He stood up and I followed suit, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “Congratulations, Alexis.” He held out his hand and I shook it. “You’ve earned it.” His eyes twinkled. “I got a lot of knitting done during those three days of the walkout. Not a bad way to spend one’s time.”
The fact that Zimmerman had joined us in the walkout would never cease to amaze me. Muriel was right: sometimes you could trust people to show up. “Thank you—for everything.”
I was going to be a full librarian. And I’d get the time and space to write my book. It was more than a dream come true. I felt like I was walking on clouds leaving Zimmerman’s office—until I glided past Megan’s desk. “You checked your phone yet?” she asked, deep in a game of Minesweeper.
I wanted to linger more in this lovely bubble of triumph, but I supposed I owed it to the campaign to respond to reporters in a timely fashion. I couldn’t wait to tell Nora the news about my new job. I dug around in my bag, yanked out my phone, and—
I had twenty-two missed calls, fifty-four texts, andthree hundredTwitter notifications. My heart dropped into my stomach. I opened Twitter first, because I was a masochist.
And there, flooding my mentions, were the pictures. Not of me and Logan, but of me and Will. The photos were dark and grainy, taken at night from a cell phone, but you could see we were standing outside the Four Seasons Hotel, dressed for a wedding. Will was kissing me, hands cupping my face.
I thought we’d gone unnoticed, dodged a bullet. But here we were, blasted for the whole world to see. I caught only the first headline—“Logan Arthur’s Girlfriend Caught Cheating”—and the first response—“How dare that dumb whore??!!”—before I pressed the screen dark, hands shaking. Then the phone slipped and clattered to the floor.
38
Never Met a Sword I Didn’t Fall On
I watched campaign staff argue with each other across Cary’s living room with the blurry, muted distance of a person a thousand leagues underwater. I sat at one end of the room, Logan at the other, our gazes fixed on our hands. Between us, Nora, Cary, Anita, and a small cadre of crisis comms consultants yelled back and forth, debating what to do.
We’d gathered here at Cary’s house because Nora said the campaign office was a zoo, and reporters would likely camp out at the houses of anyone high-profile. That comment had been a blow to Cary, who’d insisted he was a very famous member of the campaign. But since it turned out that, high-profile or not, Cary was a trust fund baby whose parents had purchased him a house bigger than Lee’s and Logan’s combined, I couldn’t find it in myself to feel sorry for him. The one thing that had broken through my misery was seeing evidence of Cary’s last-minute attempt at concealing his true personality before we arrived. Things had been awkwardly shoved in about a dozen hiding places. The best: a life-sized cutout of Matt Bomer fromMagic Mikepeeked its handsome head out from behind Cary’s pantry door.
I had to turn off my phone because of the sheer influx of notifications, but before I did, my neighbor called to confirm there were reporters outside my apartment. Nora had put a gag order on everyone gathered here, asking them not to mention the latest coverage. It was a mercy all the more remarkable because she could barely bring herself to look at me.
How quickly I’d fallen from cloud nine to twenty-thousand leagues under the sea.
Anita’s voice broke through. “What were you thinking, cookie?”
I looked up to find the entire living room watching me.
“I understand wanting to go for seconds in a hot man buffet,” she said. “Logan plus Will, yum. But why do it in public?”
“Because shewasn’tthinking,” Nora said coolly. When we locked eyes, her icy mask faltered. “She made a move without considering the consequences.Again.”
“It’s a rookie mistake,” said one of the consultants, adjusting his glasses. “We see it with clients all the time, thinking they can outsmart the public—”
“Enough,” Logan cracked, and everyone fell silent. His steel gaze swept the room. “Back off Alexis. I’m the one who told her to date Will if she wanted to. If you have shit to say, say it to me.”
“You didwhat?” Nora screeched. “How could you?”
He looked at me and the anger in his eyes melted away. “Because she shouldn’t have had to put her life on hold just to help me.” He cleared his throat. “Will is the real deal for her.”
His kindness was so unexpected a lump formed in my throat. Here I was drowning in guilt over what my mistake had done to his campaign, and Logan was defending my ability to date Will. He didn’t even know Will and I were over. It was enough to make me take a deep breath and say the thing I’d been working out while they yelled.
“I’m the one who messed up.” I used my firm speech voice. “As far as the world is concerned, I’m the villain. If I own it, make a public apology, Logan can dump me and that will be the end of it for him. This doesn’t have to be Logan’s burden.”
“Itwouldmake him sympathetic,” Cary said, scratching his chin. “It could actually help the campaign.”
Nora jerked to Anita. “Can your team look into how this would play?”
“Of course—”
“Absolutelynot.” This time, Logan surprised everyone by pushing to his feet. He looked around the room with an incredulous expression. “Jesus Christ, we’re not throwing Alexis under the bus. Have you seen what people are saying about her? It’s disgusting. Not in a million years.”
Nora threw her hands up. “Then what’s our move? I know you like to process, but time’s up, Logan. We’ve got reporters beating down our doors. We have to do something.”
“I know,” he said, and took a deep breath, like he was steeling himself. “Call your press contacts. I’m making a statement.”
The suits buzzed. “What kind of statement?” Nora asked.
