Rebecca smiled sweetly and shrugged.
“So? What’s going on?” he asked, looking and sounding a little too impatient to suit her.
“Oh, big doings,” she said low, and with her finger, beckoned him closer. Matt leaned in, all ears. She glanced around, whispered, “We got some new mouse pads for the computers today—they’re Texas flags.”
With a loud groan of exasperation, Matt sat up.
“Parrish!” Tom shouted from the other table. “Did you meet our new media folks?”
Heather was smiling pathetically at the back of Matt’s head, anxious for her introduction. God, did women drool over him like this all the time?
“Media folks. That’s interesting, isn’t it, Rebecca? Sounds like a meeting all campaign strategists would want to attend,” he said. “Well? Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Rebecca looked to Tom, but he was in the middle of some howling joke he was telling yet another new arrival to join the group. “This is Gunter Falk and Heather Hill. Matt,” she said, “is working on Tom’s campaign, too.”
“Ooh, really?” Heather asked, sitting up a little straighter.
“Yes. Really,” Matt said with a wink that wound Frack up all over again. “So what are y’all talking about here?” he asked as someone else squeezed in next to Rebecca, jostling her, and pushing her into Matt, so that she was all but sitting on his lap, an extremely uncomfortable situation, And hard. Matt was hard. His body—leg, arm, torso—was solid as a rock. The horrible thing about it was that she kind of liked that hard feel, liked it enough that she felt compelled to fortify herself with a nice big gulp of white wine.
“Just trying to develop some good campaign jingles,” Heather interjected before Gunter could open his mouth. “Something we can turn into radio spots. You know, attention getters, something really sweet that will click in the minds of listeners around the state and stick with them.”
While Heather droned on and on about that, Rebecca noticed that Tom was glad-handing two more men who had stopped by to join the party. This was insane—they wanted to come up with campaign slogans in the middle of Tom’s happy hour party? Ah well, when in Rome . . . and she was feeling a little warm and creative now. Rebecca picked up her glass of wine and said, “Well, Masters seems pretty usable,” as the two new guys found chairs and pulled them up to the table to join Tom.
“Okay,” said Gunter. “Masters . . . Masters . . .”
“Like . . . ‘Why settle for a bachelor when you can have a Masters?’”
“Oh God,” Big Pants groaned.
“What?”
“For starters, our opponent, Phil Harbaugh, has a PhD,” he said. Gunter nodded.
“I meant, he’s a bachelor,” Rebecca said. All three of them looked at her blankly. Seriously, what did it take to get a glass of wine around here? “Okay, what have you got?” she asked Matt.
He pondered that for a moment. “How about this . . . ‘Elect a Masters for the job.’”
Frick and Frack gasped at each other. “That’s great!” Heather cried.
Rebecca all but choked. That was great?
“You think?” Matt asked Heather, obviously pleased with himself.
Rebecca closed her eyes, suppressed a groan. Fortunately, the waitress reappeared in what was record time for her. Matt accepted the bourbon, chuckled quietly when the waitress put another glass of wine in front of Rebecca, and then winked as he tossed a ten onto the girl’s tray. The waitress fell over herself and Heather’s hair trying to get his attention long enough to smile back at him.
“So, Matt, we’ve been tossing around some ideas about where to get some shots of Tom for some TV spots. Any ideas?” Heather asked, not wanting to relinquish his attention to the waitress, who turned and flounced off when she did not receive it.
“Hmm . . . Rebecca, do you have any Save Bambi meetings lined up? Maybe we could get some shots of Tom nursing a Bambi, then releasing him to the wilds. What do you think?”
“Shut up,” she murmured (and what a witty comeback that was), then visualized twisting his arm around his back and flipping him out the window. Okay, that was funny—visualizing, she was learning, was fun. And one other thing, she thought as she picked up her fresh glass of wine, was that she had sorely underestimated a good Chablis. Or Chardonnay. Whatever.
“Just kidding,” Matt said for the benefit of Frick and Frack, who, between the two of them, had about as much sense of humor as the ashtray on the table. “What about the Silver Panthers?”