Page 104 of The Americana Playbook

“The president and First Lady will send you home tomorrow,” the aide says, dodging the question. “You’ll stay in the Residences for another night.”

Slowly, I drag my head away from her to Fitz.

“Your mom didn’t make it thunder, Parker.”

She did though. The storm is just in me.

* * *

“This is the White House,” I grit out, tapping my phone. “You’d think there wouldn’t be a service issue.”

I try reloading the Amtrack website as I pace up and down the hall of the Residences. Fitz sighs from the couch in the sitting room as I pass.

“I’m not sleeping in a train car, Parker. Forget it.”

I think about Mr. Foller cornering me during the party. I don’t want to give him another reason to even try that again, but Fitz is right. He probably won’t be much use to anyone after sleeping sitting up.

I stomp into the kitchen and take a wine glass from a cabinet, putting it down so hard on the counter that the base shatters.

Cursing under my breath, I reach for a bunch of paper towels to throw it away.

“I just…” I drop the mess into the trash can. “I need to get out of here.”

Fitz leans against the countertop beside me, folding his arms. “Do you want to go to a hotel?”

Bless his heart, he still doesn’t get it. We can’t walk out of here as easily as we drove out of the parking lot at the school that day. We’re behind enemy lines with no way out until we getpermission.

My fingers ache from how hard I grip the sink. Suddenly, I feel like I’m a teenager again, having been sent to my room, reprimanded for cutting school that day, for coming home smelling like weed. That was better than this. At least back then, I had a window to climb out of. None of the ones in the White House open.

“Look, I get that?—”

“You don’tgetanything.” I let go of the sink and move to step around him.

Fitz reaches for my arm. “I can’t if you won’t come out from the other side of that wall and talk to me.”

Hanging my head, I stare at Fitz’s gentle hold. I think back to the day at Captain’s Cottage, how grounding his presence was. But now,here, it’s not.

I want to run.

But this time, I’m taking Fitz with me.

“What are you—” Fitz thankfully doesn’t drag his legs and hurries along with me out of the Residences and to the elevator. “Where are we going?”

“To cause problems.” The elevator chimes, and I look at him. “We’re rebels, right?”

The tenseness in Fitz’s jaw begins to break when a breathy laugh escapes from his mauvy pink lips. And when I hold my hand out for him to take, the rest of it goes.

I tug him into the elevator. “Let’s go be a little rebellious.”

* * *

For a few minutes, as Fitz and I run barefoot through the quiet White House, taking wrong turns and running into locked doors, I swear we’re no older than seventeen, sneaking onto Thacher’s closed campus and climbing a fence. The only real difference is this time, there aren’t security guards, but Secret Service agents who catch us. But apart from their curious stares, they say nothing.

The late evening air is warm but light and does more than welcome me. I feel baptized by it, cleansed. But still in the mood for some fun.

“Where are we going?” Fitz asks as he follows down a dimly lit dark path. He sighs when we make out the yellow lights of the cabana.

We’ve been back from the event for hours, and the first thing Fitz did was change out of his suit and into a pair of joggers and a sweatshirt. Clearly, I was too busy pacing to care. The end of my dress sways in the warm breeze as I lead him onto the grass, letting go of his hand when we make it to the pool.

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