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Preface Washington, D.C.

[Postcard of the Lincoln Memorial]

Five Years Ago

“There must be a million people here!”

My roommate stands a stair above me — closer to Honest Abe — and gazes out out towards the Washington Monument. Her long dark hair literally drips with sweat, and I notice a group of teenagers move quickly to avoid the spray.

We are both drenched, hot, and exhausted. My white t-shirt is practically useless in the heat and humidity, and my red bra is clearly visible beneath. My frizzy hair refuses to be harnessed by the elastic on my wrist, heavy with moisture. I drain my water bottle and scan the crowd, my breath coming in short gasps.

“System change, not climate change!” a small group chants as they settle on the stairs below us.

“System change, not climate change!” random strangers respond enthusiastically.

People sit on the grass in a circle and play drums. Others, accompanied by an older white man with a guitar, sing songs from earlier protest movements. Most sprawl on the ground, spent after the hours of yelling and screaming and hoisting our signs in the sweltering heat.

Who plans a protest in Washington, D.C. for August? Ugh.

“I am desperate,” I announce to no one in particular, “for a shower.”

“Fuck, yes!” calls someone on my left.

“Preach, sister!” yells a raspy voice on my right.

“Want company?” mutters some asshole.

A loud throp is followed by an audible “ouch” as someone hits him with a cardboard sign. Cheers erupt around us, and I can’t help but smile. Maybe the world is changing!

I’m scanning the faces around me for the perpetrator when, suddenly, everything stops. The drums, the chants, the laughing, the crying. In an instant, it all disappears.

All that exists is the pair of silver-grey eyes holding my gaze.

They burrow inside me, directly to my soul.

It should feel invasive, even painful, but a strange sense of calm washes over me.

“Daisy!”

“Mmm?”

My breathing becomes even more jagged and unsteady. A small flame sparks deep in my core, easily distinguishable from the heat of the sun.

“Daisy!”

“What?!”

Breaking eye contact with the grey-eyed stranger, the world shifts dizzyingly into focus. The sound is overwhelming — the screams and shouts and drums suddenly cranked to full volume — and my hands instinctively cover my ears.

“Estás bien?!” Natalie demands, staring at me in shock.

“Huh?”

“What is wrong with you?!”

 Rising on my toes, shielding my eyes from the sun, I scan the area, frantic to find those quicksilver eyes and the peace that comes with them.

“Nothing,” I mutter absentmindedly.

“Right,” she states skeptically. “Then we should probably go.”

“Go? Why?”

“Why?!” she scoffs. “Literally one minute ago you were the one shouting for all of D.C. to hear that you were, quote, desperate for a shower.”

“What?”

“Jesus, Daisy. A shower? You were desperate for a shower.”

“I can wait.”

“You’re fucking killing me.”

“I saw something.”

“Holy shit, Daisy. You’ve seriously lost your mind.”

“No, I—”

Spinning around, momentarily buoyed by the idea that the owner of those unbelievable eyes had somehow snuck behind me, my stomach sinks at the packed steps. My roommate may have exaggerated the size of the crowd, but not by much, and they all seem to be chasing the same shaded recesses of this monument.

Fuck.

The streets are packed with protesters too — mostly young people, I notice with a satisfied smile — and there’s an excited hum moving through the crowds. Everyone is laughing and smiling, sharing a joke or a quick story with the strangers who pass. There is a definite sense of camaraderie and solidarity. Of community.

“Hey!” someone calls to the petite Latin at my side, not far from the metro. “I saw you earlier. You flashed your tits to those cops!!”

A general ruckus erupts immediately. Shouts of “What?!” and “When?!” and “What did they do?!” and “Show us!” pummel us from all sides. I can’t help but roll my eyes at my exhibitionist friend. She’s lucky the police were too surprised to arrest her for indecent exposure.

She grins, grasps the bottom of her orange tank top, and hoists it over her face.

“Holy shit!” a male voice shouts in surprise as a pair of large boobs — artistically painted blue and green to resemble the Earth divided in two hemispheres — one nipple somewhere around the Panama Canal, the other in the heart of Africa — appear in his face.

“Wow!” and “Incredible!” and “How did you do that?” echo like birds in the trees.

My roommate pulls her shirt down, a mischievous smirk on her face.

“The better question,” she yells to the gathered audience, revelling in the attention, “is how it didn’t sweat off in this fucking heat!!”

“Yeah,” a young white girl with a blonde ponytail says quietly beside us, “that is a good question. I’m soaked through—”

She lifts her dark t-shirt, exposing a thin, pale belly underneath, and wrings it out until water drips from the end.

“Me too,” adds a dark-skinned twenty-something man wearing shorts and t-shirt.

“This—” he points to his black turban. “—was light-blue this morning!”

Laughter ripples through the masses.

“Let me guess—” mutters a husky voice over my left shoulder.

Some impulse makes me stop and turn, causing the speaker to step on my toe.

“Ouch.”

“Oh shit.”

He touches my arm to steady himself, a zap of electricity surging through my fingertips.

Glancing up, I take in the khaki shorts and red t-shirt — “Love Thy Mother” written in cursive under a drawing of the planet — stretched tight over bulging muscles. The man is tall — like, ridiculously tall — and in his early twenties, white with an angular and handsome face.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”

But it’s his eyes that stop my heart dead in my chest. In the dwindling daylight, they’re dark, nearly black, but I’d know them anywhere. More than the colour, I recognize the sense of peace that’s settling over my shoulders. The fire building inside my core.

Natalie grabs my hand, shouts “what are you doing?” in my ear. People divert around us like a blockage in a fast-flowing stream.

Nothing exists except those eyes.

“You,” I breathe.

“No, you!” His voice, is deep. Gravelly. He smiles, eyes lightening a shade in response. “I’ve been looking for you.”

 My heart skips a beat.

“I’m Jake,” the man says, offering me an enormous hand.

“Daisy.”

“Daisy,” he repeats reverently and my knees wobble precariously. “This is gonna sound insane, but I wanna buy you a drink. Take you to dinner—”

“Are you shitting me?!” Natalie screeches, creating an even bigger spectacle.

“I know,” Jake concedes, shrugging with obvious embarrassment. His tanned cheeks are flushed, but it might be the heat. “It’s ridiculous. But I’m flying out tomorrow—”

My stomach sinks. So soon?

“I’d love a drink,” I mumble. “Or dinner.”

“Are you sure, chica? You don’t even know him—”

“Jake Rozlowski,” the giant offers with a grin. He has a dimple in one cheek and dark stubble lining his jaw, softening the sharp lines of his face. “Born and raised in small-town Montana, now a senior at Berkeley. In town for the climate march today. I’m a nice guy. Really.”

“I’m sure, Nat.”

“Fine,” the tiny spitfire finally yields, narrowing her eyes at the beautiful man standing beside me. “Just in case, lemme snap a photo of your licence—”

And thank goodness too.

The drink is from the minibar at his hotel and dinner is room service. We shower off the sweat from the protest together and build up a new one. A few times.

Limbs tangled in the starched white sheets, the white glow of the Washington Monument shining through the open curtains, we spend hours laughing and talking and sharing our secrets: that I’m bisexual and date mostly women, that he’s terrified to graduate college and doesn’t know what to do with his life, that he’s tortured by his enormous privilege and desperate to change the world, that I resent my mom even though it was my father who abandoned us. He is sweet and kind and generous and reassuringly optimistic.

“Daisy?” he whispers softly, fingers trailing lightly along my ribcage. The clock reads 5:07am, an hour until we have to say goodbye.

“Mmmm?”

“What is this? Us?”

“Hmmm?”

I know exactly what he means. The connection between us is intense. Undeniable.

But I am too scared to say it aloud.

I, Daisy Williams, am a chicken shit.

“It’s like a rubber band,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Like we were stretched apart and thin. But now it’s snapped tight. Finally right again.”

And that is, exactly, what it’s like.

Except his flight leaves in a couple hours and this is the end: one perfect night with my soulmate. If only my roommate wasn’t worried about collecting evidence for my potential murder investigation…

San Fransisco

[Postcard image of the Pier]

FIVE YEARS LATER

1

“It’s good to see you, Ms. Williams.”

Charlotte Dorsey — two-term Governor of the State of California — blocks the doorway to the conference room at the Fairmont Hotel, immaculate in a tailored black suit, her chin-length white hair swinging freely around an impressively unlined face. She presents her hand, and I smile, remembering the last time I saw the sixty-year-old black woman a few weeks ago.

She was sprawled across the white cotton sheets of her hotel-room bed, legs open and inviting, biting her lower lip. My hand looked pale cupping her substantial breast, fingers playing absentmindedly with her raised nipple. Caressing her flat stomach, finding her swollen heat and rubbing and pinching it until she groaned with pleasure. Slowly sliding inside, feeling her spasms tight against my fingers. Within seconds she was screaming my name and shaking in my arms.

“Governor.”

It’s been ages since we were last in the same room — even longer since we were alone — and my entire body tingles with the knowledge of our secret affair. And, more urgently, in anticipation of hot sex and mind-blowing orgasms. Charlotte better be staying the night.

We met at a fundraiser for the Oakland Food Bank last winter and I was immediately impressed by her intelligence and charm. Rumour has it the influential Democrat controls the party with an iron fist, destroying anyone challenging her preferred candidates, but she’s also supported some innovative policies to battle poverty and inequality. Plus, she’s sexy AF.

Reserved and controlled in public — letting others do most of the talking — she bluntly propositioned me at the end of the night and proved unbelievably adventurous in bed. She claims to want a casual relationship, blaming her demanding job, but calls or texts almost every night before bed.

After a few months, I know her well and, at the same time, hardly at all. We never talk about her family or her past or the world outside of Sacramento and Democratic politics, but I could recite her political arguments, order her favourite foods, and expose her secret obsession with shoes to the outside world. I’m intrigued to see how it develops.

She hides a gentle caress of my palm in a formal and professional handshake and flames of desire spiral outward from my core. It’s suddenly very hot, and I quickly remove my navy-blue trench coat. It’s my favourite. I like the white buttons.

“Daisy!” 

A rich, lightly accented voice calls out the moment the governor gestures me into the fluorescent-lit room. I have a quick glimpse of an olive-skinned woman in her early fifties — salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun — before being embraced.

“Ghada,” I respond warmly, trying not to flinch at the physical contact. I am not a fan of hugs and kisses, but Senator Livingstone — Ghada — is difficult to resist.

Her daughter, Saba, was a classmate of mine at Howard and, our freshman year, the Syrian-born-refugee-turned-state-senator flew across the country to cook an unbelievable Thanksgiving dinner for everyone stuck in D.C. for the holiday. Since then, she’s often welcomed me into her home and family and we’ve spent countless evenings debating global and local politics and, more surprisingly, fashion. She’s dealt with decades of hatred — ongoing efforts to tear her down in order to protect existing systems of power — but she exudes a warmth and kindness that paralyzes even the most cynical political operatives. She also dresses exceptionally well, today in a vintage Chanel suit.

“How are you, Daisy?” she asks, eyes wide, pushing me unceremoniously towards the U-shaped table dominating the room. There are crumpled papers and half-empty coffee cups scattered everywhere, and a white board in the corner is covered in hastily-erased red and green marker. At one end of the room, a group of men wearing identical-looking expensive suits huddles in heated conversation, unaware of my arrival. “I heard from Saba that you’re back in Oakland permanently?! And you’re expanding the food program again?! Come in, come in, and tell us all about it!!”

Charlotte — the governor, fuck — approaches the men, startling them from their conversation. She slaps a large Latino on the back, laughing at his surprise, and waves them to their seats. She smiles at me encouragingly, the breath catching in my throat.

Damn, she’s sexy.

“Hey!”

The low voice in my ear makes me jump, but the familiar chuckle that follows causes my eyes to automatically roll back in my head.

“Marc,” I say flatly, turning to find a handsome dark-skinned man in his early thirties with kind brown eyes standing behind me. He’s wearing a bespoke suit with shiny black wingtips, green pocket square matched perfectly to the pick jammed haphazardly into his large afro. I punch him lightly on the shoulder.

He grins and, for a moment, I’m twelve-years-old again, swooning over the adorably awkward teenager next door who always skateboarded across my Grammie’s lawn. Oh, how I loved those dimples.

But that was long before he became chief of staff to the Governor of California. A woman I may — or may not — be dating.

“How are ya?” he asks now, voice low.

“Fine, but—”  I gesture around the room. “What the fuck is this?! Who the fuck are these guys?! ou said Ghada, the governor, and one other state senator.”

Marc called last week, begging me to present my current project to high-ranking Democrats vetting policy proposals for the upcoming midterm elections. Normally I’d avoid party politics at all costs — preferring social movements and community activism — but he assured me the audience would be small and friendly.

These six guys in suits are unexpected. And I’m completely rattled.

“Sorry, Daisy.” Marc pulls me into the corner and further out of earshot, gazing down at me with sympathy. “I tried to call this morning—”

“I tend to be a bit busy in the mornings, Marc.” I roll my eyes in exaggerated fashion. He invited me here specifically to talk about how I spend every single morning — feeding people across the Bay Area. “As you very well know.”

“Ha ha. I know. But you know how this shit goes.” He shrugs. “These guys are in from D.C. and Char mentioned your project last night at a cocktail party and they asked to come.”

“Really?!”

I’m not sure what’s more surprising: that she was talking about me or that people were actually interested.

“You’ll be great!” Marc chuckles. “Let me introduce you.”

First is the middle-aged man sitting beside Charlotte, Senator Jospeh McCauley. We’ve never met, but he represents an underserved jurisdiction and seems open to new ideas. He looks pasty and pale under the harsh lights but smiles broadly and welcomes me warmly.

Next is the large Latino, Miguel Rodriguez, vice-chair of the California Democratic Party’s central committee. Even I, who want nothing to do with institutional politics, know he is an important man with an important job within the party. I wish I knew more about him before doing my presentation.

Beside him is a thin white man named Miles Martin who unabashedly drops his eyes to my cleavage — visible beneath my bright green wrap-dress — and smiles lewdly. He’s introduced as assistant to the fine-boned blonde man on his left — Jim Sharpe, a senator from Oregon — whose bright blue eyes remain firmly locked on my face. Someone should tell him to find a new assistant.

Marc then moves to the other side of the table, where two men are still standing, patiently awaiting our arrival. The brown-skinned man in a tailored suit and a beautifully-sculpted beard is a stranger, but something about him seems familiar. I wonder if I’ve seen him on television or something. He’s introduced as Qasim Amin, a rising star inside the party and candidate for a vacant and secure seat in New York.

“And, this—” Marc points to a gorgeous man with smooth white skin, pronounced cheekbones, a strong jaw, and an adorable curl of nearly-black-hair resting on his forehead, “is his chief of staff—”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“No,” the man says in a deep voice, his grey eyes burrowing deeply into my soul. “Jake Rozlowski.”

“Holy shit.”

The rubber band snaps back to its proper shape. “Hiya, Daisy! Long time.”

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