Chapter One
Now
A finger pokes me dead center in my forehead, insistently tapping and waking me up. For the briefest of moments I think it’s one of my kids, until I remember my youngest is now in college and lives on campus in a dorm.
And I know it’s not my wife’s finger, because she’s—
I force an eye open to see Casey standing there at the side of my bed, a cup of coffeein her hand. She’s staring down at me with that cocky head tilt she has, along with the disapproving smirk I’ve been graced with countless times over the decades we’ve known each other.
She’s my best friend, and my wife’s best friend, but worse?
She’s my chief of staff.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I grumble.
“Wake-up call. I knew you’d ignore the phone.”
Damn her, she’s right.
“How’dyou get in?” This isnotthe first time we’ve had this conversation.
Far from it.
That she still has it with me proves to me she does, in fact, love me.
Sort of.
“I’ve had your key and alarm code for years, George.Duh. You really are a shit-for-brains before coffee, you know that?”
“If you know me as well as you claim to,youknowthat.”
She sets the mug of coffee on the nightstand closestto me before she walks over to the window. There, she throws open the black-out curtains, flooding the dark sanctuary of my bedroom with harsh early morning light and making me groan again as I clamp my eyes shut against it.
“Wakey wakey, Governor Forrester,” she sing-songs in a waaaay too cheerful tone for this obscene time of morning on a…
Fucking Saturday.
“Why do I put up with your shit?”I grumble.
“Because I’m your chief of staff, asshole.”
“Whyare you my chief of staff, again?”
“Because I’m the only one who’ll put up withyourshit, George.”
Damn her, she’s right.
Again.
“Whyare you waking me up?”
“Because I’m the only one—”
“Who will put up with my shit. Right.” I crack an eye open.
She’s still smirking. “Ah, lookit that. And they say you don’t know your head fromyour ass.”
“Who says I don’t know my head from my ass?”
