IS THIS A VICTORY PARTY?
Birdie couldn’t hide her shock when she saw him walk in the door. She froze and watched him make his way to where she stood, headset on, iPad in hand.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in New Hampshire?” she asked as he approached.
But Buck just put his arm around her waist and planted a kiss on her lips. And then, as though business as usual, he explained, “I guess, technically, I am. And I was there. Hell, you’re the reason I was there at all. You knew Haze was the real deal before I did. Anyway, but what do they need me for tonight? I can wait around and watch TV anywhere, so thought I’d do it here.”
Birdie smiled. “I’m not sure you’re on the list.”
“That’s the thing. I’d like to be. If that’s all right with you. This has been the worst election season of my life.”
“That’s not my problem,” she said, turning inward again, scared to let him back in to her heart too easily.
“Well, actually, it is, Birdie. Because I missed you.”
Looking into his eyes, she saw the man she had met on the Hill decades earlier, the man she still loved and who she was sure still loved her. “You know, I never did anything. Only the one I told you about, when I was hurt and angry,” she said softly, more Roberta than Birdie now.
“I know. And you had every right. I went wrong. You’re allowed to be angry as long as you want. But I just wish you wouldn’t. I wish you knew I was young and stupid, not thinking, caught up in my first campaign and got carried away. It meant nothing, as I said then, and I’ll spend the rest of my days making it up to you if that’s what you need.”
Then he whispered, playful, “What I really need is to take you home right now, but I know well enough than to try to pull you away from the second biggest party of the season.” He winked. “I’m gonna stay and watch you work, and I’ll be here to walk you home when everyone has left and the sun’s come back up.”
These were just the words she had longed to hear. Yes, she could live with that.
* * *
Cady walked the dirt path to the expanse of illuminated tents down the center of the Mall, the Capitol Dome shining in the distance behind them, the chatter of TV coverage, voices, buzzing from the party. She didn’t really know how this was going to work out. News trucks surrounded the string of tents on every side. Layers of security at every possible entrance. She texted him, worried she might not get a response. Maybe she should’ve told him, before right now, that she might be showing up, after all.
So, hypothetically speaking, how might one crash a party like this?
Then the answer came, swift and reliable: It’s like a maximum security prison in here. I’m making a break for it. Hang on. Meet you at the carousel.
She made her way to the carousel, dark and still at this late hour, and took a seat on the nearest park bench, folding her arms across her chest in the chilly night air. She had raced out of her party too fast and had forgotten her coat.
She heard his voice first.
“I’m not sure, but New Hampshire might be the better bet tonight.” He said it as a joke, but there was something cautious, held back, in his delivery. He wore a suit but no tie, his hands buried in his pockets.
“Best I could do. Couldn’t get there in time,” she said, shivering either from the temperature or the nerves. Likely the nerves. She could barely form complete sentences. “What do you think, is this a victory party?”
“It is now,” he said, taking a seat beside her.
“What?”
“You’re here. So this—” he pointed to her and then himself “—is a victory.”
She smiled, looked away, then back at him again. “Sorry if I’ve been a little—”
“Difficult?” he offered.
“I was going to say…reclusive—”
“Ohhh. That’s what it was,” he said, nodding.
“—while I figured stuff out.”
“Guys call that ‘space,’” he said with dramatic emphasis.
“So, that’s what they always meant. Now I get it,” she said, sarcastic.
He stood up, took her hand and yanked her to her feet. “C’mon, I think we can get the sea dragon.”
He took off jogging, and she waited a moment before following.
After climbing the gate to the carousel, he held out his hand, but instead she grasped the top of the gate and leaped over herself, heels and all. Adrenaline, not just nerves, she thought to herself, that’s what this was.
“Wow, okay then,” he said. “Bet you used to run hurdles or something. That’s how you got away from the truck so fast that day.”
They strolled along the perimeter of the dark carousel. All the leaping horses silhouetted, their quiet audience.
“Oh, that,” she said.
“I don’t want to think about that day again, ever,” he said, sharing her unspoken sentiment as he hopped onto the carousel platform. They moved slowly in the pitch-black, grabbing for the horses to guide their way. “But I hope you finally believe me about all of that.” He stopped to look at her, as though to be sure she heard him and understood.
“Yeah, I do,” she said softly, sorry she had given him a hard time.
“Because I just want to really start over. I’m Parker.” He held his hand out to shake hers, and she took it.
“Cady.”
“Great, let me tell you about me, Cady,” he said, walking again. “I own this bar that is not doing so bad actually.”
“I’d say.” She gestured to the party.
“And contrary to what’s been previously reported,” he went on, “I’m not living in my office—anymore—”
“Oh?”
“Just moved in with Buddy. In Adams Morgan.”
“I’m in Columbia Heights.”
“Nice. We’re getting our acts together.”
“It seems so.” She smiled.
“What else about me? My favorite show is Best Day DC.”
“An excellent choice.”
“And if I’m being fully honest—and why not?” He stopped walking again. “Then I should also say, I’ve had a crush on their senior producer probably since February.”
“February?” she asked, surprised.
“I could’ve given anyone those sliders,” he said, then added more thoughtfully, “And Melanie and me, we had been rocky for a while.”
“Interesting,” she said, taking a deep breath and leaning against the horse behind her. “Well, I guess if we’re sharing here, which is not something I generally do much of, then I would say, I might have had a crush that I ignored for…a while.” This was true. She had always been drawn to him in that safe way, with that healthy distance of someone firmly committed to someone else. But once the cracks had truly started to show with Jackson, once those first ripples of the impending quake could be felt, she’d started to view Parker differently: in a dangerous way, a way that scared her because he’d become important to her. The engagement party, it had taken great effort to keep him relegated to the friend sector of her life after that.
Cheers erupted in the distance, presumably a state projected for Arnold, and they looked toward the glowing tents.
“What’s going on in there?” He turned his gaze back to her, tapped her head, smiling.
“Too much,” she whispered.
The golden flecks in his eyes picked up the streetlight, and she wondered if he felt the way she felt watching him: something intense, all-consuming, combustible. His lips curved in that way, that smile of his, and suddenly she wasn’t cold anymore. It felt like the night of that kiss over the summer, at the fountain. And that current flowed through her again, the same one that had also overcome her earlier in the night when she’d imagined what it would feel like to see him again. But stronger now, enveloping her, so electric that she almost expected to see a spark if he touched her, when he touched her. When.
“Too much,” she said again. Too much to say, and he had to know: she was here. “And you? What’s going on? In there?” She tapped his chest, his heart.
He looked away a moment and then: “Just this,” he said, his lips on hers, gently at first, pulling her close, one hand in her hair, one at her waist, his palm burning against that small cutout where her skin peeked from her dress. He stepped toward her, against her, until she was backed against the carousel sea dragon, the only barrier keeping them from tumbling.
Finally, after months of fighting her feelings for him, months of closing herself off while she sorted herself out, put herself back together, she let herself get lost in him.
He kissed her neck and whispered in her ear, “Do you still need space? I’m hoping not. I’m not giving you any, at the moment.”
“No, I’m good,” she said as he kissed her neck again. And then, just for herself, for her own clarity, “For the record, I don’t need you…I want you.”
“Works for me,” he whispered lightly, that broad smile, his eyes bright. “But, you know, I’ll say whatever I have to in order to get your vote.”
“You’ve got it.”
He celebrated with another kiss.