“She asked me if I trusted you.”
I can tell he’s going to draw this out, so I go with it. “And?”
“I told her I trust you with our lives, our hearts, and our secrets.” He glances my way.
“How’d she take that?”
“Like you said, she didn’t seem to know how to process that. I think she was trying to figure out a way to drive a wedge between you and me, to sow distrust.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Benchley to ratfuck us with the truth, if he had proof. Even to Susa’s detriment.”
“He wouldn’t.” Carter sighs. “He’ll have to get over it, though.”
“Good luck withthat.”
Carter shrugs, and his next comment catches me off-balance. “Oh, he knows not to fuck with me, or you. Doesn’t matter how much he hates me. I’ve got him on a short damn leash, and he knows it.”
Then he smilesthatsmile.
Bastard extraordinaire, FTW.
I decide I don’t want clarification on that comment. It’s better I don’t know. If I should know, Carter would have already told me, and that was one of the guidelines he laid out for me early on—that there would be things he deliberately does not tell me so I have plausible deniability.
So I default to what’s always worked for me ever since I first met Carter—I trust.
Chapter Forty-One
Ten Years Later
I spend four years as a county commissioner, then four years as a state senator.
Benchley’s old seat.
Benchley never gets his chance to run for governor. Michelle puts her foot down and forces him to retire from public life after his Senate term ends. Oh, he’s still an attorney and does some work for his firm, and is still heavily active in the state GOP, but he’s more behind-the-scenes now than actually leading the charge.
It surprises me when he endorses me for the state Senate seat from the primaries on, even over all the GOP candidates.
It downright shocks me when he manages to swing other important GOP lawmakers to support me from the primaries on, too.
When I confront Carter about this one morning during our run, he smiles, but doesn’t answer.
Meaning the whole situation gets filed in the “don’t ask again” folder.
Meanwhile, Carter has put both myself and Susa through a concealed carry course to get our permits, and we all own handguns. I don’t get many credible threats, but Carter has instituted a rule that if we are out and about and not in a government space where we’re prohibited from carrying, we’re required to carry.
It’s a minor shadow on what I otherwise consider to be a perfect life. Susa and Carter are far more comfortable with firearms than I am, but because I am above all else Sir’s good boy, I comply with his wishes.
When I’m elected to the state senate, we end up buying two townhouses that sit side-by-side in a three-unit building in Tallahassee, just blocks from the governor’s mansion. Benchley owns the third unit, but he and Michelle rarely spend time there now. They’re once again living in their house in Brandon.
We hire a contractor to put a door between our two units, and life goes on. Carter is my chief of staff in Tallahassee, and is usually with me. We’re home in Tampa every weekend, and there are times Susa’s in Tallahassee, too, especially after she easily gets elected to the state House of Representatives two years into my Senate term. Then, all three of us commute back and forth from Tampa together, sharing the same bed nearly every night.
Susa has really helped me navigate this new job of mine.
When I file to run as governor, the three of us go to Tallahassee to hand-deliver the documentation an hour before the registration deadline closes for the August primary election.
That’s the only way this magic works—the three of us.
We’ll already have a bit of a boost for the primaries because none of the other candidates who’ve filed have named lieutenant governor candidates yet. By state law, they’re not required to name one until after the primary, and then they have nine days to do it. It’s an extra paperwork hassle to go through if someone doesn’t win the primary for their party anyway, but it also means it gives them time to juggle people around to see who to appoint to the spot.
