My parents have me over for dinner one evening and grill me on the campaign. I know, ever since growing up in their household, that in politics, discretion is a must. The last of the primaries are tomorrow, and Dad says he heard Matt had been courted by both parties but had declined.

“You’re doing a good job combating decades and decades of power shifts between the two parties, but is it going to be enough, Charlotte? What’s Matt plan if they attack, find some scandal in his past?”

“Dad, I’m not his shadow and I’m not a mind reader, either—I’m busy helping organize his schedule and that’s that.”

“Will we be invited to the fundraiser for literacy he’ll be holding near campaign close?” Mom asks.

“You’re on the list. Everyone’s on the list, even the whole of Hollywood and Nashville; Matt loves music and he loves, loves scientists and tech geeks. The campaign has had endorsements so far from nearly six dozen public figures. Even Mayweather posted on his social media with an image of piles and piles of money and a note that read ‘Floyd Money Mayweather doesn’t do two-hundred-dollar checks, I do cash, and it adds up to a couple more zeroes.’”

I realize how fantastical it all sounds once I hear myself talk about it. How does Matt sleep at all?

How does anyone carry the expectations of a whole country on his shoulders, and carry it well?

“We’re not sure we can attend the gala, though,” Dad warns me quietly. “You do realize my appearance at such an event would be an endorsement too?”

I meet his gaze and nod quietly, wanting to ask him to please, please endorse Matt, but I respect him too much to ask what he’s waiting for. I simply know he’s afraid that no matter the people, the parties will make sure the one who ends on top won’t be Matt Hamilton.

Later that same night, I check in with my friends at the same bar where I celebrated my birthday months ago. “Hamilton for the win,” Kayla says over dinner. “He has my vote. And I know he has yours!”

I laugh, saying, “Of course.”

She frowns. “Wait. What? Does he have more than your vote?”

I laugh it off, but, oh god, it’s not at all funny.

How could I let this happen? I’d been afraid it would, and I admit to myself that was primarily the reason I was hesitant to join his campaign.

But . . . you can’t control who you crush on.

Except a part of me believes that you can, that it was wrong of me to fall the way I’ve been falling, that I know it can go nowhere. But still I want him. And I think of him. And despite wondering if I’ve let things go too far, if maybe I should quit before they get worse, I’ve stayed.

Craving to make a difference. Craving . . . to be with him.

I look at Kayla, and she has a good guy; she’s the one being taken home tonight, who has a job she loves and parents who didn’t care if she was a teacher or a guitar player (she’s actually both).

I have a job that’s temporary, a man I can never truly have, and if my mother realizes that I’m dangerously attracted to Matt, she’ll worry. They wanted me in the arms of a promising politician, true, but not the candidate for the presidency, who every woman in the country believes belongs to her.

I swore I’d never be a politician’s girl—they either cheat on you with another woman or with their jobs, or the truly sleazy ones cheat the voters who put them on their thrones.

But no matter how distasteful I find it all, I live in D.C. I live and breathe politics. Politics has fed me my whole life, put me through a career. Politics is now my job.

Politics is in every pore and cell of the man consuming my dreams.

The fact that he’s driven and the most uncorrupted person in the political world as of now only adds to his appeal, to my admiration, to my respect. My desire to remain at his side until the end is too great, no matter how much it hurts the girl inside me who just wanted a guy to love and for him to love her back.

That night I climb into my bed in my little apartment, realizing how lonely I really am when all around me is quiet. Campaigning is exhausting. It’s also invigorating and enlightening.

We’ve met with hundreds of thousands of people. You get to see all the varieties, all the ethnicities that now make up Americans. You get to see courage, suffering, hope, politeness, rudeness, anger, despair—all of that is America.

Sadness is when you don’t listen to those in pain until they’re crying. You don’t listen to those suffering because sometimes they’re the ones most silent.

***

The next day, we’re all gathered at the bunker preparing to watch the primary results. And I miss him.

I miss his energy and the passion I feel when I’m around him. I miss traveling with him, him asking me for favors, like getting him coffee, and I miss the focused looks he wears when he puts on his glasses and reads the schedules I bring or the files he asks me to print out.

Tonight, nearly a hundred members of our team are here, watching the flat-screen TV in one of the media rooms as we watch the last primary. The two men in the lead for the parties are the Democrat President Jacobs, and the Republican Gordon Thompson.

President Jacobs. The only good thing he’s done for our country he has yet to do, which is step out of office and let someone more competitive with better ideas step in.

Gordon Thompson. He wants to increase the military budget while cutting spending on social programs. He seems really pro-war.

And clearly interested in the ratings Thompson seems to garner, the media has been nonstop replaying what he’s been blogging, Facebooking, and spouting on TV—when Matt arrives.

He meets my gaze. Our eyes seem to lock for an eternity.

Matt stops staring only when everyone begins to greet him. He greets them back amicably and then sits to my right.

The lights are lowered—and then they’re out.

The TV flashes and everyone is silent, watching and listening to the speculations about who the Democratic and Republican nominees will be.

And I’m trying to keep up, except that I’m hyperaware of Matt sitting exactly two inches away. I am aware of the warmth of his body. And amazed at the crackling trail of fire in my veins because he’s so close. His clean, manly scent makes my lungs ache. An overpowering urge to get closer won’t leave me. I lean back a little instead. I breathe, and then realize he just turned to look at me.

He’s staring at my face as if he’s branding it to memory, and it seems to frustrate him because he runs a restless hand over the back of his neck.