Silence.
He spreads his palms on the podium and leans forward. “For years the public has come to believe every promise made by every candidate has been a lie. Nobody believes in them anymore. Politics have been totally tainted by propaganda. I want it to be clear we’re running a very easy slogan campaign, and a no-slandering campaign. I serve my country. When asked how I plan to serve, my team,” he looks pointedly at me, “and I have to come to this.” He nods behind him to where Carlisle has turned on a visual. “We’re calling it the alphabet campaign. We’re fixing, reworking, and improving everything from A to Z in this country. It’s an ambitious goal and one I will work tirelessly to achieve. There are so many things right about this country, and so many things that can be better than right. We want to go back to the times—we want to even surpass the times—when they’ve been phenomenal.” He starts naming them. “Arts. Bureaucracy. Culture. Debt. Education. Foreign relations policies . . .”
There are titters of excitement rushing across the room.
I stand there, awed like the rest of the room, feeling a connection to him.
A kind of connection I’ve never in my life felt before.
20
ONE TOUCH
Charlotte
The crowds are surging.
For the past month, we’ve had over 500,000 people in each state.
Strange. But I somehow feel like I know these people. Sometimes it’s the look in their eyes. Like Matt is their only hope in the world.
He speaks to them about everything, not just the present, but how we mold the future within our present. How the decisions we make now affect those who haven’t lived yet.
Our best engagements come with kids. But guess what?
They cannot vote!
And still, they’re my favorites.
There’s something about Matt when he’s with children that tugs at me on so many levels.
Today we’re leaving a children’s hospital, and I’ve been handing out treats to the kids when Matt walks up to me and tells me it’s time to leave.
That’s when one of them yells, “Kiss her, Matt, kiss her!”
Carlisle instantly mutters in Matt’s direction, “Yeah, that’s probably the opposition wanting to hang you for it later.”
“He’s a kid,” Matt tells Carlisle, laughing.
He shoots him an amused look, then me—our eyes meeting, something mischievous lurking in his gaze as he lifts my hand and passes his warm, velvet lips across my knuckles.
There’s a dark sparkle in his gaze, reminding me that we both know a secret that nobody but him and I know.
It’s over too soon; and I drop my hand as if he burned me and try to focus on the delighted kids, all giggling because of what Matt did.
The touch stays with me. It stays with me as we head out to the car, where savvy reporters who’d been peering through the hospital windows mill about.
“Matt, do it again—we missed it!” a reporter yells.
“Good.” He grins as he helps me into the car and shuts the door. We all head off.
I’m silent, the hand he kissed sort of balled protectively over my lap. I’m aware of our shoulders inches apart. Our thighs touching, his scent in my lungs.
And his kiss remains. His touch remains. He remains.
I shift and put some distance between us as I pretend to peer out the window. My thoughts race to the pounding of my heart. I feel him glance at my profile, his stare like a weight, tangible on me. He’ll know how you feel, Charlotte.
He’ll know that a part of you is right now only thinking—kiss me. Kiss me when we’re alone. Kiss me because you want to, like you did in D.C.
I fight the feeling all night in my hotel room, telling myself that it’s better we haven’t picked up after that night at the Tidal Basin. It’s risky, and the country’s future matters more than a week or a month of delicious sexual activity.
Matt was just indulging the child at the hospital, I remind myself. But no matter how much I analyze it, the flutters won’t stop; this want for him builds and builds inside of me with nowhere to go.
I head to bed early, with images of watching him work out that morning at the hotel gym dancing through my head.
He loves working out. He’s been giving this campaign all he’s got. I wonder if he’s as arduous in loving as he is in the rest of the things he does. I picture him in the highest office in the land, his bed always warmed by someone capable of relieving the stresses a president must endure. I feel a pang of jealousy, then press my lips together in disgust at myself and push the thoughts out of my mind—opting to pick up some of my work files because I already know I won’t be able to sleep yet.
I grab my pens and start making notes when there’s a knock on the door.
21
MEETING
Charlotte
It’s midnight.
So why is there a knock on the door?
Matt.
The name sort of blooms in my mind and suddenly, deep in my stomach and in my chest cavity, hope is kicking and leaping and screaming as I pull a robe over me, tie the sash, and hurry to open the door.
Be Matt.