I called Children’s National and told Carlisle about Matt’s visit so he could alert the press coordinator and everyone who needed to be involved.
“You’re coming with me,” Matt says before he leaves.
“Me?”
“It was your idea.”
I groan inwardly. Spending more time with Matt is the last thing I need right now. But I do love seeing him in action, so I hurry to slip into my sweater and follow him outside. When we reach the hospital, there’s a small crowd, waving placards and chanting.
“Matt!” one of the younger female crowd members breathlessly gasps out his name.
“Matt Hamilton!” her friend calls, louder, cupping her hands around her mouth so that her voice carries over.
He thanks them, then waits for me to go in along with Wilson. Little Matt is wearing a Redskins T-shirt, a matching cap, and an IV.
The way his eyes light up when his hero enters the room makes my chest tighten. I turn away and try to regroup when I hear Matt’s voice.
“Heard there was a tiger in the building. I had to come see.”
“Where?!” the boy asks excitedly.
“I’m looking right at him.”
When I turn back around, Matt is chucking the boy’s cap, smiling down at him.
The boy grins. “Wow. You came.”
Matt pulls up a chair to sit next to him in bed. “Charlotte—the lady you see by the door—seems to be as big a fan of yours as you are of me.”
“Wow,” he says.
Soon they get a crowd. Little Matt tells Matt he wants to be a football player when he grows up. The parents approach me and begin telling me how grateful they are as Matt and little Matt chat.
“If you win you’ll invite me to the White House—” tiny Matt says.
“Not IF, WHEN . . . you’re coming to the White House,” Matt promises.
He plays chess with the bedridden boy. The nurses start to line up out in the hall, grinning and ogling.
It’s not the fact that he’s doing this, it’s the fact that you can tell he’s genuinely having fun that touches me. I believed in him: Hamilton and all that the name represents. But right now if I’d never seen him and had a stupid little crush on him, if he’d never been raised under the spotlight and with the fame of his name, it’s today that Matt—for all the flaws the media tries to exaggerate—wins my vote.
When we leave, Wilson picks us up at the curb.
Matt is quiet.
I am too.
“Thank you.” His voice is low and sounds achingly honest.
“Makes me sad.” My own voice cracks, so I stop talking.
I glance out the window and try to regroup. He seems to realize he’s out of his element with a nearly weeping female in the car. “Let’s go get you some food.”
“No.”
He frowns, then his eyes gleam in confusion and amusement. “You’re too warm for politics, Charlotte. We need to toughen you up.”
“Take me sword fighting, but not eating. I’m not hungry right now.” I sigh and shoot him a sidelong glance. “It’s your fault.”
“Pardon?”
“I wouldn’t be in politics if you hadn’t run.”
“Says the lady who offered to help me when she was what? Seven.”
I arch my brows. “Eleven.” I thrust my chin out. “I can still vote for Gordon.”
“God, no. No,” he says emphatically. He laughs and runs his hand in frustration over his hair.
“Well, someone needs to knock you down a peg. Gordon Thompson has my vote,” I declare.
“You wound me, Charlotte,” he says.
“Oh you look so wounded, haha.”
He looks deathly sober except for his eyes, laughing at me. “My wounds run deep.”
“How deep? This deep?” I hold my fingers a hair’s breadth apart. He frowns, then takes them to readjust them to a centimeter. “This deep.”
I should laugh.
It was funny up until he touched me.
Now it’s warm and gooey and he’s looking at me with a frozen smile and intent eyes.
I see a flash of yearning in his eyes—yearning as deep as I feel, truly deep, not measured in tiny fractions.
I laugh, finally, as I try to stifle the sensations shooting through me. “Wow.” I look at the centimeter. “A centimeter. That’s deep.”
I refer to the space between his fingers, but I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore.
“I told you.” He smirks. He lowers his hands, and I can’t help but notice how strong and long-fingered they are as he drops them to his side.
Every living woman in America has probably had fantasies about Matt.
And I have him close enough that my senses swirl.
I remain affected throughout our ride.
My mind rushes, wondering . . . simply wondering.
Matt checks some emails, his thigh touching mine.
He doesn’t move it away.
I wonder if I want to move it away.
No. I’m out of air and burning inside. And I don’t want to.
I have to remind myself that what I’m doing here is so much more valuable than a silly little crush. What I’m doing here transcends beyond me . . . beyond even Matt.