Chapter 5 #2
Kira [4:44pm]: Oh intervention is a good idea tho
Kira [4:44pm]: We could all sit in a circle and use I statements to explain how them not kissing has personally affected our vacation
Simone [4:45pm]: At least Anya’s having a good week, our precious little trooper
Kira [4:45pm]: Gabe isn’t
Simone [4:45pm]: No?? He’s been out dancing until 2am every night
Kira [4:46pm]: Dude, he’s humanly incapable of being disliked, especially by someone he respects
Kira [4:46pm]: Do you not see him glancing over at Anya like every eight seconds whenever the whole group is together? He’s slowly unraveling like a woman in a gothic novel
Simone [4:46pm]: Oooooh he does like to pace and gaze mournfully at the sea
Simone [4:47pm]: I thought that was regular straight man nonsense
Kira [4:47pm]: I love how gay you are
Simone [4:48pm]: I feel like they need to have ONE decent conversation
Simone [4:49pm]: Oh!!! I have an idea!! Meet me at the room in ten?
Kira [4:50pm]: For sex???
Simone [4:50pm]: Oh my god. No. To help our friends
Simone [4:50pm]: (Then sex)
Kira [4:51pm]: YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAY
Gabe wasn’t having a very relaxing week in Vieques, but then, Gabe had never been great at relaxing.
He much preferred to be doing something, on the go.
Sitting still made him antsy. So anytime anyone in the group proposed an activity, he said yes.
Snorkeling? Great. Horseback ride on the beach?
You bet. Dancing every night until the wee hours? Hell yes.
He’d gone to a beach bar filled with sunburned tourists (where he’d grinded with a bride-to-be on a bachelorette trip while her bridesmaids cheered her on) and a back-room salsa club for locals (where he’d made out with a woman in her forties with long dark hair named Valeria).
He and Valeria had exchanged numbers, but she had two kids at home, and he was staying with a passel of campaigners, so there wasn’t really anywhere to go.
Every night when Gabe stumbled back into the house well past midnight, he’d find Anya curled into a tight little ball in her bunk bed.
She never stirred, but sometimes she was so still that Gabe felt certain she must be awake.
She’d barely spoken a word to him since their brief conversation on the beach, and whatever, that was fine.
It sucked that she hated him so much, but they were flying home tomorrow, and then he’d never have to see her again.
For their last night on the island, they were all having dinner at some restaurant Jill had found in a converted old farmhouse where you sat on the back deck and ate butter-poached lobster, after which they were going kayaking on Vieques’s bioluminescent bay.
The food was great, the wine was flowing, and Anya was at the opposite end of the table, wearing a long black halter dress with a neckline that dipped low between her breasts.
Her hair was down, her curls wayward and wild, and with the sun she’d gotten this week, her normally pale skin was glowing in the candlelight.
She was sitting with Simone and Kira, and they all looked really happy.
Well, good. Gabe was glad she’d had a nice time.
“Okay, wait,” Jill spoke up to get the group’s attention. “Since it’s our last night, I was thinking we could do, like—I don’t know, like we each ask a question and then we all have to answer it?”
“Like an icebreaker?” Simone laughed.
“Or truth or dare?” Kira’s eyes flashed, and she kissed Simone on the cheek.
“No, just like, bonding!” Jill looked flustered. “Like—okay, everyone say what’s the best campaign you ever worked on and why. I’ll go first: Obviously it was Dowd for President, because that’s where I met all you losers!”
Everyone laughed and “aww”-ed, raising their glasses and toasting Jill.
“I’ll say Gans for Governor,” Kira piped in.
“You lost that race.” Simone frowned.
“Yeah, but I got paid to live in Hawaii for six months, and it ruled.” Kira grinned.
“I’ll drink to that.” Gabe lifted his glass.
“My favorite campaign was one I lost too,” Anya said.
“Ohhhh.” Simone looked at Anya with recognition. “Texas?”
“Yeah.” Anya nodded. “It was two years ago. I quit my consulting job and moved to a town where I didn’t know a single person to work for Zoe Vázquez.”
“No shit, Texas-28?” Ben looked impressed. “What’d you do on that race?”
“I was hired for field, but there were like nine of us on the team at first, so I ended up doing some of everything—a lot of digital,” Anya replied.
“Zoe was running against this despicable anti-choice Dem incumbent. If Zoe had won she would have been the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. We weren’t supposed to have a chance, but in the end we only lost by like three hundred votes. It was a heartbreaker.”
“But it was your favorite?” Kira asked.
“Yeah.” Anya lit up, and her cheeks flushed with color, making her look even prettier.
“It felt so right to be there, you know? Like everything I’d imagined for myself could be my real life.
And I believed in Zoe so much, we all did.
Being part of her team, feeling like the path of her life is gonna change in some part because I was there, and all the other young women who’ll be inspired to run for office because of her… it was incredible.”
“Wait.” Gabe peered at Anya as he did the math. “You quit your consulting job right after Ohio?”
“Yeah, I did.” Anya squared her shoulders as she met his gaze.
Gabe felt an ache in his stomach. A longing to be back at Char Bar. To say something different, to walk her home.
“What was your favorite race, Gabe?” Kyle asked.
“This one,” Gabe said without even thinking about it.
“Sure, I guess delivering the presidency is pretty good, if you’re into that sort of thing,” Ike joked.
“Even if the candidate was a hack with no beliefs,” Anya muttered—then immediately looked horrified. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Kira. “I know how hard you worked. I’m being an asshole.”
“No, you’re totally right,” Kira reassured her. “Gabe thinks so too.”
“Really?” Anya looked at Gabe like that couldn’t possibly be true. The ache that had started in his stomach felt like it was radiating to the rest of his body now, like he needed to stand up, or at least say something, but he couldn’t move.
“Oh my god, you should have been there this one night,” Kira said.
“Gabe got all drunk and weepy about it. Started talking about the tragedy of general elections, the need for a candidate who would actually try to inspire people instead of just trying not to offend them. He was such a little bitch baby.”
Kira grinned at Gabe. He tore his eyes away from Anya and tried to act normal.
“Yeah, but I was your bitch baby,” Gabe said affably, tipping his glass toward Kira. Everyone laughed, but not Anya—she was still looking at him with unnerving intensity.
“So why was it your favorite race, then?” she asked. “If you didn’t like your candidate?”
“It’s where I met Kira,” Gabe said quietly.
Kira got a little misty—but only for a second; showing emotion really wasn’t her thing.
“I love you, bud,” she said.
“You too, man.” Gabe blinked a couple of times. He’d never told Kira exactly what she meant to him, exactly why he needed her friendship so much. But that was one of the best things about her. He didn’t have to.
Laurel started talking about a race she’d worked in Madison, and Gabe’s eyes slid back over to Anya. He knew it was pathetic, how often he looked at her, but since this was the last night he’d ever be able to, he figured it didn’t really matter.
Except this time, she was looking at him too. And no matter how long he gazed at her, she didn’t look away.