Domestic Affairs (27 page)

Between emails, and sometimes during them, he would zone back into the conversation.
Whoever said men don't multitask would do well to spend a little time at this table
.

Aside from throwing in a comment or an anecdote here and there, or filling in history with one donor or another, he really didn't need to be in the list conversation. Usually feeling superfluous around the governor left him with an embarrassing dose of insecurity, but with Olivia, it was different. She was his pick, his bet, his
long-shot
bet to be exact, so when she was on her game, Jacob actually felt self-satisfied. He looked up and smiled as she explained how one CEO actually used to date the wife of another CEO, which was the reason they weren't
friends, even though everyone else thought it was just because their businesses were competitors.

“How do you know all this?” the governor asked.

“I memorized a book of useless donor facts!” Olivia said brightly.

The governor gaped at the sliders as Marco placed them on the table. “Perfect.” He grabbed a small burger, his earlier desire for a steak completely forgotten. “Marco, could I get a beer too? You guys want one?”

“Sure, I'm in.” Jacob jumped on board, surprised at how long it had been since he and the governor had sat down for a beer. When Jacob first landed the job, a beer or paper cup full of boxed white zinfandel would have done the trick. “Just something to take the edge off,” Taylor routinely used to quip to Jacob with a smile. But soon, it turned into two cups of Chardonnay, then nearly a bottle of pinot grigio. Now standard protocol dictated two bottles of sauvignon blanc per evening. Jacob hadn't really noticed it until now, but things had become more formal. Sharing a beer, like buddies, had become a rare occurrence.

“Olivia?” the governor asked.

“I think . . . ummm . . . I'll just have a coffee, please.”

“Super cool, Liv.” Jacob shot her two thumbs up.

She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her hands in a self-conscious fashion.

As the governor and Olivia ate and talked, Jacob typed away, almost in awe of the fact that he was getting time to just sit and answer his emails, not to mention do it all with a beer in hand. For the first time since he could remember—
No, the first time ever
—he would be able to meet Sophie without sixty unanswered e-mails lingering over his head. He thought back to the last time he had slept at her house, when he had ducked into the bathroom to catch up on work for two hours while she slept. Tonight, maybe, he'd actually be able to sleep next to her.

He brought his attention back to the governor and Olivia as they laughed through yet another story, and then Jacob stayed involved as the governor ordered up another round of beers.

“Could we get more of the truffle fries too?” Olivia added.

Marco took down the order, shooting Jacob a questioning and slyly concerned look.

Oh shit.
Suddenly his well-planned evening was hitting a speed bump.
Olivia's ordering food? We'll be here for hours.
He looked down at his BlackBerry, which was free of unopened messages. Nine fifty-six. He looked around as if he might be able to find a
Mission: Impossible
way out. Sophie's email came as if she were reading his mind.

[email protected]
:
Five minutes and counting. You close?

Well, at least she thinks it's nine fifty-five. That's one extra minute.
He looked back up to the table almost without a choice. He needed to at least give her a time frame.

He started in slowly. “Hey, just so I can give the briefing guys a timeline of when you need your info for tomorrow, how long do you think this should take? They're happy to use some more time if they have it.”

Olivia looked at him, stifling a laugh.

He stared her down.
Lock it up. I know how pathetic that was.
She read the look immediately and turned the laugh into an apologetic shrug.

“Bored already, Jacob?” the governor asked, deadpan.

“Never bored, sir.”

The governor flipped through the list. “Are you tired too, Olivia? I could go through some more if you wanted. I think this is helpful, no?”

“It's really helpful.”

“I didn't say I was tired!” Jacob interjected emphatically. “I just—”

“Kidding, kidding.” The governor threw his hand on Jacob's back. “Seriously, why don't you get out of here? Olivia and I can go through this stuff. It's about time you took a little break. Plus, I think your grandma might stop liking me if I don't get you married off soon. Tell Sophie we say hello.”

“Grandma Lee will never stop liking you!” Jacob declared. Part of him wanted to stay, but he knew this hashing of donor history could go on for hours. Plus, this might be a game-changing save for his newly forming relationship with Sophie: to be on time. “If you really don't need me I'm going to take you up on that.”

“We always need you,” the governor said, less cheesily than that phrase could have sounded. “But if you're gone, we can assign more calls to you.”

“Deal!” Jacob jumped up from the table like a high school kid who'd just successfully ditched second period. “Thanks.” As he raced out of the room, he doubled back to Marco. “Tab to the room? And thirty percent tip. Don't bring them a bill.” He headed out the door as Marco waved him off. “Thank you!”

Olivia looked over at the television, surprised to find that an hour and a half had gone by since Jacob left. “Wow! It's past eleven thirty!” It was the first time since the finance committee meeting that she and the governor had been alone together. And in a hotel, again. She tried not to think of it. She vowed to focus all her attention on her work.

The governor glanced up from the list he was surveying with a confused and surprised look. “Did a clock just show up somewhere?”

“No.” She laughed, realizing she had blurted that out rather bizarrely. “Stephen Colbert is doing his Spor' Repor'.”

“The Spor' Repor'! Hot damn. What's better than sports and politics all at once? You want to call it a night?”

“No. I mean, whatever you want. This is great.” She needed to get through more lists. And she needed to prove to herself she could be alone with him. Just because her stomach rose and fell with every breath did not mean she could not do this.

“I don't want to keep you working too late.”

Olivia laughed. “I'd just go back to the office.”

“Seriously?”

“Um, yeah. If I go home before one it's kind of an early night.”

“Don't you have friends?”

“Sure, but they've learned.”

“Learned?”

“About campaign life. You lose the first layer of them in your first campaign, which actually turns out to be a good thing anyway. The second layer drops out halfway through your third campaign when they realize you are going to cancel on every event. By the fourth, at least for me, what's left is family and really good friends who understand and accept your schedule. Which really is all anyone needs anyway. I think.” She stopped, mulling over the matter more than she
ever really had. “There's too much to get done in this world for so many friendships.”

The governor leaned forward. The honesty didn't seem to trouble him. He brought his hand up to his chin and looked up from under the brim of the baseball hat. She loved when he wore that. Jacob was crazy to make fun of his outfit. He looked so handsome in casual clothes. It showed a side of him that no one got to see. “You guys really do work hard.” He stared at her pensively.

“It's so much more than work for all of us.” She felt almost helplessly earnest the minute she saw the governor's grin.
Damn it, Olivia. Business.
“Oh, that sounded a lot more cheesy than I meant it. I just mean—”

“No, no.” He stopped her before she had to explain. “I know what you mean. And I appreciate it. Actually, I more than appreciate it. It's really one of the vital things that gets me through the day—knowing that we are an army of people fighting for what we believe in.”

“You.”

“What?” He fixed his gaze on her, seemingly confused by that one word hanging between them.

“It's you we believe in.” She couldn't help herself. For two people who never spoke without thinking beforehand, the rare occasion of blunt conversation was immediately recognized and palpable. It left a raw quality in the air. Olivia remembered it from the night of the finance committee meeting.
“I lose myself around you,”
he had said. This is what he meant. At least that's how she saw it. It was that momentary loss of control of your words that could only be comfortably shared with someone who valued restraint just as much.

The governor sat back in his chair. She knew he couldn't be scared, but it was the only thing she could think of to explain the expression in his eyes as he looked away from her. He took a swig of his beer as if an “everyman” gesture that might dissipate the sense that his ego was so inflated he agreed with her. She actually felt a little badly for what she had said. It was a lot to lay on a person. And it was an intimacy she knew she wasn't supposed to foster between them. “I mean . . . I just . . . it's that we all know you can actually change the country and when you think about that, it just doesn't seem like work.”

Now he was watching her, letting her babble. He had done this to her on one of the first days they had met. As uncomfortable as it made her, there was something about him when he was like this that she loved. Sure, it carried the awkwardness of walking a tightrope, but it made him seem so in control—like a net that could catch her no matter which way she fell.

“Okay, I'm going to stop now. Come on, we have lists to go over!” She pulled herself up straighter in her chair and tried to take charge of her thoughts, her words.

The governor looked completely pleased with himself. He sat back up as well and grabbed some fries. “Okay, Hallmark.”

J
acob followed the governor into his Miami hotel room. He cringed at the thought of having to hurry him right back out for the dinner Olivia had requested for Alek. It seemed as though they hadn't stopped in days. New York to New Hampshire. New Hampshire to Iowa. Iowa to Miami. Going from New Hampshire weather to the Miami sun in the course of four days should have required a suitcase full of outfit changes. But Jacob had events scheduled so tightly that they barely stepped outside on any of their stops. It was one temperature-controlled venue to the next.

Jacob rubbed his eyes in exhaustion, the effects of the last Red Bull beginning to wear off.
I drink so much I'm probably building up a tolerance to it. I gotta try one of those 5-Hour Energy things.

“I'm damn near exhausted, Jacob.” The governor loosened his tie and threw the jacket he was carrying onto a chair. “Who thought this day was a good idea? You couldn't fit anything else in? Maybe a midnight bike ride?”

Jacob gulped and cracked his neck to the side. He hated it when Taylor chastised him, but it was the worst when he was mad for good reason. Jacob knew the day would be hell and he knew he shouldn't have jammed so much into two days. He tried to think back to his conversation with Olivia.
No. I could've just said no to the Alek dinner.
But before
he could come up with the words, Taylor sat down on the couch and glared at him.

“I need you to step it up, man.”

The words felt like a pitchfork stabbing Jacob—throat, heart, and stomach all at once. Words seemed so much more piercing coming from Taylor.

“I know, sir.” He sat down on the chair next to him, afraid of falling over if he didn't.

The governor went on. “I get it. I know they're pulling at more arms than you have. I know each one of them could manipulate an entire army. Hell, they manipulate me most days. But somebody has got to lead the ship. Someone's got to be able to say no to all of them and it can't be me.”

“I know.” It was all he could squeeze out. He had let him down.

“It has to be you.” Landon gave him a minute to take in his words. “You are the one by my side.” He paused again. “You are the one I need to trust.”

Jacob looked over at the governor as he continued.

“Listen, Jacob. I know you say you just fell into this when you were waiting for B-school, but you didn't fall into anything. I saw your potential. I saw how good you were.
You
even saw how good you were. You are the only one who can do this job. You're the only one who knows me well enough to know what I need, and you're the only one who can get the rest of them to fall into line. I need someone in my corner, not just making decisions for me, but making the decisions happen for me. Someone has got to decide not to put me on the plane in the lightning storm. You understand.”

Jacob began to lift his head. This was one of those serious political lessons that people rarely ever talked about above a whisper. It was the story of candidates dying in plane crashes because someone, or more likely everyone, on a campaign put more weight on the need to get somewhere than on the risk of taking a flight in bad weather. Every campaign was bound to become bigger than the individual candidate, and the candidate's needs were bound to be overrun at some points. But someone had to keep those public needs in check. Long days were fine for staffers who could fall asleep at their desk or flub sentences, but candidates
could not be in the public eye for that many hours in a row. Taylor didn't have the luxury of looking or sounding tired. Someone had to stop the candidate from getting on the plane when the wings were icing. Jacob remanded himself:
Someone should have kept him from having two eighteen-hour days. I am that someone.
He had to be in that corner with Landon, for Landon.