Weekend Briefing: Exclusive First Look
Welcome back, agents! This week you get the exclusive first look of My Wife, The President.
I’m not the best of men, but I’m not the worst of them either. I’m simply a man with a hard job to do. A complicated one. One that can get a little bit dirty. But a duty that is absolutely necessary for the future of my nation.
And as the husband of the first-ever female President of the United States, that’s a responsibility that is very close to my heart. Sort of like Arizona, not that my best friend for two decades would ever understand. Even if we are kind of married now.
There’s a lot of things she wouldn’t understand about me. But that’s okay. It’s not her job to worry about the deep state Committee that’s trying to make every politician their puppet, including her. She certainly doesn’t need to know that I’m on that Committee, or that, as my alter ego the Master Spy, I can thwart those plans. After all, that’s my job. Hers is running the free world.
But between trying to maintain three different identities, training a new henchman, hunting down the one that got away, and keeping the bad guys from hurting the woman I love, it’s all in a day’s work. The secret that gets me is my unrequited love for my best friend turned wife.
1 Negative
I take the opportunity to gaze at my wife where she stands in front of her bedroom window.
Her back is to me, so I don’t have to worry about her catching me watching the sunlight gleam off the natural gold highlights in her brown waves that tumble halfway down her back.
“So, as you can see from the arguments I just gave you, it is imperative that we discuss what this relationship will mean for both sides, now that we accomplished the first goal.”
I smirk at Arizona’s lawyer talk. She always hides behind it when dealing with uncomfortable situations, when she’s trying to assert her authority, or, well, when she’s actually being a lawyer.
My gaze slides further down, to where her blouse tucks in at her tiny waist and into her pencil skirt that does nothing to hide her feminine curves that she’s convinced she doesn’t have . . .
“Earnest, are you even listening to me?”
Startling, I pull my eyes away from her shapely legs to find that she has turned and is staring into me with her blue-green taser eyes.
“Of course, I am, dear,” I answer as I prop my arms underneath me where I’m reclining on her bed, and glance around her suite of a room.
I have been trained to look someone in their eyes and lie so convincingly that they doubt everything they ever thought they knew. But for some reason, when it comes to Arizona, I can’t seem to even look at her when telling a white lie.
Maybe it’s because she’s one of the few people I can actually say I’ve known for any great length of time. My best friend of two decades. Or maybe it’s because she’s the one individual I’ve ever gotten hitched to. Perhaps it’s a little bit of both.
Or a lot of both. Even if she is quite clear that we are still completely platonic friends and the fact that we’ve both said vows changes nothing about our relationship.
But maybe, just maybe, that’s changing now. “You were saying,” I begin, racking my mind for the beginning of this little DTR, “that now that our marriage has proven that we can be not only great friends, but also excellent political partners, we should spend the next four to eight years finding out what great bedfellows we could be—”
“Earnest!”
I grin. “Mrs. Freeman.”
Arizona crosses her arms and glares down at me. “President Freeman, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome very much. After all, it was my political contacts and ability to take away your single woman status that got you this far.” Sitting up, I pat next to me on the bed.
Still glaring at me, Arizona shakes her head firmly.
Grinning deeper, I lay back down and cross my ankles. “And with your superb legal background, compassionate heart, and brain the size of the biggest states you weren’t named for, you’ll prove to the country that you didn’t need anything I brought to the table.”
Sighing, Arizona uncrosses her arms and leans wearily against the baseboard. “Yes, but you know how it is for all those people who could care less about all that, image is everything. And since those are the people pulling the strings—”
She has no idea just how much string-pulling is going on in the shadows. “And that’s why I’ll be with you every step of the way, Zona. That, and you can’t stand the thought of living without me.”
Arizona rolls her eyes at me playfully before sinking onto the edge of her bed, her shoulders sagging like she has the weight of the world resting on them.
Sitting up, I crawl over to perch behind her on the mattress and place my hands on her shoulders. “We’ll do this together.” I begin to massage her, enjoying the excuse to touch her in even this little way. Something she wouldn’t have let me do before our marriage of convenience.
We’re making baby steps. Even as I feel my nervous system coming alive at these simple touches.
It strikes me as odd every time these sensations hits me. Not that I have it, since I’ve always had feelings for Arizona that she never seemed to return, from the beginnings of our friendship two decades ago till now. But that my feelings for her are the only ones I haven’t trained into submission.
Maybe because I don’t want to.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s nice to be myself around Arizona, and not one of the two other versions of me I have to wear from time-to-time to keep the world running right. And I’ll do exactly what I said I would— because, after all, she’s the best chance my beloved country has.
Even if she’ll never be a part of anything I do except for this. It’s best for both Arizona and America that that never happens. Even if I have to keep secrets and tell lies and not look her in the eye.
It’s not like I haven’t kept my identities a secret from her for twenty years now.
“But not from us,” reminds the darker part of my conscience, which I have named Bad Voice. “We know your true self.”
Like usual, I ignore the part of me that seems to have fragmented off because of all the bad things I’ve had to do for good reasons, I think. I mean, I don’t know where else it could have come from, so I leave it at that and focus on other things. Like my wife beneath my hands.
I keep massaging her, but one thumb reaches out to caress the soft skin on the back of her neck.
Arizona shudders under my touch.
I take that response as an encouragement, and lean toward her to whisper softly in her ear, “So, what was the part of the DTR that I missed out on? The part where you want us to kiss publicly for your image?”
She snorts. “Like I said at the beginning of all this, there isn’t a precedent for presidential PDA, so we’re safe there.”
“No, you’re not,” warns what I call my Good Voice. I think it’s my instincts or something. “You’re not safe.”
My instincts are always right when I’m the Master Spy. Not always when I’m in the safest building on earth.
Leaning closer, I almost freeze at her soft scent of flowers and peaches. “Okay. We’ll save all our kissing for private, then.”
“Earnest—”
My gaze drops to my wife.
And that’s when I see the red dot on her chest.
Instincts kick in, and I push her to the floor, planting my body over top of hers.
“Earnest!” she screams.
“Push the panic button,” I whisper. “There’s a sniper just outside.” And based on the angle of the sniper’s dot . . . “Probably on the Truman balcony.”
“What?” Arizona squeaks.
The urge to protect her overcomes me. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of this alive.” And hopefully without displaying just how capable I am of making such promises and keeping them.
“Earnest, I think my balcony door is unlocked.”
Lifting my head slightly, I find that it is not only unlocked, but also ajar, letting in a slight breeze.
How did I not notice that sooner?
“Earnest!” Arizona screams.
Even as my name leaves her lips, arms wrap around me and tug me off of her.
The intruder jerks me backward, and whispers into my ear. “Green says to let it be.”
I clench my fists. “That’s a negative.”
Then I whirl around and punch the intruding henchman in the face.
He stumbles backward, and I turn to find another man in the doorway dressed in all black. He’s holding a tranquilizer gun in his arms, and it’s aimed right at Arizona, whose gaze is fixed on me.
“No!” I bellow, charging at the armed intruder.
He ignores me, and the weapon goes off. Too soon for me to kick it out of his hands. Too soon for me to jump in the way. Too soon—
Arizona’s scream pierces the air, and she slumps back to the ground.
Only then do I reach the second attacker. I grab hold of the gun and point it upward before kicking him in the chest so hard that he goes flying against the pillars surrounding the balcony.
Turning his tranquilizer gun at him, I shoot. Then I turn to the other man and shoot him, too.
A quick perimeter glance shows me that there are no other immediate threats.
Dropping the gun, I rush back to Arizona’s side.
Her eyes are closed, and her face is paler than usual.
“Arizona?” I say, pulling the dart from her skin. “Love, can you hear me?”
She doesn’t respond.
Picking her up in my arms, I rush around the bed and kick open the door.
Several secret servicemen round the corner just then, and their gazes all fall on woman slumped in my arms.
I desperately want to tell them about the two men in my wife’s sleeping quarters so they can take them away forever.
But if even one of those men had direct contact with Green, I can’t do that.
And explaining how I took out two armed men when I have no military combat experience on record will be a bit difficult.
Using my foot, I reach to close the door behind me. Then I turn to the servicemen. “She’s having an allergic reaction to a sleep tranquilizer. She needs medical assistance immediately.”
If any of them question that explanation, or even why she’s trying to go to sleep in a pencil skirt, they don’t mention it.
The chief operating officer, Philip Jamison, takes Arizona from me, and the others flank him as they charge toward wherever the White House doctor is at the present moment.
Stuffing my hands into my pocket, I stumble after, feeling every second the shame of a man who cannot protect his own wife.
Comments
Post a Comment