Vote for Love: The Box Set (Vote for Love ) Page 15

  “Landon Marsh. At last.” Patrick extended his hand. “Good to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” I said as I shook his hand. I made sure to squeeze it as tightly as I could so that he’d see he didn’t intimidate me in any way. “Of course I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Have you?” Patrick smiled, then he turned his attention to Kathryn. “It’s been a long time.”

  “It has.” She moved nearer to me. “And from what I understand, you’ve had an interesting time here in Ohio with voters.”

  “Nothing that we haven’t been able to handle on the grassroots side,” Patrick said. “The voters know me. They know I’m fighting for them.”

  “Are you?” I gripped Kathryn’s hand a little bit tighter. “That’s not what I’m hearing on the ground. That’s not what they’re telling me. They’re upset, and they should be. Washington has left them behind, and the people they have elected to make sure they’re heard have stopped listening.”

  Patrick laughed. “And that’s why—”

  “Mr. Blanco. Mr. Marsh.” The same production assistant who’d led me down the hallway to the stage stepped into our conversation. “We’re ready for you. It’s time to begin.”

  Another campaign, another debate. It was becoming part of my routine, in a way. Three in one year—two during the primaries, and one now as the election season wound down. Each time, I had a front row seat.

  The Columbus Dispatch and WCNB co-sponsored the night’s Ohio Senatorial Debate, which aired live on public broadcasting across the state and on the ABC stations in all the media markets. Landon and Patrick took their places behind two large podiums on opposite ends of the stage while red, white, and blue lights illuminated the background. From a center desk, WCNB’s main anchor, Preston George, sat ready to pepper both candidates with questions.

  As Preston reminded the audience of the rules, I leaned in toward Jack and spoke in his ear. “Just remember. Even if things do go perfectly for Landon, that doesn’t mean the campaign is over. I have a few secret weapons we can use.”

  “What do—?”

  “Good ones,” I said. “And we might need them.”

  Jack frowned.

  “Don’t underestimate Patrick Blanco.” I held up a hand. “He and I are the same. I know exactly how he thinks.”

  Preston continued with his moderating duties. “Finally, let me remind the audience to please remain quiet during tonight’s debate.”

  Jack cleared his throat and motioned to me that we’d talk afterwards.

  “We will begin with the first question, and Mr. Blanco, that one goes to you,” Preston advised. “As senator, you’ve often spoken about the need for a higher minimum wage. However, when it came up for a vote last year in the Senate, you voted against it. Will you explain your reasons why?”

  I sank deeper into the chair as Patrick answered the question. How interesting to watch it all begin. Under the hot lights and the gilded architecture of the theater, two men who had defined my life over the last year discussed the issues. And as I listened to it all, I had some trouble focusing.

  Mainly because I kept thinking about Landon. Specifically, I kept thinking about our kiss in front of my hotel room two nights before. It had been so raw, and so bold. And it was so much of what I wanted. For the first time in my life, I actually wanted it.

  I wanted him.

  When the audience laughed at a joke Patrick made, it refocused my attention on the event. Ahead of me, Preston waved his hand as he asked Landon a new question while Landon took a sip of water. I couldn’t tell which candidate had a better command of the night.

  “Mr. Marsh, you’ve often characterized your voters and the people who want to vote for you as part of a ‘movement.’ Do you want to elaborate?”

  Landon put down his glass. “Of course, Mr. George. My supporters are a movement because no one else is speaking to them, or speaking for them. Think about our state.” Landon stepped away from the podium and seemed to start speaking to the audience, not to the TV cameras or Preston. “Ohio used to be a center of manufacturing. We used to make things here that were shipped all over the world. Now…the jobs are gone. The factories have closed, and thousands of Ohioans are out of work, or underemployed. Think about it. Are you better off right now than you were five, or even ten years ago?”

  “He’s right,” a female voice murmured in the row behind me. I turned my head to find a woman with a gray bob nodding.

  “There are many folks in this state who feel that the politics of status quo have left them behind and, worse than that, forgotten them,” Landon continued. “I see it in our small towns, and our rural counties across this state. They are yearning for something else. It’s more than a movement, it’s—”

  “With all due respect, sir, your ‘movement’ isn’t the kind of thing I want the fine people of our state to be a part of, and I’m sure I’m not the only one,” Patrick said. “This movement you speak of feeds on class warfare, fear, and disrespect—”

  “Pardon me,” Landon said. “But I wasn’t finished speaking.”

  “Mr. Blanco, please allow Mr. Marsh to finish his comments,” Preston said, his voice rising. “You all agreed to the terms ahead of time, and I would ask you to remember that.”

  “I will,” Patrick said. “As soon as my opponent stops treating his followers and supporters like a focus group that can be handled and managed.”

  “Excuse me?” Landon’s voice had deepened and he frowned.

  Instinctively, I moved to the edge of my seat. Patrick had a way of rattling his opponents in debates, and the way he’d phrased his last sentence told me I should be concerned. More than concerned. He was going in for the kill. I shivered. Even the air around the debate stage had seemed to change.

  “Earlier this summer, you gave some remarks to donors at the Union Club in Cleveland.” Patrick paused and turned so that he could play to the camera. I gripped the edge of my seat with one hand and shot Kelly a look. Her wide eyes didn’t hide any of her emotions, either. Something told us this would be bad. “During that luncheon, you referred to your supporters of this ‘movement’ in a very specific way.” One side of Patrick’s handsome face turned upward in a snide smile. “You called them—and I’m quoting here—‘the Forgotten and Poorly Educated.’”

  A small rumble of comments and reactions flowed through the theater. Preston George slapped his hand on the table and admonished the audience to be quiet.

  I shot Jack a look. “Is this true?” I mouthed.

  Jack shrugged as if he didn’t know the answer.

  “Mr. Marsh, I’m sure that many of those who have supported you over the last few months will be disappointed and disgusted to hear that you referred to them in such a demeaning and degrading way. It’s almost as if you have a private and a public position on who it is you call your ‘base,’ and either way, you’re catfishing them. Fooling them. You’re making them believe something you cannot deliver.”

  Landon opened his mouth to answer, then shut it just as fast. Another small wave of whispers and murmured comments pulsed through the audience.

  “Mr. Marsh, do you have any kind of response?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t,” Patrick said. “And just to add to it, there’s a video of his remarks. I believe it was posted to Youtube shortly before this debate.”

  “Maybe I should drop out. Concede,” Landon said in his hotel room at the Residence Inn that night, after we’d watched the video clip for the twentieth time. “I can hold a press conference tomorrow morning. Maybe get out in front of this. You know the media will want answers.”

  “They’ll want answers, but it’s too late to drop out. Tomorrow is one day before the election.” I turned my attention to the television in time to see Reagan Farrow, an MSNBC anchor, skewer the video clip, calling it “class warfare” and “arrogant.” She then asked if “the most watched senate race in the country” had just turned in favor of Patrick Blanco, who’d slipped
in the recent polls. Did he have a chance to rebound?

  “Fucking idiot.” Landon threw himself down on the bed. “I knew better than this. I know better than this.”

  I took my plastic cup of wine from the dresser, my second of the night. “Gaffes happen. Shit happens. It’s part of a campaign. It doesn’t mean it can’t be overcome.”

  “In two days?”

  “People are going to vote how they’re going to vote. Many of them have already voted, remember? You said that yourself earlier tonight.”

  He raked a hand through his thick hair. “You don’t understand how badly I want this. How much I’ve worked for this.”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “My whole life has been working toward this. I’ve waited for the moment to make a move like this. I know how Washington is, but I want a real chance.”

  I found the remote underneath Landon’s suit jacket and the blanket on the foot of the bed. I switched off the television and turned to him. “No matter what happens, you’ve done a good job. You’ve worked hard. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re the right person for the office.”

  “Because you want to exact revenge on Patrick.” He rubbed his forehead a few times. “And I’m your best shot at getting even with him.”

  “No.” I rolled over on the bed, propped my head on one hand. “I’m sayin’ that because what I’ve seen this last week convinced me. You want to represent the people of Ohio, and they’d be lucky to have you do it.”

  He removed his hand from his head and our gazes locked. “You really mean that?”

  “Yes.” I smiled at him. “I know I don’t have a reputation for being honest, but this time, I mean it.”

  “Thank you. I’m… I just—”

  And then he reached for me. His hand cupped the side of my face and he pulled me to him. When his lips met mine, we melded together into a tangle on the bed. His ferocious kisses told me he wouldn’t stop unless I wanted to—and I didn’t. I kissed him with abandon. I tasted want and need, and for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t have to hide myself from Landon Marsh. I could be myself with him, and that was a freedom I didn’t think I’d ever known.

  With our mouths sealed, I fell backward on the bed. He groaned above me and murmured my name, a whisper on his lips that promised something much more. My fingers flew down the front of his white dress shirt and unfastened all the buttons, then I ripped the shirt off his broad shoulders. He briefly rose up and took off the shirt, then he kissed my jawline and moved down my neck, tracing a pathway along my throat, and across my chest.

  “Let me help you.” I untied the dark-maroon waist strap of my wrap dress. He pulled one side of it away from my body, revealing my black, lace bralette and matching underwear.

  “You’re beautiful. You always have been. Ever since I met you.” He kissed me. “And right now, I’m going to show you how much.”

  The bralette had a clasp in the front, and he popped it open with his right hand, which he then roamed over my breasts. He massaged my left nipple as he kissed me, and the heat built inside me as I responded to his touch.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “This. I want this.”

  Soon, Landon tasted and teased my nipple, further heating the moment. I cried out in ecstasy at the rawness of it all.

  Other men had never taken this much time with me. Other men hadn’t seen me the way he saw me. And other men didn’t want what he did. I’d found something I always wanted, but never thought I’d get.

  Once we were naked, Landon slipped from the bed and located a condom. When he came back, he climbed on top of me, and I relished the sweetness of skin-to-skin contact with someone I’d known for years but never really seen until the last week.

  “I’m glad I came to Ohio,” I whispered.

  “I’m glad you came, too.”

  His mouth found mine again and he pressed the full weight of his body onto me. I kissed him with a fury, giving myself over to the feelings that had been going on inside me ever since I saw Landon at the restaurant on my first night in town. He pulled on the condom, and I opened myself to him, then cried out in satisfaction when Landon found his way fully inside of me. We stayed entwined as the moment built and I relished the seconds of it, wishing I could stretch them out into years.

  “Yes,” I groaned as the energy grew. “Please don’t stop. Never stop.”

  “You have no idea how much I want this, Kathryn.” He moved in and out of me in a steady rhythm. “No idea.”

  I didn’t sleep very well that night. For most of it, I stared at the ceiling, counting Kathryn’s deep breaths as she lay sleeping beside me. She slept like she hadn’t had a good night’s rest in years, and I wondered why that was.

  Sometime around 5:00 AM, I found my iPad in the briefcase by the side of my bed and flicked it on. Once it hooked into the hotel room wifi, I spent over forty-five minutes reading articles and tweets. They railed about my disaster of a debate performance, the likelihood that Patrick would retain his seat in the Senate, and how that would help the Democrats keep a filibuster-proof majority, regardless if many more of their candidates rode into power on a possible win by Howard Sayers. In a way, this was a kind of self-flagellation. Punishment. A way of kicking myself over and over for being stupid enough to make comments like that in front of what I had assumed would be a friendly audience understanding my more populist views.

  Only a political neophyte should have made this kind of mistake.

  Kathryn stirred around 6:00 AM. She flipped on the bedside light and studied me for a long moment, a mess of sexy bed head, her naked body wrapped up in a sheet I knew smelled like her. “How long have you been awake?”

  “A long time.” I kissed her, savoring the softness of her body and the faint smell of Shalimar that lingered in her hair.

  “Did you get any sleep?” she asked when we broke apart. When I shook my head, she sighed. “You need it. Today’s the last day before the election, and you have a full schedule.”

  “Nothing a few cups of coffee and a five-hour energy drink won’t fix.”

  She frowned. “Not good enough.”

  “Well, it’s going to have to be.” I put the iPad on the bedside table and got out of bed. “Besides,” I said as I walked to the bathroom, “this will all be over by tomorrow night, anyway.”

  Landon shut the bathroom door behind him, and I stared at it for a few seconds, thinking. I wanted him to win. I needed him to win. He had more substance and cared more than Patrick Blanco ever did, and I saw that by the way he conducted himself with voters and in private. Yes, he was a Republican. Yes, I still considered myself a New York Democrat.

  But I wanted to win. Winning was everything.

  I heard Landon turn on the faucet, and my attention fell to my iPhone, laying connected to its charger on the nightstand. I grabbed it off the charger and unlocked it. “October Surprise Gives Blanco Campaign New Life,” screamed a headline on the front page of Five Thirty-Eight, a website devoted to politics and statistics. “Blanco Vs. Marsh Just Tipped for Blanco” echoed Politico. “Calling Supporters Poorly Educated Sends Marsh Campaign in Abyss” wrote The Columbus Dispatch. “Should Ohio Voters Risk it All on Marsh?” asked an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

  Fuck this. Fuck all of it. Time to go nuclear.

  I tapped the messages icon on my phone, glanced at the bathroom door, and typed out a text. Then I held my breath. Landon shut off the faucet and turned on the shower. He wouldn’t come out of there soon. I looked down at my text and considered my options.

  Did I want to send it? Did I want to do this? What would Landon say? Could I keep him from tracing it back to me? Would I own it if Landon called me out on it? What effect could it have?

  I stared at it a few more seconds, considering all aspects of what I was about to do. It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t make me look good. It was a part of my personality that I didn’t like very much.

  But it was politics. If we want
ed to win, we had to fight, and sometimes that meant fighting dirty. Sometimes that meant throwing everything we could at a victory.

  I punched send on my phone, locked it, and resolved I wouldn’t think about it anymore. Instead, I got from the bed and found my way to the bathroom, where I heard the water still running in the shower.

  “Knock, knock,” I said as I opened the door. I stepped in the steamy bathroom and shut the door behind me, then pulled back the white curtain that rimmed the bathtub/ shower combination.

  “Can I join you?”

  “Of course,” he said. He held a bar of soap in one hand and a smile on his face. “You can always join me, Kathryn.”

  I stepped into the tub and closed the curtain behind me. “Good,” I said. “Because we might have a busy day ahead of us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves for a few more minutes, right?”

  My lips found his as the warm water cascaded around us, and he pulled me close to deepen the moment. My hands stroked Landon’s broad chest, and his tongue met mine. Within seconds, he’d pushed me against the tile shower wall, and I’d given myself over to him. My name was on his lips, and even more than that, his name was on my heart.

  I didn’t need or want anything else. I just wanted him.

  “This is perfect,” I said when his lips broke away from mine and began to trace a trail down my throat. “This is all I need.”

  He stopped kissing my body and looked up at me. “Me too,” he said. “Me, too.”

  The final day of the campaign took me, Kelly, Jack, and Kathryn on a whirlwind tour of the state. Starting at 7:00 AM, we made ten stops across the state. We started around Columbus, then fanned out as we moved southward toward Cincinnati. Kelly designed a schedule she said would maximize my base and give us as much visibility as possible in the final hours of the campaign. Even so, it wasn’t easy to maintain a positive attitude. The media didn’t let up; it turned out, apart from the presidential election, my comments stuck out among the down-ballot races. They wanted blood, and they spent the day getting plenty of it.