Page 16 of Indiscretion

For obvious reasons, he never takes his into the SitRoom. It stays in his desk when he’s in the White House, and goes home with him. If he’s traveling, it stays in his pocket, sometimes off. I showed him how to pull the battery in case he’ll be in a sensitive situation. The chances of there being malware on it are infinitesimal, because I check them monthly, and the only active app on his is the Signal app. He can’t even make phone calls or send regular texts with his, because I disabled the features.

I mean, could someone dig long and hard enough and maybe one day come up with a CCTV picture to correspond to a transaction of me buying a debit card and expose me?

Maybe, but there’d have to be a crime to trigger the search warrants. Plus, enough time will have passed that it’s unlikely there will be any existing footage. We’re not committing any crimes. We never do government business through these phones.

There’s nothing illegal in what we’re doing. It’d only be a personal—and politically adjacent—scandal. Besides, DC is a large city but small enough, with enough overlapping cell towers, and a large enough population, that it helps obfuscate our trail even more.

When I reach my apartment, I resist the urge to power the phone on again and read his response.

I could do that hoping he’s asking me to return to the White House, and that he’s apologizing to me for him locking his office door when he damn well knew I was on the premises and would likely stop by.

Or I could do that hoping his response leaves me any of the usual openings he offers for me to decide for him and show up.

Or it could simply be him telling me okay, and that he’ll see me next week. Which will hurt.

Or…?

Or probably none of the above, which will probably sting like fucking hell, too.

I’ve touched that stove countless times in the past. I’ve never kept a relationship like this before, where I have to bust my ass all the time and feel like I’m getting little to nothing in return much of the time.

Igetit. He’s not anonymous. He’s in the closet and terrified of being outed.

He loves me every bit as much as I love him.

That all used to be good enough.

Everyone has a breaking point, though.

It’s starting to look like losing Jordan was mine. At least with Jordan in my life, I had…someone. Something.

I wasn’t alone and lonely.

Worse, my mind is consumed with thoughts of Jordan, and…

Dark.

The truth is, I’m notgoingdark—I’vebeenthere. My soul dove deep into the abyss two weeks ago.

The question is will I ever be able to recover and head toward the light?

* * * *

I don’t use a cleaning service. I’m paranoid, yes.

Besides, for the past six-plus years, I haven’t needed a cleaning service. The apartment is small and plenty easy for me to keep tidy, even without Jordan’s daily attention.

Although, for the past two weeks, I’ve barely done anything, like take out the garbage.

The very walls are infused with memories that now painfully tug at me.

Elliot needs you.

Butdoeshe?Really?

Sure as fuck doesn’t feel like he needs me. Not anymore.

Definitely seems like he doesn’t need me today.