20
Escalation
There was one word for the audience of Barton Springs teachers who sat around me in the teachers’ lounge, watching me with shining faces, lobbing questions about the book ban and Logan’s budget expansion so fast I could barely keep up, and that word was entourage. It was a dreaded Monday, and yet the atmosphere inside the lounge was buzzing. It was standing room only, and new people kept squeezing in like they were inching past velvet ropes into a club. The book ban rally seemed to have turned me into the educators’ version of Harry Styles overnight.
“Did you hear your book ban reversal is one of the fastest reversals on record?” asked Jon Reeves, a third grade language arts teacher. “That’s going to make other districts think twice.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, trying to warm to the attention. “But honestly, all credit goes to Gabby Bui and the Austin Queer—”
“Do you really think Logan can get the legislators to give us more money?” interrupted Principal Zimmerman’s assistant, Megan Kwan. She leaned over Jon, tapping her long, vivid pink nails against the table.
“If he gets elected, it’s going to be one of his top priorities. He had a team of economists do projections to figure out how to increase the budget.” Spouting research, at least, I felt safe. “Did you know Texas gives tax cuts to athletic teams and businesses to get them to relocate here? If you make those tax cuts even a little less generous, you’re already looking at a surplus—” On the table in front of me, my phone started buzzing. “Uh.” I frowned. “Excuse me for a minute.”
Conversation continued while I turned to my phone. It looked like I was getting tagged dozens of times on Twitter and Instagram. With a sinking feeling, I opened Twitter. The tags were on a news clip. In the still image, Logan stood in front of Trisha Smith from CBS 12. That alone made me nervous. I clicked Play.
“Now Mr. Arthur,” Trisha said, in that assertive voice I’d always admired. “Coming off this morning’s town hall on the importance of free speech—kudos on the record number of attendees, by the way—”
Logan, who’d been leaning in and nodding as she spoke, gave her a quick, “Thank you.”
“I have to ask: How did it feel when Governor Mane recently swept in to get the ban on Sex Is Not a Dirty Word reversed? That was obviously a free speech issue spearheaded by your girlfriend. Do you worry the governor’s action makes you look weak by comparison? All bark, no bite?”
Ouch.
Logan’s face remained untroubled. “Thanks for the question, Trisha, and for being so consistently charming.” Surprisingly, he turned and looked directly into the camera. “I applaud Governor Mane for taking swift and decisive action to support educators and students in Collinsburg. I’m not worried about what voters will think for two reasons. One, I’ve always made my campaign about action instead of hot air, and I believe voters can see the difference between doing the work consistently and jumping in to take advantage of a splashy media moment. The second reason is, as you mentioned, I have Alexis Stone by my side.”
My heart somersaulted in my chest.
“Alexis is an educator herself—so, unlike Governor Mane, the issue isn’t one-and-done for my campaign. In fact—” He grinned into the camera. “I’m happy to announce Alexis will be back out at the capitol this weekend, marching with the teachers union for increased salaries.”
Excuse me—I was doing what?
Trisha, who clearly didn’t like how Logan was hogging the camera, not-so-subtly shouldered him out of the way. “Wow, there you have it, folks. Breaking news here at CBS 12. Teachers, it sounds like you have a new champion in Alexis Stone. We’ll see you at the capitol.”
The clip ended, and my jaw dropped. Logan had just volunteered me to lead a march in a few days’ time on television. A march people were now rabidly discussing on Twitter. “Oh, no,” I murmured. “Oh, no, no, no.” I leaped out of my chair and ducked into the empty hallway. I couldn’t scroll through my contacts fast enough, jabbing Call and tapping my foot as the phone rang.
Logan’s voice was the smuggest I’d ever heard it. “If it isn’t the teachers’ champion. I’ve been expecting you.”
The nerve. “Where are you?”
“My house—”
“Stay there.” I hung up. Logan and the campaign wanted more direct communication? I would show them direct communication.
I pounded on the door of Logan’s annoyingly adorable bungalow. He better not have left. He better not make me wait—
The door swung open, and Logan stood in front of me in joggers and a T-shirt, eating a sandwich with a serene smile. “Alexis!” His voice was cheery. “Come on in.”
I froze, caught off guard. Then I narrowed my eyes and strode past him. “You get on my case for not giving you enough of a heads-up about the book rally, then you commit me to a protest on live TV. Without even telling me.”
“Oh, good, you saw the news. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be at school right now?”
I waved. “I have a half day. It’s a cost-cutting measure so the school district can keep our hours down. Don’t try to distract me. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Logan looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I guess I’d say...” He sounded way too happy. “I’m sorry for not telling you, but I’m not sorry I did it. It was the right thing to do.” He grinned at me.
Using my own words against me. “So is this what we’re doing now? Tit for tat?” I folded my arms over my chest, emboldened as always by his shamelessness. “Okay, then. Game on.” I frowned. “Wait, what are you doing home? I just saw you in a suit on the news.”
Logan sauntered into the kitchen, but his voice carried. “I had an early town hall—pancake breakfast, though of course I didn’t get to eat. Now I’m taking a reading day. Prepping for my first debate with Mane.”
I shivered at the idea of having to debate someone on TV. That ranked high on my list of personal nightmares. Now that I took stock of his living room, I noticed his armchair and coffee table were buried in stacks of paper, notebooks, and highlighters. Serious debate research.
He returned sans sandwich and stopped a few feet in front of me, sticking his hands in his pockets. Now that my indignation was fading, I realized this was the first time I’d seen Logan out of a suit. His gray T-shirt was stretched taut over his biceps. His joggers hugged his athletic thighs, ending right above his bare feet, which were surprisingly...elegant. In casual clothes, it was easy to tell he played soccer. He had a body built for power.
I twisted my hands together, face heating. Seeing Logan like this felt as intimate as watching him undress in the hotel. “I’ll get out of your hair. Though consider this my formal complaint about the march. I’ll go, but I’ll hate every minute of it. Or probably not, because it’s a good cause. But I will be highly annoyed for at least the first third.” I turned to leave.
“Wait,” he said. “Stay.”
I looked at him, standing there all casual and beautiful, and my heart pounded traitorously.
“I was just about to make tea. Do you have any work you need to do? We could keep each other company. I promise I’m a quiet reader. I won’t bother you.”
The same warning bells that had gone off at the Hideaway went off now. I should probably leave. At the very least, put some distance between me and the sight of Logan’s chest in that shirt. But it would be nice to have company instead of working alone in my apartment. And I’d been doing a good job keeping my instinct to romanticize in check.
“I do have some book catalogues to read.” I lifted my tote bag, where they were stuffed.
His face brightened. “Really? Great.” He suddenly looked at a loss for what to do next. “Uh. You want Earl Grey?”
“Sure,” I said, and he sprinted for the kitchen.
I put my bag down and sank into Logan’s couch. Worn, but comfy. I could work with this. There was even a cream blanket draped over the back, an unexpected touch of cozy. In fact, Logan’s entire house—as much as I could see—was unexpected. Given the amount of time he spent working, I’d assumed his place would be barely furnished, or dominated by the campaign: whiteboard, posters, three-ring binders, you name it. But this was different—lived-in and nice.
I am sitting in Logan’s house. Each new thing—the blanket, the stack of vinyl records in the corner, the fact that he seemed to like warm colors—was a piece of Logan trivia I memorized to dissect later.
I was still cataloguing when he rushed back, holding two steaming mugs. “I remembered your coffee order from that day Cary got us Starbucks. Splash of milk and spoonful of sugar. Hope that works for tea.” He set the mug on the coffee table and I blinked at it.
“That’s perfect, actually.” It was hard to forget the day Cary had been sent to get us coffee because he’d complained so loudly about being an errand boy. But I hadn’t thought Logan was paying attention to me.
He settled in his armchair, kicking one leg over the other. “I’m going to dive in on some economic impact studies. You good?”
I nodded, bending over and pulling out my children’s literature catalogue. Muriel had turned over most of the book buying to me because she said I had a better sense of trends. I studied the catalogue. “Looks like it’s a lot of tiny witches solving crimes in my future.” I looked at him. “I’m feeling very smug about my career choices relative to yours at the moment.”
His smile was instant and warm. “Little do you know bemoaning your career choices is the first step of all debate prep, so I’m right on target. Come talk to me when you need to know the economic impacts of tiny witches solving crimes. Obviously, the decreased crime rates will improve living conditions, but on the other hand, the magical security industry takes a hit.”
I shook my head and uttered the word I’d recently learned was a grievous insult in the political world. “Wonk.”
Logan clutched his chest like I’d shot him in the heart. I smiled and we got busy reading. There really were a lot of upcoming children’s books about young witches solving crimes. Funny how these things always seemed to come in waves. Absently, I tugged the cream blanket off the back of the couch and unfolded it, wrapping myself in the soft, fuzzy layers. Then I froze. It smelled so powerfully like Logan, so richly of that peculiar mix of woods and berries, it was like being folded in his arms. I reached for the other pillows on the couch and pulled them closer.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “I can turn down the AC.”
I shook my head. “I just like being cozy.” His look of concern relaxed into a small smile, and I pulled the blanket higher under my chin. A Logan-scented cocoon was almost as good as a Logan-scented embrace, and far less complicated.
“Have you ever thought about writing books?” he asked abruptly.
I lowered the catalogue. “What?”
“It’s just, you love them.” He leaned forward. “You’re so well-read. And you’re a really good writer. All your speeches have been great. And you seemed so happy that night at the bar, inventing those stories.”
I felt a hot flush creep up my neck. Logan was describing how I’d lied to him, no matter how generously he framed it. “Back in the day, I guess.” In high school and college, I used to dream of being a writer. The flush crept further north. “I used to write these long lists of ideas for kids’ books. I even took a few writing classes in college.” I had at least a dozen beginnings of stories stored in an old laptop somewhere in my closet. At one point, with my family splintered and Lee off doing her thing, writing had made me feel less alone, the way reading had when I was younger. “It was a pipe dream. I know how hard it is to get published. It feels kind of arrogant to think I’d beat the odds.” I’d stopped writing around the time I’d gotten rejected for grad school and had to devote my time to searching for an entry-level librarian job. Dreams, meet reality.
“I get it,” he said. “I don’t like failing, either. But I’m a big believer in taking risks.”
“You haven’t really failed before, Harvard. Talk to me after you do.”
“Fair enough.” He picked up his mug and smiled into it. “If you ever need to borrow some arrogance, I guess I’ve got it in spades.”
I laughed in surprise, and after that a comfortable silence fell between us. I studied the book catalogue, trying to focus on purchases for the library, but the thought of those old stories abandoned on my laptop dogged me. If I ever wrote again, what stories would I tell? Maybe a story about a girl who didn’t feel comfortable in the world, who felt alone and overlooked, but slowly, over time, built friendships and courage and love. Something kids like Mildred could see themselves in...
I got lost in thought as time passed. Then, out of the blue, Logan made a noise of pure disgust.
I looked up from the catalogue. “What?”
He shot me a guilty look. “Sorry. I know I promised to be quiet. It’s just, I need to hammer Mane about his coziness with big corporations. I want to say companies shouldn’t have lobbying access to the governor or legislature, but my team thinks it’s too radical and will piss off everyone. Including the Dems and companies we need to support us.”
From listening to Lee explain the way things worked, it would be a pretty big change if corporations weren’t allowed to hire lobbyists who could march right into politicians’ offices. “So your team wants you to hammer the governor but they don’t want you to hammer too hard?”
He nodded, scooting to the edge of his seat. “They want me to say something tepid like, we should limit corporate influence on state politics. And I want to say we should ban corporate lobbying and hike corporate taxes. Big businesses have dominated politics for so long the idea of a free republic is practically a farce.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I can see how that would be controversial.”
“Yeah, but—” Logan stood up and seized his notebook, walking over to the couch. “Can I?”
My heartbeat skipped as I looked up at him. “Of course.”
He paused. “Did you gather every blanket and pillow in the living room?”
I glanced at the Logan-scented fortress surrounding me. “Uh... I guess I did.”
“You’re like a soft-thing magnet.” He sat down next to me, closer than I’d expected, and leaned in, showing me his notebook. It was covered in his jaunty, spiky handwriting, each letter written like it was bursting with energy. Our bodies brushed at the shoulders, elbows, knees—a sudden sensory overload. How was his skin so warm? How was it possible he could send so much electricity racing through me at the lightest touch? In all the years I’d devoured romance novels, I’d read description after description of the way it could feel when someone touched you: a charge like lightning or the whole world stilling at the brush of his fingertips. I’d always skimmed those parts, thinking they were an exaggeration, since I’d never felt that way with anyone in real life. But it could happen. It wasn’t fiction. My whole body was rigid, attuned to Logan’s every movement. It was exquisite torture.
“What would you say about corporate influence if you were me?” he asked.
I blinked at him. “You should probably ask someone on your team. I’m no expert.”
“I want to know what I could say to win you.” Logan gripped his notebook. And there it was again, in his furrowed brow, his serious eyes, the earnest expression. Care.
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. It was hard to think straight with him so close. “I’d want you to be genuine. Yourself, but the polite version. There is that version,” I insisted, off the look on his face. “Maybe something like, ‘The reason I want to be governor is because I’ve experienced firsthand how choosing corporations over people harms Texans. Like many voters, I’ve been disappointed by how often Grover Mane privileges big business. That’s why life doesn’t feel much different even though he made big promises. We need more substantive change. That’s why I’m proposing we ask corporations to pay at least as much in taxes as the average Texan, and we hold a referendum on their ability to lobby.”
Logan was scribbling furiously. “I knew you would be good at this. Straightforward but nonconfrontational.”
“Well.” I cocked my head. “I guess I am an expert at nonconfrontational.”
“Much better than me.” He grinned and inched closer. Our thighs touched. An almost overwhelming desire to cup his face and kiss him left me clutching my fists to keep them still.
“Would you mind running through a few more questions with me? I can return the favor if there’s anything you need to talk through. And I can make us a snack later if you’re hungry.”
I pictured Logan in an apron and immediately brightened. “This is hard work, isn’t it? Debates aren’t just politicians vamping for the camera.”
“It’s not answering the questions that’s hard. I could talk about this stuff until I was blue in the face. It’s the damn tiptoeing the team wants me to do. I can’t look angry or call Mane out because voters might find it too aggressive. Basically, I can’t be myself.”
I bumped his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out a middle ground.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Really.”
“Of course.” I deserved an Oscar for keeping my face this neutral while my nerves exploded like the Fourth of July. “We’re a team. Besides, it’s nice you want my opinion.”
He flipped to a blank page. “It’s pretty much all I ever think about.” He looked over quickly. “I mean, for the debate. You know, because I trust you.” He cleared his throat and tugged on the blanket. “Do you mind if I get some of this?”
“Of course.” I lifted the blanket and Logan draped it over his lap. Then he leaned back against the couch and rested his head in his hand, facing me.
“This next question’s about health care.”
I started to face him, then hesitated. Was this wise? I studied his face as he frowned at his notebook, chewing his pen, and it hit me with a sudden fierceness: I liked this man so much. My inconvenient physical attraction and his annoying habit of surprising me on live TV aside, I cared about him. And in small ways, he was showing me he cared, too. Maybe it was safe to allow myself a small increase in affection, a slight upgrade from coworkers to friends. That couldn’t hurt, right?
I felt a warm glow in my chest as I turned. He shook his head and crossed something out. “Definitely need your take on this. The statistics alone, I mean, the whole debate could be about this issue. I need to find a way to center advocates’ voices, especially women’s. Between me and Mane, this debate’s already a total bro-fest. Big dick energy, and not in the good way.”
I suppressed a smile. Yeah, I could get used to being Logan Arthur’s friend.