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Neither of them said a word until they pulled up in front of the Atwater home, where Wes had driven without really thinking
about it. He certainly hadn’t thought about how to get there. He hadn’t been there since he was eighteen years old, and the route was still as familiar to him as the view
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at sunrise. That was his favorite spot in all of DC, even though he was always just
a little bit ashamed of himself for picking such a predictable location. But the fact was there was a reason every gift shop
sold posters of that exact view and tours charged extra to groups that wanted to be right there right then. It was breathtaking.
When he’d first been elected to the Senate, he’d had so many sleepless nights that he had actually asked Wray, “How long will I survive if I never sleep again?” He hadn’t meant how long would his career survive.
He’d legitimately wondered how long he could keep living that way.
The walks had been her idea. He would get up in the middle of the night and walk around their subdivision.
Then when those walks grew monotonous, he started driving to Capitol Hill and walking around all the tourist locations in the dark, when no one else was around.
If he actually got tired enough to sleep, he would go to his office and sleep on the couch for an hour or two.
One night about four months into his first term, he’d sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at 2:00 a.m. and rested his
head against a column, and he’d awoken with the beauty of the sunrise-lit pink and orange Washington Monument bouncing off
the Reflecting Pool in front of him, cherry blossoms in bloom as far as the eye could see. It had been his longest night of
sleep since Inauguration Day. From that point on, that was his spot. It got more difficult to get there as he regained the
ability to sleep, since he was becoming more and more recognizable in the light of day, but he made a point to wear a ball
cap and a hoodie and slip on a pair of sunglasses and head over with a cup of coffee in time for sunrise as often as he could.
He shifted Beulah into Park and unbuckled his seat belt. “How ya doin’?” he asked, turning to face Addie.
Her forehead rested against the window, and she was staring out at nothing. “I’ve never seen him like that.”
“I know.” He exhaled and reached out to gently rub her back. “What can I say? I provoke passionate responses in people.” Addie
cocked an eyebrow and slowly turned her head toward him. “It’s true. Just look at my polling data. People love me or hate
me. There is no in between.”
He tried to make jokes because it seemed like what she would want him to do. It was what she would do if she felt up to it,
he was pretty sure. But the truth was, he was feeling a brand-new heartbreak for the first time in a while. It wasn’t that
he’d been expecting Doc to welcome him back with open arms, of course. But he’d really thought he’d get the chance to sit
down with him and at least try to talk it out. They’d always been able to talk.
When his mom was dying and all the other adults in town were showing their love for Wes by making him cookies and saying things like, “Let us know if you need anything”—which they sincerely meant but which also clearly demonstrated they didn’t know what he needed any more than Wes did—Doc had talked to him.
He’d walked him through test results and explained the chemotherapy process to him.
He’d also taught him things his mom hadn’t gotten around to showing him yet, like balancing a checkbook and negotiating payment arrangements for hospital bills.
In one of the more uncomfortable conversations of Wes’s life, Doc had talked with him about the birds and the bees. And though
he had wanted to climb under the table or maybe move to Uganda or something, Doc had respected him enough to talk to him man
to man. Ultimately, he hadn’t walked away mortified by an awkward conversation with his girlfriend’s dad so much as doubled
down on his levels of respect for Doc and Doc’s daughter.
And when he asked for Doc’s permission to marry Addie, they’d been able to sit down and have a calm, mature conversation about
all the reasons why Doc thought they were rushing things and Wes believed they weren’t. Once again, he’d respected him enough
to hear him out and let his trust in Wes win the day.
Doc no doubt looked back on that as a conversation he wished he could take another stab at.
“You were about to tell me something.” Addie sat up and faced him, and he ignored the temptation to smile at the red circle
left on her forehead by the cold window.
“When?”
“Right before my dad came flying at you like Liam Neeson ready to demonstrate his particular set of dad skills.”
Wes chuckled. “Oh. Yeah. Well, I’m not sure now’s the time.”
“Come on, please?” Addie rested her hand on his knee. “Distract me.”
Her hand touching his leg was certainly doing plenty to distract him . He cleared his throat. “Okay, well, I met with Sebastian Sudworth—”
“Sebastian was there!” She slapped herself on the forehead and seemed to get momentarily distracted trying to make sense of
why part of her skin was so cold before dropping her hand and moving on. “In all the hullabaloo I sort of forgot to even take
note of that. Is that why Laila needed to see you?”
“Yeah. I guess Jo was putting in a good word for me over breakfast this morning.” They both rolled their eyes in unison. “Sebastian had been hoping to talk with me, too, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Ready for this?”
Addie grimaced. “I don’t know. Am I?”
“Wray filed for an annulment about a week before I filed for divorce.”
She did a double take and then tilted her head as she asked, “Aren’t there only a few specific things that are grounds for
an annulment? Like, don’t you have to discover you’re first cousins or impotent or something?”
“Or I suppose you can commit fraud by leading your husband to believe you’re interested in men.”
“Which Wray didn’t.”
Wes sighed. That was indeed one of the last remaining morally sticky wickets to confront. “No. She didn’t.” All the same...
“But she filed. And she listed that as the reason.”
Addie’s eyes flew open. “Oh! So you don’t have to worry about not being able to acknowledge the reason you filed for divorce.”
“Exactly.”
“So does that mean...” He watched her process the information, her eyes darting quickly from thought to thought but never
really breaking their contact with his. “You can still run for president? I mean... you can. You can still run for president.”
Air escaped from her lips in the instant before she contorted them into a slightly upturned sort of something that he was
pretty sure she had meant to be a smile. “You’re running for president.”
“I really don’t know. As Sebastian said, Wray left me options where I thought none existed. I was hoping... You know...
I was hoping we could talk about it.”
“You and Sebastian?”
He shook his head. “No, you and me.”
“Oh. Of course. Sure. Yeah, we can talk about it.”
She once again contorted her face into that almost smiling expression and then pulled her eyes away and faced forward.
Both of their worlds had completely changed in the span of this one day, and it was still a few hours until sunset. What could
she possibly be thinking? She had to know he’d meant what he’d said. She was it for him. If she was willing to keep moving
forward with him, there was nowhere he had any interest in going unless they were together. That included the White House.
But he knew she had also meant what she’d said. She wasn’t in love with him. Not anymore and not yet. They’d had eighteen years of getting to know each other, so admittedly,
they hadn’t had to waste a lot of time on pleasantries over the past couple of days. But really, they were brand-new. They
carried the comfort and intimacy of the past in harmony and tension with the self-consciousness and uneasiness of being strangers.
He probably at least needed to ask her out before he broached the idea of them running the country together.
“Addie, will you go on a date with me?”
There we go. That was an Addie Atwater smile. “A date, huh?”
He chewed on his lip, suddenly legitimately nervous for reasons he didn’t understand. Maybe she would think this was stupid.
Maybe she would say no.
Well, okay. Maybe he did understand the reasons.
“Yeah.” He tried again after his voice cracked. “Yeah. Yes. I just thought maybe that would be the natural next step— Hey , stop laughing!”
Of course once she started laughing, he couldn’t help but join in. That certainly didn’t make things any easier. And of course,
at the very same time, it reminded him that being with her was the easiest thing in the world. “ You try being a forty-one-year-old man asking your former fiancée out on a first date.”
“Your former fiancée whom you spent a good portion of the day making out with.”
“Yes! Exactly. This isn’t easy, what I’m trying to do. Show some humanity.”
She unbuckled her seat belt and slid over to him and placed her hands on both sides of his face.
“Of course I’ll go on a date with you.” She pulled him to her and kissed him, and having learned his lesson that morning, Wes didn’t waste any time at all before wrapping his arms around her, dipping her slightly toward the crook of his shoulder, and making sure her brain didn’t have time to misinterpret his tempo as lack of desire to kiss her back.
“Dinner? Tonight?” he whispered against her lips a bit later.
“Oh.”
And with that, her lips were no longer engaged. He adjusted his shoulder and helped her back to a fully upright position.
“What is it? Is that no good? Would you rather not be seen in public with me just yet?”
She smirked at him. “Wesley. I was canoodling with you on Main Street to the point that my dad was prepared to engage in fisticuffs.”
“You’re so weird.”
Table of Contents
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