“Your mind is endlessly intriguing, my love.”
“Some people would call it annoying.”
“I’m not some people. I’ll let you get back to it.”
“Good luck with Petrov.”
“Thank you. Be safe out there. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Nick put down the BlackBerry and turned to Graham, who was scrolling on his phone while he waited. “I have a question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“How would you feel about being vice president?”
Graham looked up, glasses perched on his nose, left eyebrow raised. “Of what? The local Elks Lodge?”
“Haha. You know what I’m asking you.”
“Are you for real right now?”
“So for real. You should’ve been my first choice all along.” The more Nick thought about it, the more he loved the idea. He’d still get credit for choosing the first female vice president, which had been important to him. “Having you as my VP would solve a number of problems for me, chief among them the experience-gap issue. If you’re in the room when all the big decisions are made, it takes some of the steam out of that nonsense.”
Graham stared at him, seemingly in disbelief. “You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.”
“Laine would murder us both.”
“No, she wouldn’t, and it’d be temporary. Two and a half years to be called Mr. Vice President for the rest of your life.”
Graham flashed a grin. “It does have a nice ring to it.”
“What does?” Terry asked when he joined them.
“I’ve asked your dad to be our new VP.”
Terry’s face lit up with pleasure. “What? Really?”
“Those were my questions, too,” Graham said with a smile for his son.
“Yes, really, and it’s the best idea I ever had, thanks to something Sam said, so she gets partial credit. The right person has been here the whole time, and it would be a privilege to get to take the rest of this ride with you by my side. Say yes.”
“Mr. President, Nick… I’m eighty years old. No one wants an old dude like me hanging around past his expiration date. You need someone young and dynamic and full of energy. That’s not me. Not anymore.”
“Oh, please. You do more in a day than most men half your age. You know more about this job than I do, and I need you. The media is already shredding me on Henderson turning into a disaster. I need a slam-dunk replacement, and that’s you.”
“You’d be an amazing VP, Dad.”
“Your mother would kill me—and Nick. We’d have to move. There’d be Secret Service and endless obligations. We’re in bed at eight o’clock most nights. We get annoyed when our friends invite us to dinner.”
Nick and Terry laughed at his grimace.
“It’s two and a half years, Graham.”
“You told us on Easter that you miss the rat race,” Terry reminded his father.
