“I’m only glad Willie remembered me and is such a big supporter of the environment.” Ben’s tone was overly modest. I could see right through him.
Dakota tugged on his sleeve. “Show us the Instagram feed again. I love it.”
Ben almost fumbled his phone into his soup, he grabbed it so fast. I rolled my eyes. He held up his phone so the whole table could see. The mural’s Instagram account was already up on his screen, which probably meant he’d been checking it lovingly all morning. Gross.
It turned out my ex-boyfriend-turned-nemesis-turned-partner-turned-nemesis-again Ben Laderman had the gall to be in the possession of Willie Nelson’s personal phone number, thanks to a deal Willie made with Google a few years back to use one of his songs in an ad campaign. According to Ben, he and Willie had hit it off during legal negotiations—which was obviously a lie, because who liked anything to do withlegal negotiations?
Nevertheless, when Ben heard Governor Mane say that nothing short of an endorsement from God would sway Janus, he thought to himself,I’ll do us one better, and picked up the phone to call Willie. And Willie actually answered.
Ben laid it all out for him—the Green Machine bill and how we needed to sway Janus—and Willie agreed to record a video praising Senator Janus for supporting clean energy. He even wrote and performed a song about it, which Ben swore was all Willie’s idea.
The video went viral so fast that some enterprising street artist was inspired to paint a mural on the side of a building in downtown Abilene: Willie with his arm around Janus, a green, fertile Texas landscape in the background and the title of Willie’s song “Heroes of the Future” in the foreground. The mural was an overnight hit with tourists, who lined up to have their pictures taken in front of it. Now the damn thing had its own Instagram account.
Janus had never been cooler in his life, and he was elated. He’d called the governor within an hour of the Instagram account going up and agreed to support the bill.
Ben kept all of this hidden from me until my news alerts for the Green Machine blew up and I called him, demanding to know what he was up to. By then, it was too late. The damage was done. The first yes of the campaign had gone to him.
To add insult to injury, Dakota had insisted on meeting for a celebratory lunch at the exact restaurant I’d imagined us gathering to celebratemeand my policy win and my eventual promotion.
“Look.” Wendy pointed to Ben’s screen. “Janus even got his picture taken at the mural. Painted Janus and real Janus, side by side.”
Ben nodded, clicking his phone dark. “He made it his profile picture across all his social media channels.”
“There’s no backing out now,” Mane said. “Not when all of Willie’s Twitter fans will line up to roast him if he changes his mind.”
Dakota winked at the governor, then turned to Ben. “You know, with all this talent, we just might have to steal you for Lise. We have a VP of public affairs position I think you’d be perfect for.”
No. She. Didn’t.Dakota’s words shot through my chest like a quiver full of arrows, piercing my heart. I pressed a hand to my chest, expecting to find it ravaged.
“Don’t even joke about that,” the governor said, resting one of his large, football-player hands over Dakota’s slim wrist. “You can’t have him.”
I didn’t have the bandwidth to wonder at Governor Mane’s overly familiar gesture. Because I was having a hard time breathing. I couldn’t sit here and watch Ben steal everything I wanted.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing so fast my chair tipped back and almost fell over. My napkin floated off my lap to the ground. “I have an important call I can’t be late for.”
Wendy narrowed her eyes. “What call? The meeting with the Canada team isn’t until four.”
I bent and picked up the napkin, wringing it in my hands. “It’s, uh, theNew York Times. They’re interested in a story on the Herschel motor. Surprise!”
Ah, shit. The Herschel motor was Dakota’s latest invention, named after famed trailblazing astronomer Caroline Herschel. It increased our cars’ mileage by a third and was going to revolutionize the market. Other than popping in for Green Machine updates, Dakota had been spending all her time perfecting it. Now I was going to have to pitch theTimesreal fucking fast.
“That’s great,” Dakota gushed.
Wendy nodded, grudgingly impressed.
“Tease the Green Machine while you’re at it.” Governor Mane steepled his fingers on the table. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to build some buzz for the bill with a national outlet.”
“Oh, definitely.” I could mention the Green Machine in my nonexistent phone interview with theNew York Times, no problem. Easy. I tossed the napkin on the table and practically tripped getting away. “’Bye now.”
The minute I made it out the front doors of Clementine’s, I bent over and put my hands on my knees to catch my breath. What was wrong with me? I hated losing, sure, but normally I used setbacks like rocket fuel to double my efforts and do better. Right now, I couldn’t squash the overwhelming feeling that I’d been betrayed and abandoned, and it was throwing me.
I was taking this too personally. Just because Ben had been nicer to me lately didn’t mean our competition was null and void. He’d been consistent on his end. All the flip-flopping and assumptions had been in my head.
“Stoner, wait up.”
I turned to find Ben jogging over, and my heart dropped.
I straightened and took off through the parking lot. “I’m not going to plug your Willie Nelson mural to theNew York Times, so don’t bother asking.”
