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“The point is I guarantee every single person in Adelaide Springs is now fully aware of the happenings of the day. Being seen

in public with you does not intimidate me. I just can’t tonight. I, um... I have to go to South Fork. For a meeting. Or

not a meeting exactly. A group thing that I’m part of. On Sundays. And before you ask why I’m being weird—”

“You’re always weird.”

“About this , I mean.” She sat back, putting a little more distance between them. “It’s a support group thing. And it’s not that I’ve

been avoiding telling you. It just hadn’t come up yet.”

He grinned at her and shrugged. “Addie, I think that’s great. Seriously. Really great. I, um... Would it be possible...

I mean, could I come with you?” He covered his eyes and lowered his head. “Never mind. Forget I said that. I just meant because

it probably wouldn’t hurt me to do some grief counseling or whatever, too, but it probably came across like I just wanted to tag along with you to your grief thing, and yowsers — that’s not cool.

Please forget I said that. Just, um, maybe call me when you get back? If you want, I mean. Or actually, are

you going to be at the inn again? No pressure, regardless.”

Addie placed both her hands on his arm and said, “No... come with me.”

He raised his eyes and studied her. “Are you sure?”

She cleared her throat and swallowed before nodding. “Yes. Definitely. And I’ll tell you more about it on the way. Sound good?”

Nearly fifty miles round trip in a vehicle with her and their new relationship could start out with transparency and a focus on healing together? “Sounds good.”

“Okay. Good.” She nodded once and then leaned in for one more quick kiss. “I need some time to clean up. You take Beulah and

pick me up at five thirty.” She opened the door and jumped out, closing the door behind her. Just before she walked away,

she tapped on the passenger-side window, and he leaned across to roll it down.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you could give that shirt an honorable send-off before being seen in public again.”

***

Wes whistled all through his shower, and nondescript tunes morphed into standards. Classics. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

A little bit of Bobby Darin—the ballads, not the “Splish Splash” stuff. When had he become a ballads kind of guy? he wondered

as he rinsed the shampoo from his hair.

In the old days, he’d considered himself to be much cooler than that. Of course in the old days he hadn’t realized how cool

the Sinatras and the Martins and the Tony Bennetts were. Now he saw no shame in admitting it. But once upon a time, “cool”

had been Green Day and Nirvana. Cool had been The Cranberries—though of course he had been far too cool to own up to that

one.

Throwing a football down the field to Cole while Addie, Laila, and Brynn cheered on the sideline, Soundgarden blaring.

Slow dancing with Addie to every Radiohead song that came on the radio, whether it had any sort of beat to dance to or not.

Indulging Addie when she didn’t understand why Foo Fighters shouldn’t be classified as a boy band, and splurging on an *NSYNC concert in Denver so she could finally understand the difference.

He had so many memories associated with music, and then it was like there were twenty-two years of silence.

He knew he and Wray had danced at their wedding, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember the music that had accompanied

them. Something made him think it had been in Italian. French, maybe. They’d gone to concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie

Hall, but it had always been about being seen, not making memories. And as much as he had loved spending time with Wray, those

evenings were certainly never about enjoyment.

I hate opera.

Wes realized there was a possibility he had never been as sure of anything in his life as he was of that, but it had never

occurred to him until just then, as he was stepping out of the shower. It had never occurred to him to have any sort of opinion

about opera whatsoever. He wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed a second towel to catch the beads of water as he flung

them from his hair, and he smiled as he realized he was still whistling.

He raised a hand to the mirror to swipe away the steamy condensation, and as he did, he caught a glimpse of himself. More

than catching a glimpse of himself, it felt as if he were catching a glimpse of the past. The worry—the constant worry—was

gone from his eyes. For this moment in time, however brief, there were no thoughts of opinion polls or cabinet appointments

or the wooing of donors and voters. The tiny lines at the corners of his eyes were still present, but for a change they seemed

glad to be there. Perhaps they were relieved to be the results of an actual genuine smile with nary a photographer in sight.

In the mirror, right before his eyes, that actual genuine smile began to fade as the missing photographers, who were probably wondering where he was, reentered his thoughts—followed closely by opinion polls and cabinet appointments and donors and voters.

Though who was he trying to kid? They hadn’t ever left.

Not really. Could they ever really leave?

Did he even want them to?

He opened the bathroom door, and a chill washed over him as the steam dissipated and he stepped into the dry, much cooler

bedroom. But the chill continued—do you still call it a chill when the shudders throughout your body are tinged in warmth?—as

he caught a glimpse of the future, every bit as bright and clear as the glimpses of the past had been.

Addie.

He grabbed his phone from its charging cable and strategically darted his eyes away from the screen until he got to Apple

Music. He refused to look at the undoubtedly endless list of messages and missed calls from Phil. Not yet. He knew the bliss couldn’t continue forever, but he wanted to hold on to it for as long as he possibly could. Instead, he

flipped through his music library—album after album of artists and music that he couldn’t remember ever liking. Maybe he had

at one time or another, but he genuinely couldn’t remember. Regardless, none of it fit his mood, and none of it fit what he

wanted his life to be.

“Ah!” he exclaimed as he found one album he couldn’t remember adding to his library and that he was certain he had never listened

to. At least not since he got rid of his old iPod Nano from yesteryear. He hit Shuffle and allowed the long-forgotten sounds

of Gin Blossoms to fill the room.

He began playing air guitar to the opening chords of “Follow You Down” and danced around the room, still-damp hair flinging beads of moisture everywhere as he jumped on the bed—a cross between a bratty child and a partying rocker.

He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had heard the song, which made it all the more surprising that he knew every single note.

Every single word. He hadn’t even really liked Gin Blossoms in the beginning.

But just as an *NSYNC concert had been Wes’s attempt to show appreciation for the things Addie liked, Gin Blossoms had been her trying to understand his musical tastes.

That was about as close as they had ever gotten in crossover appeal, so before long he was perfectly happy pretending to love them.

Before long he sort of did love them.

He jumped off the bed—air guitar still in hand—and turned his attention to getting dressed. He pulled his plain gray T-shirt

over his head, having already thrown enough button-ups to fill a Men’s Wearhouse into the corner of the room, and then slipped

on a brand-new pair of Alexander McQueen jeans. What he would have given for a good old pair of Levi’s right then so that

he could fray the cuff or tear a hole in the knee without the guilt of destroying a pair of pants that cost as much as the

1996 Ford Windstar minivan with 125,000 miles that had been the first vehicle he bought with his own money—and his pride and

joy all of senior year.

The song ended and “Allison Road”—just as distant but still so familiar—began next. This one he didn’t know all the words

to. In fact, the words “Allison Road” were the only ones he remembered, so he sang them at the top of his lungs each time

those two words came around. It was just the soundtrack of a happier life. That’s all there was to it. There were so many

memories that he hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on at any point throughout his adult life, but now they danced and mingled

with new memories from the weekend and hope for the future.

Addie with him on the campaign trail. Addie holding the Bible on Inauguration Day. Addie with him on Air Force One. Addie

living with him at the White House. Addie with him at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for his presidential library in fifteen

years or so. Addie with him, the two of them making the world a better place together.

He sighed and muttered to himself, “Addie with you on a twenty-six-mile trip to South Fork, Colorado. How about we just focus

on that for the time being?”

Yeah. Easier said than done. Because, yes, he loved her. Yes, he already knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with

her. Like he’d actually always wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just emotion and sentimentality. Cole had hit the nail on the head.

Addie would go down in the history books as the greatest First Lady of all time. Wes was sure of it. And no, he didn’t really

need the help in the polls. Sure, there would be some fluctuation when news broke about Wray, and he would lose some support—though

obviously not anything like what he had been anticipating before—but he didn’t really see how it could be too much. And there

would be some voters who would simply like him less when he was no longer single. There would be questions about how he could

fall in love so quickly, but as Sebastian had said, they could offer up the childhood-sweethearts story.

Admittedly, it would be a little trickier to spin their backstory so he wasn’t portrayed as too much of a villain for leaving

her on their wedding day, but—

He felt the enthusiasm seep out of his smile and then just trickle its way out of the rest of him, and he sat on the edge

of the bed, unsure of what had just happened.

Had he really just thought that? Had he actually just thought, even to himself, that he would need to figure out a way to

spin the lowest moment of his life—the biggest regret in his life—in a way that would allow him to come out smelling like

roses? He could almost hear Wray’s voice saying, “ That’s low even for you, Hobbes .” He didn’t want to think about what Addie’s response might be.

And if he needed any further confirmation that he had to, as Wray would also advise him, run, not walk away, from those thoughts,

he could suddenly picture the governor in front of him, beaming with pride.

“I won’t do it,” he murmured, bending over to slip on his socks and shoes. He was going to do it the right way, or he wasn’t

going to do it at all. And there was no reason, he told himself, that he couldn’t do it the right way. He would be honest

about the mistakes of his past. His opponents would use it, obviously, but if Addie was by his side, that would be what mattered.

After all, if she could forgive him, what reason could anyone else possibly have for holding it against him?

“Eh.” He wiggled his head back and forth, not too sure about the strength of that justification in his mind, but it was a start.

He jumped up from the bed, grabbed his coat from the closet, made sure he had his wallet and all the keys he needed, and then headed to the door just as someone began pounding on the other side.

He opened it expecting to see Jo, who he figured would promptly tell him to keep the music down before also issuing a warning

that Doc had put out a bounty on his head or something, but he didn’t have time for lectures or bounties. The First Lady was

waiting.

“Well, good evening, Senator.” Phil stood in the hallway with a half-eaten chocolate-chip cookie in his hand. “So tell me,

how do we want to spin this? ‘Presidential candidate makes final trip to Colorado hometown before Super Tuesday’ or ‘MIA former

front-runner for nomination tells American people, “Screw you!” as hopes for the Oval Office crash and burn into Colorado

mountainside’?” He took a bite of his cookie and shrugged. “I’m ready to follow your lead on this one.”