly. Better that than videos of the frozen bodies of dead senior citizens being carted from their homes. I can imagine that headline now—President Woodley’s Bed Warmed By Two Hotties While Elderly Freeze To Death.

Not a good look, and definitely not deaths I want on my conscience.

Didn’t hurt that three of the conservative governors whose states I helped took time to thank me very publicly for the aid I sent, which arrived almost as soon as they requested the disaster declaration.

Sure, they all love a president who comes through with assistance, supplies, manpower, and money. They can put aside their partisan differences when they need something to help their citizens so they can boost their own re-election chances.

That’s fine. I can live with myself, which is the important thing. That, and that I did therightthing. Absolutely no contest. Someone’s always going to hate what a president does but I’d rather they hate me because they’re shitty people instead of becauseIdid something shitty.

At least now Jordan can publicly take part in events with Leo and me as our partner, not just as a friend.

Including Thanksgiving dinner. Which, okay yeah, he was doing that already but now we don’t need to worry about “safe” pictures versus photos meant only for our eyes. The photographer can silently tag along all day and document my last Thanksgiving in the White House, taking pictures of our entire family without extra stress on the three of us to watch everything we do.

Jordan unofficially works in the East Wing now, which is ironic since that’s where he used to work with Chris Bruunt years ago when I was VP. He’s helping Leo with the last of the holiday prep in addition to planning the move and dealing with construction issues and transition plans and… Well, a little bit of everything.

I miss having him in here with me all the time but I keep it in perspective.

He’ll be sitting with me and Leo on the dais on Inauguration Day. No more hiding in plain sight.

No more hiding, period.