fic of the West Wing variety
Whew. New keyboard. Standard, but still much with the getting used to it.
Anyway, the Josh/Donna I spoke of last night.
Title: Coffee
Pairing: Josh/Donna
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing you would recognize. And definitely not Kansas City.
Summary: Another city. Another hotel. How long can Josh avoid her?
Author's Notes/Warnings: No real warnings, aside from the het. Heh. Slashers, avert thine eyes! Except don't, really. It's just PG, if that. Spoilers through "King Corn." Some fluff. As to whether it all strings together or not, well, the universe may never know.
Feedback: Appreciated, as always.
She didn't know how many times she could do this.
New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina. Donna would go to these states, stay in their hotels, visit their Enterprise Rent-A-Car counters. She would make phone calls where she sounded nice and perky, but serious; friendly, but never overly nice; considerate, but not insubstantial. Courteous, but not condescending. She would make these calls and then go to lunches, dinners, drinks and dessert. Sometimes there was only one person there, sometimes three or four or five, sometimes a couple, sometimes a few couples. They would eat, and drink, and almost never make merry. Donna always stuck to one glass of white wine. That was something she'd learned from C.J.: you can work a room with one glass of wine all night, if you handle it correctly. The actual drinking was for later, either at the hotel bar or out of the mini-bar if she was feeling particularly feisty. After all, she had just made sure that Bob Russell could afford it. And when she was done with the smiling and the chatting and the making nice, she would walk away with one check, or several checks if she was lucky, and the number of zeros on them usually made her head spin.
Donor cultivation, they called it. As if the process was like gardening. How does your garden grow, Bob Russell? In a rare moment of identification, if not wit, the Vice President had said she had the perfect name for it: Donna Moss. Moss, get it? Donna did, but she that didn't mean she had to like it.
Speaking of names, there were no two ways about it: Bob's Boulders was a damn stupid name. If she wasn't so exhausted, Donna might try to think of a better one. The thing was, she didn't really care. No one did, so long as they wrote the checks.
She was supposed to be doing more media work. That was what she and Will had agreed on, and she'd been eager to do it. Starting to get her own public relations and media experience on a national campaign was an opportunity even C.J. hadn't had. C.J. had cut her teeth on Emily's List; getting the opportunity to do the same, on a national campaign, on a presidential campaign, was one Donna had worked for seven year for.
Even if it meant leaving Josh. Josh, who never looked her in the eye anymore.
And she did do some media work. She did. Sometimes she helped identify targets; sometimes she helped with direct mail. Mostly, she got the list of local papers three steps ahead on the campaign trail and read them over breakfast, sorting them into piles, telling another staffer or an intern to call the pile of good ones and see if they could get a reporter out to cover Russell.
What had happened, however, was that Will had discovered something about Donna right away: she was personable; she knew when to talk and when to ask the right questions, and she knew when not to do either. In other words, she had the makings of a fundraiser, and Will had grabbed onto that immediately, sending her out to do mid-level cultivation of prospective donors.
The first time she'd gotten a gift, Donna had been elated. The second time, she'd been happy. The third time, she'd been pleased. The fourth time, she'd wondered if that cigar smell would ever come out of her hair.
It wasn't like she didn't like what she was doing. She was on her own for the first time. People asked her what to do, for directions. They treated her like an equal. She was doing real things, for real people. Getting the job done. She was respected, and not just by the person who bellowed her name twenty times a day, or by her friend, the new Chief of Staff.
She was so well respected, in fact, that she was being moved up into bigger leagues. Florida, California, Texas, New York, Illinois. She was making phone calls and having lunches with big-time political players, major funders of the Democratic Party. People who wrote checks for $50,000 or $100,000 like they had found the money unexpectedly in the pocket of a coat they hadn't worn in a long time. Will joked that pretty soon she'd be asking people for a quarter million, half a million, a million dollars like she was asking them to pass the salt. He said it with a bit of a proud smile on his face, but Donna wondered if he knew what she knew, or if he just didn't care: that the difference between a Democrat with a lot of money and a Republican with a lot of money wasn't in the size of their conscience, but in the size of their potential influence. Whoever wrote the biggest check had the biggest opportunity for influence, Donna realized.
Republicans in Democrat clothing, Josh would have said. No wonder he had always let Leo handle the money part of the campaign.
And she might have been happy, even with that, had Bob Russell ever managed to remember her name without prompting from Will.
***
He didn't know how many times he could do this.
It wasn't the meet and greets or the hundreds of slices of pecan pie or the sense that he was somehow competing with the Congressman's wife over time, issues, money--Santos himself. It wasn't even the fact that Santos seemed on board one minute and overboard the next. Sometimes the Congressman got it and sometimes he didn't, but Josh could manage him either way; every candidate got scared, and the more successful they got, the more scared they got. Once they had survived New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Matt began to realize he just might be in this for the long haul, he'd gotten a look in his eyes that looked like sheer panic, though it never changed the silken texture of his voice, or the tightness of his handshake when he was speaking to voters.
A scared candidate, Josh could manage. A confused candidate, Josh could manage. A stubborn candidate, Josh could manage. An idealistic candidate, Josh could manage. A cynical candidate, Josh could manage.
A scared, confused, stubborn, idealistic and cynical Josh, on the other hand, Josh was not so good at managing. He could handle all of Santos' various moods and incarnations just fine, even though a bit of him unraveled from behind his sternum every day, like the string that held the universe together.
He wanted to win, of course. He wanted to win, and not just because he thought that Santos was the real thing, the man who should be the next President, though he did. He wanted to win, not just because of where this might take his career next, though he did think about that. He wanted to win, not just because he wanted to beat the daylights out of Hoynes and Russell, though he wanted to do that, too.
Josh wanted to win most of all because if he didn't then there wouldn't have been a good reason for leaving behind everything, and everyone, that he loved. No good reason at all to leave President Bartlet, or Leo. No reason at all to have left C.J. and Toby to finish the work on their own.
No reason at all, why Donna couldn't have stayed. Donna, whom he couldn't look in the eye anymore.
So Josh continued to fight the same fights with Congressman Santos. He continued to call all the media outlets on every stop in every state. He continued to make phone calls and set up dinners and get checks for tiny amounts and not enough zeros. He continued to keep some of Santos' better nature down, just to keep him in the race. He remembered doing the same to Bartlet, remembered Leo doing the same to Bartlet, too, whether or not that made it right. He continued to push for media, for debates, for air time. He continued to shake hands and drive rental cars and sleep in musty hotel rooms and spill coffee all over counters.
Josh kept on because if he stopped, he was seriously afraid that the universe, or at least the universe as he knew it, would implode.
And he might have been happy, even with that, if Santos would just let Josh call him Congressman.
***
It was one a.m. in the hotel restaurant, and Donna was amazed it was still open. Amazed, but grateful, so she didn't argue the point, just slipped into the booth in the back corner and ordered apple pie ala mode and coffee--cream, sugar, and a shot of Bailey's. She wanted the Irish cream, and at this point exhaustion had taken such a firm hold that the caffeine couldn't even touch her. She was so tired she didn't even remember what city she was in anymore, though a quick look at her appointment book could have answered that question for her. Somewhere in Kansas. Topeka, maybe? Or was she in Kansas City, Missouri? She put the heels of her palms on her forehead and sighed.
When she looked up, it was to see Josh Lyman come into the restaurant. He was alone, and wearing a suit badly in need of an iron. His hair had been ruffled, almost beyond any recognition of style, the tie knotted loosely and already pulled away from his collar. Donna noted idly that she had bought him that tie, as a birthday present some years ago, though not to go with that particular suit.
For a moment, she wanted to pretend not to seem him. She wanted to put her head down and fix her eyes on the table top, or pretend to rummage in her bag. It was childish, she knew, but her random encounters with Josh on the campaign trail were only getting more and more awkward.
Besides which, she knew that she couldn't call out to him, or gently catch his attention and have him come join her. That would have seemed the normal thing to do, of course, but Donna knew as well as she knew her own bones that she couldn't be the one to reach out to Josh--he had to come to her first. If he ever would remained a mystery. If he ever did . . . well, that was something she purposely hadn't thought much about yet.
In the end, Donna neither pretended not to see him, nor invited him over. She just sat there in her booth, ignoring the sudden tension her arms, and the waitress brought her coffee. Josh must have followed the motion of the waitress, because soon she could feel his gaze in her direction, close but never directly on her. That was how all of Josh's looks toward her were these days: never direct. She picked up a spoon to stir the coffee with, and as she did, a flicker of motion caught her eye, as Josh almost stepped out of the restaurant. She sighed to herself and the spoon clicked against the side of her mug a little harder than she had intended.
But Josh Lyman still had it in him to surprise her, because just when she thought he'd exited the restaurant, she caught sight of him in the doorway, and then in the room itself, coming toward her slowly. His swagger was gone, and she was not surprised to think that she missed it.
He came up to her table, and Donna got a good look at him. He looked just as tired as she was; in addition to his over all rumpled look, his eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue and his shoulders slumped with weight she couldn't see. He looked terrible. Donna was pretty sure she looked only slightly better.
"Mind if I join you?" he asked. His voice cracked, and Donna quickly hid her smile, but couldn't stop her stomach from performing a flip-flop.
"Sure," she said, and he slid into the seat opposite her, tilting his head back and closing his eyes briefly. A reflex, she knew, as she'd seen him do this in every booth in every state in the country. He lifted his head as the waitress came up and delivered the rest of Donna's order, and asked Josh what he wanted.
"Cheeseburger. Cheddar. Well done. Really. I mean, you can't cook this thing too much, all right?" The waitress raised her eyebrows but nodded. "And a beer."
"You want fries with that?"
"Yeah." He paused, and then nodded at Donna. "She'll eat 'em if I don't." The waitress nodded again and walked away, and Josh took off his suit jacket. Silence fell on the table while Donna let her ice cream melt all over the pie.
"I can't believe you're drinking coffee at this hour," Josh finally said.
This time, Donna did try on a smile. "Not just any coffee," she replied, and automatically stuck her mug under Josh's nose.
Just as automatically, he leaned forward and sniffed. "Ah."
Silence again. The waitress brought Josh's beer. He took a long swig.
"So, what are you in town for?" Josh finally asked.
"The local high school team's basketball championship game. I hear they're in the finals this year. Basketball's a bit draw here in Topeka."
"This is Kansas City."
"Right. That's what I meant," Donna said. She sighed, and used her fork to smush ice cream between the blades of the fork.
"That was a stupid question, wasn't it?" Josh admitted.
Donna smiled again, and tried not to make it look tired. "No, it wasn't."
"Yeah, it was." He paused. "You successful?"
Donna wasn't sure if he meant today, this week, or last month. "I suppose."
"With the Hendersons, I mean. Did they give?"
Donna eyed him with a little bit of suspicion. She couldn't help it, though she tried.
Josh caught the look, and for some reason, it made him laugh a little. Donna frowned.
"The Hendersons are the biggest Democratic supporters in Kansas City. Maybe even the state. And it's no secret what kind of work you've been doing for Russell."
"You been keeping tabs on me?" Donna knew she sounded surprised.
Josh shrugged. "Sort of."
Donna didn't know if that was endearing or frustrating. Somehow, Josh managed to make it a little bit of both.
She sighed and gave in. "Yeah, they did. $10,000."
"Not as much as you wanted."
Donna shook her head. "No, but I think they're still hedging their bets between us and Hoynes." She shrugged. "Lots of people are."
"Tell me about it," Josh said, and pulled a face.
"No one's hedging their bets in Santos' direction?"
"You tell me."
Donna shook her head: No. Josh nodded and took another swig of beer.
"So why are you here?" Donna asked. "A few steps ahead of your candidate, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Letting him work South Carolina a little more; he'll be here day after tomorrow. I'm trying to line up local support before he gets here."
"Local support?"
"Papers, t.v. news, local Democrats. The usual."
Donna nodded. Josh's burger arrived and he picked up his knife to cut it in half.
"I go back to Charleston tomorrow afternoon," Donna said abruptly.
Josh looked up from his meal. "Back to the Russell camp."
"Josh . . ." Donna started. She stopped, not knowing how she was going to finish.
"It's okay, Donna," Josh said. "I know why you left." He looked her in the eye, and as he did, his face changed, and Donna suddenly had a vision of the little boy who ran across the lawn while his house burned down behind him. The awareness closed her throat, and for a moment, she had to think about breathing.
When she could, she asked, "Do you?"
"Yeah. I do." The vision was gone, and Donna believed him, as much as she could.
Quietly, he added, "I left, too." He ducked his head, facing his food.
Donna almost reached her hand across the table and lifted his head, but thought better of it in the next second. Instead she said, "That doesn't make you a bad person."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yeah."
He looked back up, a little of the vulnerability gone, and Donna raised an eyebrow.
"I know why you left, too," she said.
He grinned, and Donna could see dimples. "Oh really?"
"Of course. You'd only leave for The Real Thing." Her voice put capital letters on the last three words.
"He is, Donna. He really is. You should . . ." He stopped.
Donna finished for him, taking a French fry off his plate. "Hear him speak? Come to a debate? Sit at a meet and greet? Come work for you again?"
"Not for me. For him," Josh corrected.
Donna quirked her mouth up. "Yeah."
"Really. Not as my assistant. As . .. whatever you want. PR. The press. Fundraising. Whatever."
"Josh," Donna said softly. "I can't."
"Yeah." Then, "What do you see in that guy?"
"Josh. It's a career opportunity, not a marriage."
"But don't you want to. Shouldn't . . . don't you want to be working for something real, Donna?"
"I do. I am."
Josh snorted. "Russell?" He spit the name out like spoiled milk.
"No, for me. I'm something real, Josh."
All the cynicism suddenly left Josh's face. Donna hadn't seen him look like that in a long time. When he spoke, his voice, and his eyes, were soft. "Yes. Yes, you are."
"Okay, then."
"Okay."
There was silence again, and Donna surveyed the wreckage of the melted ice cream and cold pie she hadn't eaten.
"Donna?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you need . . . if you ever." He stopped. "This working for you thing . . . if you ever need an assistant . . ."
Donna looked up into an earnest face and laughed, not out of amusement, but out of surprise, and happiness. Josh didn't look surprised by the laughter, or hurt, just . . . contemplative. Realizing that slowed Donna's laughter into a smile.
"Are you volunteering?" Donna asked.
Josh shrugged one shoulder, but Donna could see he was biting back a grin. "Maybe."
"Do you have any idea what that might entail?"
Josh's gaze suddenly became heated, and Donna blushed before she could will herself to stop. "I may have some idea."
"Good," she said, and nearly sat on her hands in order to keep herself from finally crossing the table between them to kiss him. He would still have to come to her, of course. She suddenly remembered imagining that her head would fit perfectly in the crook of his shoulder, and for the first time, she really let herself visualize it, feeling warm in a way she hadn't in a very long time.
"I'm not going to bring you coffee, though," Josh added as a stipulation.
"I'm pretty sure you'll be bringing me anything I want, up to and including coffee," Donna replied.
Josh tipped his head back and laughed, and the universe strung itself together again as he finally leaned across the table and muffled Donna's own laughter with a very long anticipated kiss.
Anyway, the Josh/Donna I spoke of last night.
Title: Coffee
Pairing: Josh/Donna
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing you would recognize. And definitely not Kansas City.
Summary: Another city. Another hotel. How long can Josh avoid her?
Author's Notes/Warnings: No real warnings, aside from the het. Heh. Slashers, avert thine eyes! Except don't, really. It's just PG, if that. Spoilers through "King Corn." Some fluff. As to whether it all strings together or not, well, the universe may never know.
Feedback: Appreciated, as always.
She didn't know how many times she could do this.
New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina. Donna would go to these states, stay in their hotels, visit their Enterprise Rent-A-Car counters. She would make phone calls where she sounded nice and perky, but serious; friendly, but never overly nice; considerate, but not insubstantial. Courteous, but not condescending. She would make these calls and then go to lunches, dinners, drinks and dessert. Sometimes there was only one person there, sometimes three or four or five, sometimes a couple, sometimes a few couples. They would eat, and drink, and almost never make merry. Donna always stuck to one glass of white wine. That was something she'd learned from C.J.: you can work a room with one glass of wine all night, if you handle it correctly. The actual drinking was for later, either at the hotel bar or out of the mini-bar if she was feeling particularly feisty. After all, she had just made sure that Bob Russell could afford it. And when she was done with the smiling and the chatting and the making nice, she would walk away with one check, or several checks if she was lucky, and the number of zeros on them usually made her head spin.
Donor cultivation, they called it. As if the process was like gardening. How does your garden grow, Bob Russell? In a rare moment of identification, if not wit, the Vice President had said she had the perfect name for it: Donna Moss. Moss, get it? Donna did, but she that didn't mean she had to like it.
Speaking of names, there were no two ways about it: Bob's Boulders was a damn stupid name. If she wasn't so exhausted, Donna might try to think of a better one. The thing was, she didn't really care. No one did, so long as they wrote the checks.
She was supposed to be doing more media work. That was what she and Will had agreed on, and she'd been eager to do it. Starting to get her own public relations and media experience on a national campaign was an opportunity even C.J. hadn't had. C.J. had cut her teeth on Emily's List; getting the opportunity to do the same, on a national campaign, on a presidential campaign, was one Donna had worked for seven year for.
Even if it meant leaving Josh. Josh, who never looked her in the eye anymore.
And she did do some media work. She did. Sometimes she helped identify targets; sometimes she helped with direct mail. Mostly, she got the list of local papers three steps ahead on the campaign trail and read them over breakfast, sorting them into piles, telling another staffer or an intern to call the pile of good ones and see if they could get a reporter out to cover Russell.
What had happened, however, was that Will had discovered something about Donna right away: she was personable; she knew when to talk and when to ask the right questions, and she knew when not to do either. In other words, she had the makings of a fundraiser, and Will had grabbed onto that immediately, sending her out to do mid-level cultivation of prospective donors.
The first time she'd gotten a gift, Donna had been elated. The second time, she'd been happy. The third time, she'd been pleased. The fourth time, she'd wondered if that cigar smell would ever come out of her hair.
It wasn't like she didn't like what she was doing. She was on her own for the first time. People asked her what to do, for directions. They treated her like an equal. She was doing real things, for real people. Getting the job done. She was respected, and not just by the person who bellowed her name twenty times a day, or by her friend, the new Chief of Staff.
She was so well respected, in fact, that she was being moved up into bigger leagues. Florida, California, Texas, New York, Illinois. She was making phone calls and having lunches with big-time political players, major funders of the Democratic Party. People who wrote checks for $50,000 or $100,000 like they had found the money unexpectedly in the pocket of a coat they hadn't worn in a long time. Will joked that pretty soon she'd be asking people for a quarter million, half a million, a million dollars like she was asking them to pass the salt. He said it with a bit of a proud smile on his face, but Donna wondered if he knew what she knew, or if he just didn't care: that the difference between a Democrat with a lot of money and a Republican with a lot of money wasn't in the size of their conscience, but in the size of their potential influence. Whoever wrote the biggest check had the biggest opportunity for influence, Donna realized.
Republicans in Democrat clothing, Josh would have said. No wonder he had always let Leo handle the money part of the campaign.
And she might have been happy, even with that, had Bob Russell ever managed to remember her name without prompting from Will.
***
He didn't know how many times he could do this.
It wasn't the meet and greets or the hundreds of slices of pecan pie or the sense that he was somehow competing with the Congressman's wife over time, issues, money--Santos himself. It wasn't even the fact that Santos seemed on board one minute and overboard the next. Sometimes the Congressman got it and sometimes he didn't, but Josh could manage him either way; every candidate got scared, and the more successful they got, the more scared they got. Once they had survived New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Matt began to realize he just might be in this for the long haul, he'd gotten a look in his eyes that looked like sheer panic, though it never changed the silken texture of his voice, or the tightness of his handshake when he was speaking to voters.
A scared candidate, Josh could manage. A confused candidate, Josh could manage. A stubborn candidate, Josh could manage. An idealistic candidate, Josh could manage. A cynical candidate, Josh could manage.
A scared, confused, stubborn, idealistic and cynical Josh, on the other hand, Josh was not so good at managing. He could handle all of Santos' various moods and incarnations just fine, even though a bit of him unraveled from behind his sternum every day, like the string that held the universe together.
He wanted to win, of course. He wanted to win, and not just because he thought that Santos was the real thing, the man who should be the next President, though he did. He wanted to win, not just because of where this might take his career next, though he did think about that. He wanted to win, not just because he wanted to beat the daylights out of Hoynes and Russell, though he wanted to do that, too.
Josh wanted to win most of all because if he didn't then there wouldn't have been a good reason for leaving behind everything, and everyone, that he loved. No good reason at all to leave President Bartlet, or Leo. No reason at all to have left C.J. and Toby to finish the work on their own.
No reason at all, why Donna couldn't have stayed. Donna, whom he couldn't look in the eye anymore.
So Josh continued to fight the same fights with Congressman Santos. He continued to call all the media outlets on every stop in every state. He continued to make phone calls and set up dinners and get checks for tiny amounts and not enough zeros. He continued to keep some of Santos' better nature down, just to keep him in the race. He remembered doing the same to Bartlet, remembered Leo doing the same to Bartlet, too, whether or not that made it right. He continued to push for media, for debates, for air time. He continued to shake hands and drive rental cars and sleep in musty hotel rooms and spill coffee all over counters.
Josh kept on because if he stopped, he was seriously afraid that the universe, or at least the universe as he knew it, would implode.
And he might have been happy, even with that, if Santos would just let Josh call him Congressman.
***
It was one a.m. in the hotel restaurant, and Donna was amazed it was still open. Amazed, but grateful, so she didn't argue the point, just slipped into the booth in the back corner and ordered apple pie ala mode and coffee--cream, sugar, and a shot of Bailey's. She wanted the Irish cream, and at this point exhaustion had taken such a firm hold that the caffeine couldn't even touch her. She was so tired she didn't even remember what city she was in anymore, though a quick look at her appointment book could have answered that question for her. Somewhere in Kansas. Topeka, maybe? Or was she in Kansas City, Missouri? She put the heels of her palms on her forehead and sighed.
When she looked up, it was to see Josh Lyman come into the restaurant. He was alone, and wearing a suit badly in need of an iron. His hair had been ruffled, almost beyond any recognition of style, the tie knotted loosely and already pulled away from his collar. Donna noted idly that she had bought him that tie, as a birthday present some years ago, though not to go with that particular suit.
For a moment, she wanted to pretend not to seem him. She wanted to put her head down and fix her eyes on the table top, or pretend to rummage in her bag. It was childish, she knew, but her random encounters with Josh on the campaign trail were only getting more and more awkward.
Besides which, she knew that she couldn't call out to him, or gently catch his attention and have him come join her. That would have seemed the normal thing to do, of course, but Donna knew as well as she knew her own bones that she couldn't be the one to reach out to Josh--he had to come to her first. If he ever would remained a mystery. If he ever did . . . well, that was something she purposely hadn't thought much about yet.
In the end, Donna neither pretended not to see him, nor invited him over. She just sat there in her booth, ignoring the sudden tension her arms, and the waitress brought her coffee. Josh must have followed the motion of the waitress, because soon she could feel his gaze in her direction, close but never directly on her. That was how all of Josh's looks toward her were these days: never direct. She picked up a spoon to stir the coffee with, and as she did, a flicker of motion caught her eye, as Josh almost stepped out of the restaurant. She sighed to herself and the spoon clicked against the side of her mug a little harder than she had intended.
But Josh Lyman still had it in him to surprise her, because just when she thought he'd exited the restaurant, she caught sight of him in the doorway, and then in the room itself, coming toward her slowly. His swagger was gone, and she was not surprised to think that she missed it.
He came up to her table, and Donna got a good look at him. He looked just as tired as she was; in addition to his over all rumpled look, his eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue and his shoulders slumped with weight she couldn't see. He looked terrible. Donna was pretty sure she looked only slightly better.
"Mind if I join you?" he asked. His voice cracked, and Donna quickly hid her smile, but couldn't stop her stomach from performing a flip-flop.
"Sure," she said, and he slid into the seat opposite her, tilting his head back and closing his eyes briefly. A reflex, she knew, as she'd seen him do this in every booth in every state in the country. He lifted his head as the waitress came up and delivered the rest of Donna's order, and asked Josh what he wanted.
"Cheeseburger. Cheddar. Well done. Really. I mean, you can't cook this thing too much, all right?" The waitress raised her eyebrows but nodded. "And a beer."
"You want fries with that?"
"Yeah." He paused, and then nodded at Donna. "She'll eat 'em if I don't." The waitress nodded again and walked away, and Josh took off his suit jacket. Silence fell on the table while Donna let her ice cream melt all over the pie.
"I can't believe you're drinking coffee at this hour," Josh finally said.
This time, Donna did try on a smile. "Not just any coffee," she replied, and automatically stuck her mug under Josh's nose.
Just as automatically, he leaned forward and sniffed. "Ah."
Silence again. The waitress brought Josh's beer. He took a long swig.
"So, what are you in town for?" Josh finally asked.
"The local high school team's basketball championship game. I hear they're in the finals this year. Basketball's a bit draw here in Topeka."
"This is Kansas City."
"Right. That's what I meant," Donna said. She sighed, and used her fork to smush ice cream between the blades of the fork.
"That was a stupid question, wasn't it?" Josh admitted.
Donna smiled again, and tried not to make it look tired. "No, it wasn't."
"Yeah, it was." He paused. "You successful?"
Donna wasn't sure if he meant today, this week, or last month. "I suppose."
"With the Hendersons, I mean. Did they give?"
Donna eyed him with a little bit of suspicion. She couldn't help it, though she tried.
Josh caught the look, and for some reason, it made him laugh a little. Donna frowned.
"The Hendersons are the biggest Democratic supporters in Kansas City. Maybe even the state. And it's no secret what kind of work you've been doing for Russell."
"You been keeping tabs on me?" Donna knew she sounded surprised.
Josh shrugged. "Sort of."
Donna didn't know if that was endearing or frustrating. Somehow, Josh managed to make it a little bit of both.
She sighed and gave in. "Yeah, they did. $10,000."
"Not as much as you wanted."
Donna shook her head. "No, but I think they're still hedging their bets between us and Hoynes." She shrugged. "Lots of people are."
"Tell me about it," Josh said, and pulled a face.
"No one's hedging their bets in Santos' direction?"
"You tell me."
Donna shook her head: No. Josh nodded and took another swig of beer.
"So why are you here?" Donna asked. "A few steps ahead of your candidate, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Letting him work South Carolina a little more; he'll be here day after tomorrow. I'm trying to line up local support before he gets here."
"Local support?"
"Papers, t.v. news, local Democrats. The usual."
Donna nodded. Josh's burger arrived and he picked up his knife to cut it in half.
"I go back to Charleston tomorrow afternoon," Donna said abruptly.
Josh looked up from his meal. "Back to the Russell camp."
"Josh . . ." Donna started. She stopped, not knowing how she was going to finish.
"It's okay, Donna," Josh said. "I know why you left." He looked her in the eye, and as he did, his face changed, and Donna suddenly had a vision of the little boy who ran across the lawn while his house burned down behind him. The awareness closed her throat, and for a moment, she had to think about breathing.
When she could, she asked, "Do you?"
"Yeah. I do." The vision was gone, and Donna believed him, as much as she could.
Quietly, he added, "I left, too." He ducked his head, facing his food.
Donna almost reached her hand across the table and lifted his head, but thought better of it in the next second. Instead she said, "That doesn't make you a bad person."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yeah."
He looked back up, a little of the vulnerability gone, and Donna raised an eyebrow.
"I know why you left, too," she said.
He grinned, and Donna could see dimples. "Oh really?"
"Of course. You'd only leave for The Real Thing." Her voice put capital letters on the last three words.
"He is, Donna. He really is. You should . . ." He stopped.
Donna finished for him, taking a French fry off his plate. "Hear him speak? Come to a debate? Sit at a meet and greet? Come work for you again?"
"Not for me. For him," Josh corrected.
Donna quirked her mouth up. "Yeah."
"Really. Not as my assistant. As . .. whatever you want. PR. The press. Fundraising. Whatever."
"Josh," Donna said softly. "I can't."
"Yeah." Then, "What do you see in that guy?"
"Josh. It's a career opportunity, not a marriage."
"But don't you want to. Shouldn't . . . don't you want to be working for something real, Donna?"
"I do. I am."
Josh snorted. "Russell?" He spit the name out like spoiled milk.
"No, for me. I'm something real, Josh."
All the cynicism suddenly left Josh's face. Donna hadn't seen him look like that in a long time. When he spoke, his voice, and his eyes, were soft. "Yes. Yes, you are."
"Okay, then."
"Okay."
There was silence again, and Donna surveyed the wreckage of the melted ice cream and cold pie she hadn't eaten.
"Donna?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you need . . . if you ever." He stopped. "This working for you thing . . . if you ever need an assistant . . ."
Donna looked up into an earnest face and laughed, not out of amusement, but out of surprise, and happiness. Josh didn't look surprised by the laughter, or hurt, just . . . contemplative. Realizing that slowed Donna's laughter into a smile.
"Are you volunteering?" Donna asked.
Josh shrugged one shoulder, but Donna could see he was biting back a grin. "Maybe."
"Do you have any idea what that might entail?"
Josh's gaze suddenly became heated, and Donna blushed before she could will herself to stop. "I may have some idea."
"Good," she said, and nearly sat on her hands in order to keep herself from finally crossing the table between them to kiss him. He would still have to come to her, of course. She suddenly remembered imagining that her head would fit perfectly in the crook of his shoulder, and for the first time, she really let herself visualize it, feeling warm in a way she hadn't in a very long time.
"I'm not going to bring you coffee, though," Josh added as a stipulation.
"I'm pretty sure you'll be bringing me anything I want, up to and including coffee," Donna replied.
Josh tipped his head back and laughed, and the universe strung itself together again as he finally leaned across the table and muffled Donna's own laughter with a very long anticipated kiss.