Sunday, February 25, 2024
🗽Sunday's Safe Word Shelf🗽: The Forbidden Equation by JR Gray
Love Equations #3
My father’s the president and my brother’s the golden boy which leaves me the black sheep. The son who never wanted to be here at all. The white house my gilded cage, and the secret service my prison guards.
I'm nearly twenty and nothing about my life is normal.
The only thing giving me life and any motivation to get out of bed is the way he looks at me. The stolen glances across the West Wing. Heated gazes in the private dining room.
He's my father's best friend, which isn't even the worst part, he's also the vice president. Utterly off limits and I can't bring myself to care. Can't bring myself to stop encouraging his flirting, dreaming, and hoping he won't be able to resist me forever.
SPRING
ONE
THE GOVERNOR'S MANSION
I was the son of the next fucking President of the United States, and I was a fucking failure. The pariah who had returned to humble himself and beg for redemption.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” My father squeezed a glass, and the room held its breath, waiting for the glass to shatter or for him to explode.
I’d put off telling my father I was dropping out of college until the very last minute. I hadn’t left my room in a week and the only reason I ventured out into the sun this particular morning was because I had a single ounce of self preservation. I got on a plane and flew home. Facing my father seemed like a better idea than facing another week of my thoughts.
“Nope, not kidding.” I’d tried to keep the attitude out of my voice for the last twenty minutes, but even my ‘give no fucks’ nerves had wore thin.
“What do you expect me to do with this seven months before the election? We're a few weeks away from winning the nomination. This whole thing—” he gestured around his office— “Is a goddamn balancing act, and you’re telling me, after graduating high school early with honors, you’re dropping out a month before fucking finals?” My father had served almost twelve years as governor of Utah and elections were all I remembered. But now he was running for President— I hated it—every fucking minute of it.
I was my father’s biggest disappointment. I’d never be my older brother. He took to the spotlight and blossomed in it, while I’d spent as much of my time distancing myself from it as possible.
Which is why I graduated high school a semester early, after just turning eighteen, and ended up at Ole Miss playing a sport I didn’t even like. But not even the rebellion stimulated my brain anymore. Playing baseball in high school was fun, and easy. Division 1 baseball was a hellhole where spirits go to die.
Baseball scholarships weren’t really a thing—the division only allowed for around eleven per team. They were entirely based on need, which made me ineligible. The guys who were good went to Triple-A out of high school, so most of the top players at the college level weren’t majors bound. Not that I wanted to play Major League Baseball.
I’d had enough fame for a lifetime. But quitting was another X on my score card in my father’s mind.
“Last time I checked, that was not in my job description.” I turned towards Matthew Wilder, my father’s best friend and chief of staff. “Matt?”
“I don’t appreciate your smart mouth, Liam,” my father snapped.
“It’s not going to play as badly as you think,” Matt said, the only one in the room who wasn’t in a panic.
When your father is running for office, and it doesn’t matter which office, one thing gets hammered into your brain: We don’t publicly fuck up—not ever. It was the only reason I’d made it this far. Grades and scholarships and every other aspect of my life the press dissect and spread it all over the news and every other social app. Picked apart for public consumption.
“You don’t know that. We’d know if he’d told us before showing up on the doorstep after quitting,” my father said through his teeth.
I rolled my eyes behind his back.
“He’s eighteen years old,” Matt said. “He’s allowed to change his mind. I think people will understand that.”
“But we don’t know. Where is the data?” My father loved to poll about every useless fucking thing. He wanted to know everything, plan for it, but he wasn’t omniscient. And maybe he’d learn that he couldn’t expect everyone in his life to be his perfect puppets. “You couldn’t have finished the damn semester and applied to transfer?”
“I wanted to fucking die and if I had stayed another week, I would have.” I never meant to tell him. Or anyone. But I was so tired of standing up to him. It was time to shut him up. “So you may not like my goddamn lack of prospects, but it’s better than leaked photos of my corpse following you into the election.”
The room fell silent, and every one of his most-trusted, senior advisors stared at me from where they sat.
“I’m betting that wouldn’t poll well,” I said, trying to ease the tension, but it only made things worse.
My father just stared at me.
Fuck my life.
“He shouldn’t have to stay where he’s miserable. I think what Liam did is an admirable adult decision.” Matt was being so careful, tiptoeing around the massive elephant I’d dropped like a bomb. But without judgement, and I wanted to hug him for it.
“He left himself with no prospects for the fall. He can’t even apply as a transfer student this late in the year. How is that going to look?” Just like my father to not even acknowledge what I’d said.
“He can take the semester off for his mental health. I don’t think we need to hide it, if Liam is okay with that,” Matt continued, and I stared at him, hope flickering through me. “I’ve been your chief of staff and campaign manager for twelve years. I think I have some idea what I’m talking about.” He didn’t say any of it with malice. He and my father had been best friends since law school.
“We are on a completely different side of it. You won’t be my chief of staff at the White House, Matt. You’re going to be my running mate, so this hurts us both.”
“What?” Matt asked, turning away from me to stare at my father. “I’ve always been your chief of staff—” He cut himself off like his brain had processed it in slow motion. “No, James, this—I’m not a politician.”
“You have to be. We’ve polled every name across both parties and every single one of them hurts us. They have terrible voting records or skeletons. I don’t want to give away votes. If you think about it, you’ll come to the same conclusion I did. Your record is crystal clean, you’re passionate, you’re thirty-eight and good looking. You’re going to pull in women and younger voters. You invigorate me by being five years younger in ways voters love.” My father spoke with passion, and he was fantastic at convincing people to do what he wanted. But that was his job. “You’ve been the brains behind my campaigns for years, and more than that, I told you in law school, when you showed up at seventeen fucking years old, too damn young to be there with a bunch of adults, that you belonged in politics and I would not let you say no to me. I’ve kept all those promises and you’ve said yes every step of the way. Are you going to say no to me now?”
Matt rubbed his thumb over his fingers, turning in a slow circle. “I didn’t think you meant I’d be a public face of this.”
“You help me make policy from behind, but it’s my decision. It stops with me. Aren’t you tired of being beholden to someone else, even to me? As Vice President, you can have your own agenda, your own policies and projects. I told you all this years ago, you have to be in politics to make the biggest change. You know it’s true. You’ve seen it over the last decade. You will call the shots in your own office and when you’re good at it, like I know you will be, you can run in eight years.”
My father had sold him.
Matt’s face gave it away. “I hate you.”
I stepped back—edging away from where the dinosaurs of politics held court—hoping they’d forget about me. I’d Homer Simpson this bitch and vanish into the damn walls if I could.
“I thought so.” My father smiled. “Now that I’ve sold you, and your ass is on the line too, tell me this isn’t a problem. He can’t just sit home. The PR of it is terrible, so what are our options?” My father glanced around his office and was met with silence. “Are we bringing him on the campaign trail? I don’t see it playing as well as Harden.”
Matt glanced at me out of the corner of his gaze. “Maybe that’s not the best idea, either.” He rubbed his thumb over his fingertips again as he leaned against the edge of a desk. “Can he do some volunteer work? Coach baseball? Give back to the community while he applies for different colleges?”
“That might work… What do you think?” my father asked the guys who were probably strategists.
“It could. We can take some time to poll it,” one of them said. “We don’t have to release anything until the fall, when Liam doesn’t go back. We should be able to keep it under wraps until then.”
“Can I go?” I asked, my skin crawling. I wanted to tear it off.
“Fine, but we aren’t through with this conversation,” my father said, already deep into his political plotting. Which was fine with me. Maybe he’d forget I existed.
Matt caught me in the hall before I could make a full escape, grabbing my shoulder to slow me down. “Liam.”
“Why’d you follow me?” I turned to find him a little out of breath and disheveled, and just like the bastard he was, he was still hot as hell. My father wasn’t wrong about the good-looking part. Perfect to be plastered all over television. But the dark rings under his eyes told me he hadn’t slept either.
“Because none of that was okay. Your father does a lot of things right, but that wasn’t one of them. I won’t even make excuses for him.” He must have been dealing with my father’s wrath since I put a six-hundred-dollar last minute plane ticket on the Amex eight hours ago. “I’ve seen him be a lot of things, but that was atrocious.”
“Thank you for that, but none of it was a surprise. I know who he is, and he does a lot of good for a lot of people, but he’s a shit parent.” I’d never been so candid with Matt. I didn’t know what brought it out.
“I’m beginning to see that myself. I’ll talk to him.”
“Don’t. Please don’t.” I didn’t want to end up in family therapy or something. Talk about my worst fucking nightmare.
“If that’s what you want.” He exhaled and frowned, studying me closer. “Are you okay?”
“I’m perfect.” I put on the fake smile I’d learned the first time my father ran for office. It had saved me on so many occasions.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?” I asked. “I’m fine.”
“No, the smile. It’s like you’re going to kill me in my sleep.”
“I’m depressed, Matt, not a murderer.” I liked Matt, but I had nothing left to even fake niceties.
“I didn’t mean… fair enough. It’s still fake, and creepy.” He moved closer, care in his gaze. It made me soft for him, but I couldn’t be.
“Okay.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Matt was so damn genuine it killed me.
“Not even a little. Even if you won’t tell him. I just couldn’t do it anymore.” It was that simple, and that complicated.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked, and my mind flooded with images of exactly what he could do.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spent the last year numbing my unhappiness with sex. When pain stopped working, there was always another body to take my mind off life. I should have numbed myself before coming home. Because, with that offer, all I could think about was using Matt.
“No.” I kept it short. No need to slip up and admit to my father’s best friend that I’d fucked him in my head in every way imaginable.
“Are you sure?”
“Yea, I’m sure. I just have to figure out what to do to keep my father off my back.”
He nodded, frown deepening, gray eyes swimming with emotion. “If you think of anything—”
I cut him off the worst or best idea coming to mind. “Do you still run?”
He tilted his head. “Most days. I’ve been a little lax about it since you went to college.”
“Looks like I’ve returned at the perfect time to whip you back into shape before my father parades you like a show animal on national television.” I smiled genuinely.
His laugh lines crinkled around his eyes. “I’m going to need it. Fuck.” He slumped into the wall. “But do you know the best part about this? It means I’ll be his focus for the next couple of weeks, and you won’t be.”
“What do you mean—ohhh!” It clicked. My father would be too busy setting Matt up as his Vice President with the party and garnering support. He’d not have time to think about my fuck-ups. “Guess I lucked out.”
“We’ll get you figured out before then, so you have something prestigious to do for the summer, so when he does circle back, it’s not a problem anymore.” He pushed his fingers into his already disheveled hair.
I ground my teeth to keep from groaning. He could easily help me forget. Solving my problems and looking sexy while doing it. Life was not fair. Why did my father’s best friend have to be this attractive? It’s like life just kept kicking me while I was down.
“Four-thirty tomorrow?” I asked, needing to make my escape before I destroyed my life any further.
“Yes.”
“Try to get some sleep before then.”
“No promises.”
Gray is a cynical Chicago native, who drinks coffee all day, barely sleeps, and is a little too fashion obsessed. He writes realistic and damaged characters because everyone deserves a happily ever after.
The Forbidden Equation
Series
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