25.
My phone had gone dark three times since I'd sat down. Each time, I tapped the screen before it could stay that way.
Not because I was expecting anything new. There was already enough sitting there.
It has been two months since I told Vivian I was going to stop doing appearances once classes were going to start. I brainstormed ways I could tell him myself without his response being a slap across my face.
I didn't think Vivian would wait only a week before.
The next message had come sometime after midnight.
And then, this morning.
I read that one again, letting my thumb rest against the edge of my phone without responding.
I didn't know what he expected me to say.
Maybe that was why I'd said nothing at all.
Footsteps sounded from upstairs, familiar enough now that I didn't have to look up to know who they belonged to.
I heard Grant moving through the hallway first, followed by the muted sound of him coming down the stairs, and by the time he appeared in the kitchen, I'd already locked my phone and set it facedown against the counter.
He was fixing his tie as he walked.
My eyes followed him longer than necessary, catching on the dark suit fitted cleanly across his shoulders and the crisp white shirt underneath it.
He hadn't finished tightening the knot yet, leaving the collar slightly open at his throat, and something about that tiny bit of imperfection made him look even better.
Grant dressed for work was quickly becoming one of my favorite versions of him.
Which felt particularly ridiculous considering I knew exactly what he looked like without any of it on.
A faint smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.
He caught me looking.
I looked away.
Grant didn't call me out on it. He finished adjusting his tie as he crossed the kitchen, stopping behind my chair long enough to press a kiss against the top of my head.
"You okay?"
I reached for my coffee even though I'd barely touched it.
"Depends on your definition."
His hand settled against my shoulder.
"That's better than what you usually respond with."
I glanced up at him. "Which is?"
"That you're fine."
That pulled an actual smile out of me.
"Don't get used to it."
"I won't."
His fingers moved briefly along my shoulder before he stepped closer, and I turned toward him without really deciding to. My arms found their way around his waist as his came around me, pulling me against the front of him.
I let my forehead rest against his chest.
For a few seconds, I didn't say anything.
The tension I'd been carrying since I woke up didn't disappear, but some of it loosened. My shoulders dropped. My fingers stopped picking at one another and settled against the back of his shirt instead.
"Vivian told Rodney."
Grant's hand moved once along my back. "About next week?"
I nodded against him. "He's been texting me since last night."
That was enough to make him pull back slightly. His attention went toward the phone sitting facedown beside my coffee before returning to me.
"What did he say?"
Instead of explaining it, I picked up my phone, unlocked it and handed it over.
Grant took it from me and started reading.
Watching someone else read Rodney's messages made me strangely uncomfortable. I'd become so accustomed to absorbing his words privately that seeing them reflected in Grant's expression made them feel different somehow.
More real, maybe.
Grant scrolled upward once, his face remaining mostly unreadable, although I'd learned enough about him by now to notice the slight tightening along his jaw.
"When's the last time you actually talked to him?"
I had to think about it.
"Last month."
Grant looked up from the phone.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
Saying it out loud made the length of time register differently.
Recently, Rodney had mostly stayed out of my way.
I hadn't questioned it because I'd been grateful for the distance.
There hadn't been any surprise visits to my room whenever I had to stay at the White House or attempts to corner me somewhere without staff nearby.
Most of what needed to be communicated went through Vivian, his staff or, occasionally, a text that required little more than a yes or no from me.
I'd seen him three weeks ago at an event we were both required to attend.
We'd arrived separately and left separately. For the two hours between, we'd stood beside each other when cameras required it, smiled when someone approached us and behaved exactly like the version of ourselves everyone expected to see.
Rodney hadn't been pleasant.
He was never pleasant.
But he hadn't been particularly cruel either.
At the time, I'd considered that a victory.
Grant's thumb stopped moving against the screen.
"'You don't get to decide when you're finished,'" he read.
Hearing Rodney's words in his voice made my stomach tighten.
Grant looked at me. "Naomi, this is ridiculous."
"I know."
He handed my phone back without saying anything else about it, which I appreciated. I didn't need him to explain Rodney to me. There wasn't anything Grant could point out that I hadn't already spent years learning firsthand.
He checked the time on his watch before walking toward the refrigerator, leaving me at the island with my phone in my hand.
I watched him open the door and begin moving things around inside.
It was such an ordinary thing to watch him do.
Maybe that was why my thoughts went somewhere they shouldn't have.
There was yogurt I'd bought two days ago sitting beside the protein shakes he kept stocked.
A container of leftovers from something we'd made together earlier in the week was pushed toward the back.
One of my sparkling waters sat on the bottom shelf because Grant hated them and I'd somehow started keeping them here anyway.
Somewhere along the way, I'd stopped feeling like a guest in his house.
I stayed here more often than I probably should.
We cooked together. Sometimes he cooked while I sat at the counter bothering him, and sometimes I tried a recipe while he hovered nearby insisting he wasn't hovering.
We'd started working out together often enough that I knew which exercises he hated despite his refusal to admit he hated anything.
I knew what time he usually left for work and which nights he was likely to come home late.
He knew how I took my coffee.
He knew when I needed to talk and, increasingly, when I needed him not to make me.
We slept together.
We woke up together.
There were pieces of me scattered throughout his house now.
And neither of us had called any of it anything.
My gaze dropped to my bare ring finger.
That usually corrected whatever fantasy my mind tried to build.
I was married.
There was no amount of hatred I could have for Rodney that changed that fact.
His cruelty didn't erase our marriage certificate.
The bruises he'd left behind didn't magically make me single.
If someone photographed me leaving Grant's house tomorrow morning, nobody would see all the complicated pieces that had gotten me here.
They'd see the First Lady having an affair.
Maybe that should've mattered to me more than it did.
Sometimes it did.
Other times, I wondered whether that made me equally as horrible.
Rodney had betrayed our marriage in more ways than I could count, but lately a thought had started creeping in that I didn't particularly enjoy examining.
Did what he'd done give me permission to do this?
And if everyone found out about Grant, would anyone care enough to ask what my marriage had looked like before him?
I pushed the thought away before it could turn into another hour of me trying to put morality into neat little boxes.
Grant closed the refrigerator with a bottle of water in one hand, and my attention returned to him.
The question that replaced everything else wasn't much better.
Was he really okay with this?
We'd talked about it.
Several times, actually.
Every time my anxiety convinced me that I needed to understand what we were doing, Grant had given me some variation of the same answer.
He cared about me. He wasn't interested in forcing a definition onto something while I was still living inside a marriage I was trying to survive.
He didn't want whatever existed between us to become another set of expectations I felt obligated to meet.
I believed him.
At least, I thought I did.
It was harder to believe that this could genuinely be enough for him.
Grant had an entire life that existed without me. A career he'd built himself. A home that belonged to him. Friends. Family. Freedom.
He could meet someone tomorrow and take her to dinner without Secret Service being involved.
He could introduce her to people without anyone losing their job.
He could build something normal.
Instead, he had me.
A married woman who sometimes needed permission just to disappear for an evening.
The thought sat heavier than I wanted it to.
"Alright."
I blinked, realizing Grant was standing in front of me again.
"I'm off."
"Already?"
The question came out before I could stop it.
"Mm-hm."
I reached for his tie before he could move away, straightening the knot he'd apparently decided was finished despite it sitting slightly crooked.
"Hold still."
"I'm standing still."
"You're talking."
Once I was satisfied, I smoothed the front of it once and let my hand fall away.
"There."
"Thank you."
He leaned down and kissed me, brief enough that it should've been easy to let him go afterward.
It wasn't.
"What are you doing today?" he asked.
"I'm going to see my mom." I reached for my coffee again, mostly to give my hands something to do. "Then I need to go shopping. Classes start next week and I need to grab a few things."
"Just a few things, huh?"
"I also would like to browse around for one or two things for myself."
His smile lingered before his expression softened. "How's your mom?"
The change in subject settled over me immediately.
I looked down into my cup.
"Not good."
Grant didn't interrupt.