I’ll also suffer through insinuations that maybe I’m more than just friends with my chief of staff, Casey-Marie Blaine, who’s twelve years my senior. Or that I’m having a secret fling with Yasmine Alvarado, the nanny to former president ShaeLynn Samuels’ children.
To be honest, Jordan’s salted false rumors here and there about those possibilities and others to take the heat off me and help keep the truth concealed.
Invasive questions will be asked of me about my relationship status, accompanied by smiles and winks. People will give names and phone numbers of eligible DC women to Jordan, with requests to pass them along to me.
Stella is once again begging me to let her come to the White House to help with the holiday activities that the East Wing normally takes point on this time of year.
Well no,thankyou. For a bunch of reasons besides the fact that I’d be tempted to have Secret Service ship her and Ellis to Guantanamo Bay for the duration of my presidency.
Reasons such as I don’t exactly know how Stella earns her money, except that she works for several extremely conservative and borderline shady PACs as a lobbyist. I possess even less knowledge about the true sources of her husband’s income beyond the salary he makes as a congressman.
Also for reasons such as I do not and never will trust Stella with my personal secrets.
And reasons such as I can’t stand her husband, who’s so conservative he makes MAGA Q-natics look like far-left commie pinkos.
I can’t stand my sister either, truth be told.
Which is a statement that I can’t share with anyone except Jordan, Leo, and Casey-Marie.
Issuing Stella a direct, hard no in response to her desperate begging to be included in the White House Christmas holiday prep for a second year in a row will not make me her favorite person.
Unfortunately, having her here in the White House would require that Jordan and I—and Leo, when he’s here—be particularly careful, even in the residence. The residence is normally my refuge, the one damned place in the entire frickingworldwhere I can let go and be myself and not worry about witnesses.
Stella’s constant presence would feel like living under siege and no way in hell will I put myself or my men through that. Not to mention when I relented and let Stella spend time with me here at the White House during this past Easter, she immediately tried to come between me and Jordan, which necessitated Casey-Marie’s intervention and having a “conversation” with Stella.
Which didn’t go over well at all with my little sister. It led to more heated words between me and Stella and ended with me threatening to ban her and Ellis from the White House for the remainder of my term in office. Fortunately, that ass-chewing happened in private in my study, with only Casey-Marie as a witness.
Had Jordan witnessed it I have a feeling Leo would have already dropped a massive rat-fuck on my brother-in-law, if not on my sister, too.
I’m honestly shocked that exchange didn’t end up in the papers, thanks to Stella. That was further proof to me Ellis is using her for clout and he doesn’t want people to know how little pull he actually has with me.
Unless Stella didn’t even tell him about the exchange, which is also possible. If she’s not very useful to Ellis then why would he stay married to her?
This Thanksgiving, Stella and Ellis spent the day in Nebraska with our parents, where apparently he spent most of the time aggravating my parents by bragging about how he won re-election to his House seat.
Truthfully, the election was nothing to brag about. It went to a recount and he won by less than two hundred votes, an even slimmer margin than his previous election. Jordan and Kev are convinced the only reason he squeaked out a win this time was that he was smart enough to tone his rhetoric back and name-drop me as his beloved brother-in-law to more moderate audiences, while simultaneously decrying me as an evil commie pinko to the rabidly moderate Evangelical voters he also courted.
Talk about playing both ends against the middle. And hell, no, I didn’t stump for him. I recorded a robocall for his Democrat opponent and participated in a couple of virtual fundraisers for them.
I squirmed out of going to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving because of a late-season tropical system which slammed into the Gulf Coast in Texas. I used the perfectly valid excuse that I had to stay behind in Washington and monitor the situation. Also bought me a slight bump in the polls for my dedication to my job, as well as a private dinner with Jordan and Leo in the residence, with them cooking for us.
The texts Stella’s sent me in recent days have gone from hinting about her desired role this holiday season to outright demanding I make arrangements for her to come “help” me.
Oh, and can she bring a friend with her? A female friend.
Asinglefemale friend she would like to have as her helper, and who she wants me to meet, natch.
Predictably, Stella’s once again shoving against my clearly laid boundaries and I’m sick of this dance. I’m tempted to tell her to go fuck herself. Not exactly a text, e-mail, or taped phone call I want her leaking to Fox or FNB, though.
Make no mistake—my sister or not, I have no doubts Stella would screw me over without hesitation to score points with the shadowy dark-money entities who’ve paid her bills for many years. If Ellis could use that knowledge in a way to bolster his own rep with his base or the GOP party leaders, he absolutely would.
I shake myself out of those thoughts and take another deep breath to center and focus myself. Right now, with my eyes adjusted to the dim light, everything’s blurry in our bedroom and I can’t read the time on the cable box without my glasses.
“What time is it, Sir?”
Jordan shifts against me. He’s probably squinting so he can read the display because without his glasses his eyesight’s not much better than mine. “Not even 1:30 yet, boy. You need to go back to sleep.”
It’s a gentle order I’ll try to obey.
