Interlude- First Noel

  Interlude

  The Executive Office

  Tal Bauer

  A Tal Bauer Publication

  www.talbauerwrites.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Tal Bauer.

  Warning

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers.

  Second Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Copyright © 2016 – 2017 Tal Bauer

  Cover Art by Rocking Book Covers © Copyright 2017

  Edited by Rita Roberts

  First Published in 2016

  Second Edition Published in 2017

  Second Edition Published by Tal Bauer in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Interlude: First Noel

  About the Author

  Other books by Tal Bauer

  Connect with Tal Bauer

  Dedication

  To everyone who has enjoyed Jack and Ethan’s story… This one is for you.

  Thank you, to all my readers. You are, quite simply, the best!

  1

  Des Moines, Iowa

  “Twenty-seven credit cards, thirty thousand in hundreds―all with the exact same serial number―a credit card reader, and a laptop.” United States Secret Service Special Agent Blake Becker whistled, shook his head, and glared at the two suspects in handcuffs sitting in the back of the Des Moines police cruiser. “We bagged another couple counterfeiters, huh?” He squinted at Ethan, snowflakes clinging to the ends of his eyelashes. Becker was twelve years younger than Ethan, and two years out of training at Rowley.

  He was an infant.

  Ethan said nothing. Becker’s use of “we” was disingenuous. Ethan had put together the case after pulling files from three different states. He’d worked long, lonely hours in his cubicle, reading arrest records and statements until his eyeballs felt like they were bleeding. He’d tracked the washed bills, the counterfeit currency used in stores and banks across Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Built a timeline along one wall of his cube, tracking the rise of counterfeit bills in the tri-state area. Connected the dots, leading them to bust this run-down motel room and this raggedy team of counterfeiters.

  And when he’d presented his case to Shepherd, the Special Agent in Charge of the small Des Moines Secret Service field office, Shepherd had assigned Blake Becker as the lead agent, putting him over Ethan. Days later, after Becker filed the affidavit in his own name, he and Ethan, along with the Des Moines police, broke down the door of the motel room and arrested two men in boxers and stained tank tops. One of the men had a mullet. The other, a greasy mustache and not much hair on the top of his head.

  Two white news vans sloshed through the motel’s parking lot. Muddy snowmelt splattered their sides, arching away from salt-crusted tires. On top of both, satellite dishes and transmission poles collected fat snowflakes beneath the leaden sky. Red-and-blue police lights swirled, giving a splash of color to the Midwestern gloom.

  Becker jerked his head toward the new arrivals. “Media is here. Shepherd wants you to book it. Doesn’t want you anywhere near the press.”

  Ethan kept his head down and headed for his Secret Service car, a nondescript Secret Service-issue sedan. He tucked his face into his scarf and his hands into the pockets of his trench coat.

  If there was one thing Shepherd hated more than Ethan, it was the media attention he received. “Secret Service Seduction turns to Presidential Regret?” “Ethan Reichenbach―Presidential Boyfriend or Dangerous Distraction?” “Boyfriend in Exile―Can Their Relationship Survive?” “Secret Service Hiding One of Their Own?”

  He slid into his car, slamming the door shut. He watched as the news crews set up around the motel parking lot and peered at the Special Agents and police processing the scene.

  Ethan grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a ball cap from the passenger seat before he started his car. The sunglasses turned the drab gray sky almost black, but he kept them on as he backed up, maneuvering out of the crowd of police vehicles.

  One of the reporters spotted his car leaving. She waved to her cameraman as she tore across the snowmelt, her brown boots sticky with slush. He tried to speed up, but she made it to his driver’s side as he waited to turn onto the street.

  “Mr. Reichenbach?” She knocked on the glass, and her cameraman scraped his lens over his window. “Mr. Reichenbach, can you talk about your involvement with the Des Moines Secret Service? What are your official duties?”

  Ethan’s jaw clenched. His fingers gripped the steering wheel. A few more seconds, a few passing cars, and he could peel out of there.

  “How does it feel to be separated from the president? Are you and President Spiers still together? It’s been a while since you were seen togeth―”

  Finally, a break in the traffic. Ethan wanted to slam down on the accelerator, spin his wheels, and spray the reporter with mud and snow. But he couldn’t. Everything―every single thing―he did was a reflection on Jack. A reflection on the president of the United States.

  He revved his engine once, a warning, and then rolled forward. The camera squealed across his window. The reporter pounded on the glass, repeating her questions, almost shouting.

  And then, he was out of the parking lot, back on the main road. He floored it, speeding off as the camera tracked him. A few blocks away, he ditched the sunglasses, throwing them onto the passenger seat.

  Three months in exile. Three months of living in Des Moines, Iowa―away from Washington, DC, his friends, and the love of his life: Jack Spiers, president of the United States.

  He thunked his head back against the headrest as his fingers kneaded the steering wheel. Three months of counting the days―and sometimes the hours―until he could see Jack again. He lived for the weekends, for Friday evening through Sunday night when he flew to DC, and the forty-eight hours that were just him and Jack. If he squinted while he was there, it was almost like it had been before everything came out, when they were hiding what they’d become together, and when Ethan had been Jack’s Secret Service lead agent, at his side, always just a handbreadth away.

  Day in and day out, they’d been at each other’s side. Inseparable.

  But every weekend ended, and Sunday night came, and with it, another flight back to Des Moines.

  Ethan glared at the clock in his dash. It was too early to go back to his apartment and do anything but bang around within the empty walls and sulk, and too late to go back to work and expect to get anything done. Still, he turned for the office, heading back downtown. At the least, he could work out in the private gym for agents assigned to the Federal Building. FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret Service, and Customs all shared one building.

  All the agents also seemed to share in their wide-eyed, horrified distance from Ethan. He moved like a pariah, as though he’d been branded with a scarlet letter and anyone who came near him would suffer the same catastrophic fall from grace: from the most prestigious posting in the Secret Service―leading the presidential detail and personally protecting the president―to puzzling through small-time counterfeiting investigations out of a tiny field office in the Midwest.

  And giving those investigations up to another agent, a junior agent, and running from the media.

  He waited at the stoplight downtown just before the turn into the Federal Building’s garage, listening to his wipers scrape snow
off the windshield. The red traffic light blurred through the slush on his glass, tinting the inside of his sedan a dark crimson. Christmas lights stretched overhead, arching over streets and between buildings. Evergreen garlands clung to streetlights, and LED wreaths hung at every intersection. Over the weekend, Christmas had descended, just days after Thanksgiving.

  If he’d known then what he knew now, would he do it all again? Make the same choices? Take the same risks? Kiss Jack―the president, his sworn duty, his job―and throw caution to the wind, going against his very bones, his dedication to his career, and the Secret Service?

  The wipers slid against the glass again, squeaking, and the light turned green. His tires slipped on the snow, skidding out, but he slogged across the intersection and turned into the underground parking garage.

  Of course he would. Those forty-eight hours each week with Jack made everything else worth it. Made bearable the isolation, the intrusive media, the sidelong glares and bitten-off conversations.

  How his toes would curl as they kissed. Jack’s smile, and the way his eyes lit up for Ethan alone. How Jack had looked at him when he’d burst into the Oval Office, gunfire cracking the air, taking out Jeff Gottschalk and Black Fox’s operatives. Like Ethan was his whole world, the sun rising in the sky just for him.

  Ethan had never loved anyone like he loved Jack. And he’d never been loved by anyone the way Jack loved him. It was still new, just six months old, but that love had remade Ethan’s entire world. So far, he’d put up with anything. Everything. As long as Jack kept looking at him like that. Kept loving him like that.

  But it had been over two weeks since he’d last been with Jack. “Every weekend” had turned into something else. Loneliness scratched at the base of his heart, and whispers of fear snaked down his bones.

  Ethan wound through the underground garage and pulled into his assigned space, in the corner beneath the leaking air compressor, next to the dumpster that always smelled like stale piss.

  Shepherd’s car was still in his space. Great. Shepherd had probably already seen the footage of him running from the reporter, playing over and over on the local stations before being picked up by the national news for prime-time replay.

  Shepherd would be pissed. More than pissed.

  Sighing, Ethan badged into the building and onto the elevator, punching the button for the Secret Service’s floor. When the elevator spat him out, he gave Agent Gibson a tight smile as he passed.

  Gibson didn’t smile back.

  Ethan badged into the back door of the office, heading for his cube and his gym bag. On the way, he passed Shepherd’s open office door.

  The TV hanging on the wall in his office was on, images of Ethan driving out of the motel parking lot playing on repeat as the news anchor droned on about how evasive he’d been, how he hadn’t answered any questions. About what his presence at the crime scene might mean. And, of course, wondering why he hadn’t been seen with the president, or in DC, in weeks.

  They were America’s most scandalous couple, perhaps the world’s. One question had been blaring from every radio, every gossip magazine, every late-night talk show host, almost from the moment they’d been photographed kissing on the North Lawn: were they still together?

  Of course, the questioning had gotten louder these past few weeks.

  Shepherd’s glare fixed on Ethan. He pursed his lips as he perched on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his slight pudge, a beer gut in the making. His tie was loose, the first few buttons at his neck undone.

  Ethan grabbed his gym bag, slung it over his shoulder, and trudged to Shepherd’s door. “Sir, I left as soon as they arrived. She chased me down. I wasn’t trying to get in front of the cameras.”

  Shepherd pinched the bridge of his nose. “What did I do to deserve you?”

  Ethan stayed silent.

  “Thanks to this―” Shepherd gestured to the TV. “―the US Attorney is going to have to answer a million questions about you from whatever defense these guys cobble together. What you were doing there. Why you were involved.”

  “I put the case together―”

  “And then it was given to Becker. All of it. The entire thing. Your fingerprints were stripped from it.” Shepherd sighed again. “I don’t want some criminal defense attorney trying to drag the president into one of our cases. Asking about what kind of special favors you get, or what the president is interested in, or how you don’t play by the rules. We have to prove that everything you do is one hundred and ten percent aboveboard.”

  “Everything I’ve done here has been completely legal―”

  “It’s what you did before you got here.” Shepherd fixed Ethan with another hard glare. “It’s your character. The kinds of rules you break. A good defense attorney would rip you to shreds on the stand.”

  Ethan’s chest felt like it had caved in. “I have never compromised an investigation for any reason.”

  “No.” Shepherd snorted. “You just compromised the president.”

  Silence.

  “Get out of here.” Shepherd waved Ethan away, dismissing him as he stood. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and the president, and I don’t want to know.” His hand cut through the air, before Ethan spoke. He jerked his chin to the TV and the reporter musing about Ethan and Jack’s relationship being on the rocks, or worse. “But you’ve gotten grumpier these past few weeks. And that’s saying something.” Shepherd squinted at him. “Go do something about that. If the media is going to hound you everywhere, you don’t want them thinking you’re a half breath away from snapping. Don’t add fuel to the fire.”

  Clearing his throat, Ethan nodded once while Shepherd shuffled papers on his desk, dropping a stack of manila folders into his drawer. “Sir, I have a question.”

  Shepherd grunted.

  “I submitted my vacation request for the holidays, but you haven’t approved it yet. Is there a problem?” Ethan had lost vacation time in his demotion and had used up what was left flying back and forth to DC. He was scraping the last days he had to put together a trip back east over Christmas. It wasn’t as long as he wanted, but it was what he had.

  Shepherd barked out a harsh laugh, slamming a stack of papers down on his desk. “Why do you do this?”

  “Sir?”

  “Why do you pretend like you follow the rules? Like they even matter to you? You can break every rule we have, and nothing will happen to you.”

  “That’s not who I am,” Ethan growled. “I don’t act that way.”

  “That’s exactly who you are. And exactly how you acted.”

  “Sir, I don’t get any special treatment―”

  “Of course you do!” Shepherd cried. His hands rose as he shouted, his face turning red. “Why do you even bother coming in? Why do you put up the pretense of being an agent? You’d make it easier for everyone if you just stopped pretending!”

  “I’m not pretending!” Ethan roared. “I’m doing my job!”

  Shepherd laughed, long and loud. “You stopped doing your job the moment you compromised yourself and the president!”

  “I am still an agent―”

  “You’re a Goddamn pain in my ass.” Shepherd cut him off. “And I have no clue why you’re still an agent. You shouldn’t be. You should have been forced to turn in your badge and gun and been kicked out of the Service.”

  Ethan’s jaw snapped shut, his teeth clicking together.

  “Let me be perfectly clear. I don’t give a shit what you do. Come to work. Don’t come to work. Go on vacation for the entire month of December. Run away with the president and get drunk on some beach. I don’t give a shit. Just stop wasting my time, okay?”

  “Yes. Sir.”

  “Get out of my office.”

  His hand clenched around the strap of his duffel and his teeth ground together, but he strode out of Shepherd’s office with his head held high. Rage thundered through him, deep in his veins.

  There had better not be anyone in the gym dow
nstairs. He had to get this out, pound it out into a punching bag until his knuckles split and he vomited in the corner. He had to get this out, because in three hours, Jack was going to call him on his computer, and he couldn’t face Jack like this. Not about to fly apart, quaking with too much fury and raw shame. It hurt, God, it hurt.

  But Jack couldn’t see that. He couldn’t ever see it.

  2

  White House

  Washington DC

  “Mr. President?”

  Jack glanced up from his desk, reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. Folders were spread out before him, analyses of the Caliphate’s operations in Syria and Iraq, their attacks in Europe, and the strength of their forces in the Near East. Different projections of what the US military could do, both alone and with allies.

  And, in one folder, an offer from President Sergey Puchkov. A potential alliance rooted in a UN resolution. The United States and Russia working together to fight the Caliphate. Could it be done?

  Jack tossed his glasses on the desk and waved Pete Reyes, his press secretary, into the Oval Office. He stood, stretching his arms over his head and rolling his neck. His suit jacket was draped over the back of his office chair and his sleeves were rolled up.

  “What’s up, Pete?” Jack rested one hip against his desk as he crossed his arms with a tired smile.

  Pete ambled to the center of the office. Dusk clung to DC beyond the Oval Office. Snowfall from an early storm blanketed the lawns, turning the world beyond into a winter wonderland. The snow seemed to encase the White House, an almost-shield from the real world. At least, Jack could pretend it was a shield.

  “Just a few things before I head home, Mr. President.” He flipped open his padfolio, lips pursed. “I’ve been sent to ask you one last time if you are absolutely sure you don’t want to add some kind of LGBT or Pride element to the National Christmas Tree. Or to the White House. Or to any of the holiday décor we’re about to throw on the walls.”