Page 180 of Innocent

I bristle. “Yeah. Sir Stalksalotreallyneeds to tone back his possessiveness.” I move behind him to scrub his back. The marks are still visible, and some of them are bruising, where Leo punched and pummeled him as part of their brutal play.

“He loves us.”

“I know he does.”

“He said he was sorry.” When I move to scrub the top of his shoulder, he lays a hand over mine. “He finally admitted how much he’d missed you. That pulling away from me was him trying to deal with his anger and grief and worry about you, and he was trying not to take it out on me. We did have a good talk, even if we got…distracted.”

I knowexactlyhow they got distracted. I massage Elliot’s head to distract him now and pull my other hand free. “That’s fine, but he needs to learn how to adult. We’re moving from the minor leagues up to the pros, and that kind of bullshitcannothappen now.”

“I forgive him, Sir. Can you?”

“I’m sure he will weasel his way back into my good graces sooner or later, but for now, we need to focus. We’ve got campaign events all weekend.”

We’re almost finished with our shower when he speaks again. “He was really here last night, right?”

“You ask that with all those bruises?” I point at a particularly dark-looking one on his upper left bicep.

“I mean when I woke up and then woke you up. Thatwashim, wasn’t it? It wasn’t a dream?”

I sigh. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him: donotpush me.” I rest my hands on his shoulders and look him in the eyes. “He swore to take care of you, and he swore to take care of me. I left so he could focus onyou, and heknowsthat. Yet theonething he should have done, wassupposedto do, he didn’t. I won’t fail you, El.Hedid, and failed me by extension. I need to work that shit out in my head first.”

Probably by making Leo do a lot of groveling.

“Only because he was grieving, Sir. Because he missedyou.” His blue eyes are begging me to forgive Leo and let him back in.

“Yeah, well, I missed him, too. I still need to figure out how to trust him again.”

I get us dried off and when I go to get our clothes, I realizemytie is not the same one I laid out last night.

Motherfucker.

While I didn’t pay close attention, I’d bet that the tie Leo was wearing this morning matches the one he swapped out for me. He’d know which clothes were mine, duh, because a) I put Elliot’s flag lapel pin on his jacket before I went to bed, and b) my clothes are decidedly smaller than Elliot’s.

Fine.

I swap out the ties. Leo can match Elliot today.

Rather, Elliot can match Leo.

That’ll backfire on Leo, too, if he doesn’t have a spare tie in his office. He’ll hesitate to hang around Elliot for too long until one of them changes ties for fear someone might notice.

At least Elliot doesn’t have to leave the White House today. There aren’t any votes for him to preside over in the Senate.

I get us caught up on time and, thankfully, we leave the residence on schedule. When Elliot walks outside first so I can set the alarm, it chirrups when he opens the door.

Literally, I’m expecting to see Leo sitting inside the SUV when we get in, but he’s not.

Wouldn’t shock me if he gets out of one of the other vehicles when we arrive at the White House.

But he doesn’t.

I don’t know if that disappoints me or not.

Once I hand Elliot over to the NatSec team for his morning briefing, I get to work, and still no sign of Leo.

So I head over to the EEOB for a staff meeting there. I feel like I’m playing a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek. I’m reallynotprepared to speak to Leo yet. He wants to have our discussion—rightfully so—but I’m still trying to figure this out.

The past few weeks with Elliot have been far different than I could have ever suspected when he summoned me that day.