Commander in Chief

A roar goes out across the crowd. HAMILTON is the name they call. HAMILTON is the man of the hour. The year. Their lifetime. He smiles at that warm welcome, and he closes with a deep, gruff, “God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.”

A warm glow flows through me and a ball full of spikes sort of gets stuck in the middle of my throat.

They play the national anthem, and as the chorus of the singing citizens rings across the U.S. Capitol and households around the world, I’m placing my hand on my heart and attempting to get the words of the anthem out—but that doesn’t help to ease this deep, unaccustomed pain in my chest. This is simply such a monumental day for me. Not only as a citizen; as a person this day is directly proportionate to the depth of my feelings for the new president. And the depth is endless,

fathomless,

eternal.

This is what he wanted. This is what we wanted. What the whole country did. It’s the first day of the changes that are about to come—and I’m burning with the wish to have just one tiny moment to talk to Matt. Tell him how proud of him I am. How much it hurts to not have him, but how safe I feel knowing he’ll be fighting for our interests.

I sit there among the crowd, my eyes stinging as emotion wells in my chest. We finish the anthem.

“Hey, come on, let’s go get you pretty for the inaugural ball,” Kayla says, slipping her arm around mine as she tugs me away.

I stand, but resist a little. My legs feel leaden, as if I don’t want to go in this direction—but instead, I want to go in the direction where he’s saying goodbye to those around him and heading up the platform to leave the grounds.

I watch Matthew stop at the top of the blue-carpeted stairs.

Matt cants his head back to the crowd and sweeps it with one powerful gaze.

I hold my breath, then shake my head.

He’s not looking for you, Charlotte; you can start breathing now.

I sigh and rub my temples, shaking my head as we wait for the motorcade parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. “I’m not sure that I should go.”

“Come on.” Kayla nudges me, her expression questioning. “We came back just in time for inauguration because you wanted to be here. You cannot turn down an invite to the inaugural ball.”

I keep my eyes on Matthew.

Matthew

Hamilton.

My love.

I remember the sounds he makes when he makes love, the way his breath hitches, the way his eyes cloud. I remember the taste of his sweat as he drives inside me, the way I kiss and lick him and want more, want him, anything he can give.

Intimate moments.

Moments between a man and a woman.

Moments that seem so long ago but at the same time, I can never forget, because we had them. I cling to those moments because I never want to forget them. When I see the man—the president—I want to remember what his chest feels like under his tie and suit, all that power rippling in his muscles. I want to remember the size of him, when he’s joined to me, as big as the name he now wears, and I want to remember what it felt like to have him come inside me. I never want to forget the sound of his voice in the dark, when nobody is watching, and how tender it sounds.

I don’t want to forget that for a little while, Matt Hamilton—forty-sixth president of the United States—was mine.

I head back to my apartment to shower and blow-dry my hair and prep for tonight.

I spent the last two months in Europe. It was freezing cold and we spent more time at the hotel than touring, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t in the United States, the country I love, close to the man I love, simply because I needed to heal.

I didn’t want to be tempted to call. I was afraid if I stayed, I’d see him in every headline; that the very air in D.C. would smell of him. That I’d bump into him or simply have too many memories everywhere I went to be able to breathe right. Europe was good. It centered me, and yet I was anxious to come back home. I couldn’t bring myself not to be home by the time Matt had his Inauguration Day.

I told Kayla I fell in love with him while campaigning. I didn’t give her more details. She pressed, but I didn’t budge. I understand now that when you’re as high-profile a person as Matt is, you cannot trust even those you’re supposed to trust. Not with everything. I’m afraid one drunken night she’d spill the beans of the affair. So I kept it to myself and nursed it quietly in my heart, even as Kayla kept telling me that it was a crush and I’d get over it in Paris, the city of love.

I didn’t.

My heart hurts right now no matter how much I will it to stay strong.

God.

How will I bear to look him in the eye tonight?

He will see right through me.

I’m hoping that with the several balls going on, his visit to the one I’m attending will be brief. That we’ll just say a quick hello and he’ll have to continue down the line of people eager to greet their new president.

Still, I dress with the same care that a bride might on her wedding day.

I’m seeing the man I love, and it might be the last time, and the girl inside me wants him to remember me looking as stunning as I can possibly look.

As desirable as he previously found me to be.

I brush my red hair and let it fall down my shoulders. I go for a strapless blue dress that matches my eyes. I paint my lips a deep shade of red, and I ask my mother if I can borrow my grandmother’s fur coat. I’ve never bought a single fur thing in my life due to animal cruelty—but that coat has sentimental value to me, and it’s freezing outside.

My parents are attending a different ball than I am. “You really should consider coming with us,” my mother said this morning.