“That would be me.” I don’t glance back at her. “You know, yourboss.”
“Yeah, well, see, here’s the thing,MisterPresident.” I reach the top of the stairs and turn to find her right behind me, only a step down. She drops her voice. “Webothknow whoyourbosses are, don’t we?” She arches an eyebrow at me. “Frankly, I’m more terrified ofthemthan I am of you, nuclear codes or not.”
I have a feeling Leo and I are about to have our first real fight. Not just of our marriage, but of our relationship. Because before I was out and he had that ring on my finger, we never fought. He never pushed.
Now that I’m legally his husband and everyone knows we’re married, he knows I’m not going to run, won’t retreat in fear.
Well, not in fear of discovery.
Spouses argue.
When he and Jordan join me and Casey-Marie in the front cabin five minutes later, I hear the plane’s engines already starting up to prepare for takeoff while Jordan helps Leo transfer from the wheelchair into one of the comfortable plane seats so he can buckle in.
We all sit and do likewise.
Leo still hasn’t spoken, waiting until we’ve finished taxiing and the engines really throttle up to begin takeoff to finally break his silence with me. “What the actualfuck, Elliot?”
I know why he waited, because both the rising engine noise and everyone being distracted by takeoff procedures will help disguise our voices.
“We had no credible intel that—”
“What theACTUAL FUCK, ELLIOT?”
Declan and Casey-Marie go facedown over their phones, Casey-Marie wearing a smirk.
“Leo, it was safe—”
“I gave you adirectgoddamnedorder!”
“No, actually you—”
“Told you to go downstairs. I shouldn’t have to specify it was an order.”
The plane starts rolling down the runway with a gentle bouncing motion and I have to raise my voice to be heard over the engines. “Ididgo downstairs. I went to the—”
“You knowfuckingwell I meant to the PEOC,notto the goddamned SitRoom!”
I look up at Jordan, who silently sits in a seat in front of us but swiveled around to face us. His hands rest in his lap. “Would you please talk to him?”
He holds his hands up, his Jordan Walsh mask firmly in place. “I’mnotgetting in the middle of this one. It’s a no-win situation for me if I do and I avoid those like the plague, thank you very much. Tag me back in when one of you safewords.”
I’ve never seen Leo this pissed off. Ever. “You defied your protective detail. You dismissed Lyman like he was nothing more than a housekeeper. You broke fucking protocols, and do you remember what happened the last time someone did that? Kev got fucking shot jumping in front of a bullet they all thought was meant for Chris.”
Oh, shit.He talked to the detail. Well of course he did, because he knows them, worked with many of them, and hand-picked all of them to work The Shift for both of us.
I take a deep breath. “I’m not apologizing for this, Leo.” It feels weird using his name in private but obviously we’re going to have this out. “This waswork. We have a hard and fast rule about work being outside ofus, right?”
“This was national security, Elliot. This was dangerous! This is above and beyond the personal stuff versus work stuff argument. What if they’d attacked the White House and you were up in the SitRoom instead of down in the bunker?”
“But theydidn’tattack it.”
“You didn’t know if they would!”
“I wasnothiding in a fucking bunker until we knew for certain what’s going on.”
“We still don’t know what’s going on. We might not know for days, or even weeks.”
“I know, but—”
