Secret Service

by Tal Bauer

There are people who should not come together in this world. Reality quakes too strongly beneath the force of their love. I am no one. I am no titan, no giant walking this planet, but if my love for this man was ever tested—if ever the world tried to take him from me—I would rip the sky from the edges of this earth. This love I feel terrifies me, and it’s terrified me from the moment our gazes first locked, when the distance between our souls seemed like an impossible, unknowable divide. Human beings are not meant to carry nuclear reactors within their hearts.

The weight of the world rests on those shoulders, yet he’s made room for me, too.

We should never have met, because there’s nothing I won’t do for Brennan, and that kind of love—burn the world down, fly the black flag, you are my forever for always—is too dangerous.

If I could, I’d deputize the earth to serve as my agent, make castles out of forests and knights out of boulders. Whatever it takes to keep Brennan safe.

He’s staring at me. He’s staring into me. And I’m staring right back.

Years ago, I buried a black box on a beach inside myself, full to the brim of truths I couldn’t face. Reese’s voice is the tide, and his words are waves crashing against my hidden shores. The box is unearthing. Rising.

Don’t let your heart run away with dreams that can never, ever be.

There’s nothing left to contain the scream that I’ve become.

How many agents have lost the president on their watch? How many agents loved their president the way I loved mine? No one. No man could ever love another like I love Brennan.

Presidents aren’t allowed to have crushes, especially not on men, not when that rainbow ceiling doesn’t even have a dent on it. My secret is a hand grenade with the pin already pulled.

Or maybe this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and I’m watching it fall away. Not in this life, but in another one. You’re not meant to find him—whoever he is—in this life.

I’m beaming, and my cheeks are starting to ache. We’re back to staring at each other—staring into each other—and each inhale feels like it’s scraping me raw.

Any questions, Mr. President?” If I met you in another life, would you let me take you to dinner?

When I started falling for Brennan, it was the kindness in his eyes that drew me in first. Those eyes asked me to trust him, and, damn it, I did. I trusted him, and I fell in love with him, and he was supposed to be able to trust me back.

Will you help me cut the ropes that hold this world together? Will you stand with me and kick open a door in our souls that should never be unlocked, and unleash a fury that can never be taken back?

I dreamed about his eyes on the flight home from Ottawa. How they shine, and burn, and how blue can be both ice and flame. I should not be dreaming about the president.

Brennan Walker is a puzzle only I can assemble, because to the world, he’s complete, but to me, he’s a mystery I’m determined to unlock. He’s an addiction I can’t satiate, a craving I can’t fill. I’m constantly aware of him.

One Friday becomes another, and then Mondays get thrown in, until we carve minutes out of every day for each other.

He makes my days—the long hours, the endless shifts, the constantly changing threat assessments—feel amazing, because each morning, he looks at me like that, and that reorders my whole fucking world.

“Morning, Matt.” I give him a nod, though my attention is locked on President Walker. He’s taken the agenda from Matt, but he hasn’t looked at it. Instead, he’s watching me as if the world can wait.

This is not the first time someone has raged against my policies or against me personally. It is the first time since I’ve had Reese as my protector, though, and that’s doing strange things to me. Images flash, scenes constructed out of fantasy and thin air. Reese protecting me. Reese beside me. Reese above me, elbows bracketing my head as his hair falls forward— Get your mind clear, Brennan.

Have lunch with me. I want to say it. We could eat on the patio off the Oval, behind the wisteria and the climbing roses. I could hear your laughter in the sunshine.

Come over. It’s on the tips of my fingers to type out. Come over, and I’ll make dinner for you. Tell me your favorite food, and I’ll devote all day to learning how to make it.

Brennan Walker wraps himself in a curtain of quiet solemnity, but I’ve been given a peek at a warmth he guards.

Where is the balance between smart deterrence and matching aggression when the cost is paid in human lives and suffering? How can we stand by while evil is unleashed?”

“The American people elected you because they believed in you.” “Do they believe in me all the way to war? I’m at a fork in the road, and there’s that saying about roads and good intentions.” “You know the line you want to hold. What are you willing to live with?”

It’s not that I’m fantasizing about a man. There’s a dearth of good people in this world, and if the one who captures my heart ends up being a man, well then. Guess I wasn’t as straight as I thought all those years. It’s that the man I fell for, the best man I’ve ever met, is Brennan Walker. Fucking high standards you have, asshole. I glare at my own reflection. Fall for a king next time. He’ll be just as unattainable.

“I love your accent.” His eyes are shining, so I say the first thing that comes to mind. “You rougarouin’, mon cher.” “What does that mean?” “Means you’re trouble.” It means you’re trouble, dear, as in, darling of mine, but I let that part slide right off my explanation.

If anyone is going to change this world, it will be him. He’s already changed my life.

He covers his mouth, squeezes his eyes closed, and then waves his hand in front of the camera. “Sorry, sorry.” “Happy to bore you anytime, Mr. President.” “You’re far from boring. You’re as far from boring as California is from DC.” “Three thousand miles away from boring. Got it. That’s still kind of boring, you know.”

“Go to bed, Mr. President.” “I will.” Our eyes meet, and there’s nothing and everything left to say: sleep well, mon cher, and fais de beaux rêves, and your eyes are the color of my dreams. But my words are lodged in my throat, and so, it seems, are his.

It’s like he’s unlocked secret doors inside of me, found the keys to turn me inside out. The smells of my childhood, the sound of rain pattering on the windows. Him, at the center of everything: my past and my future and the confusion of now. He’s a part of it all, calm as can be, even though he’s taken my soul and shaken it loose from all my moorings.

“You’re under my skin. You’re inside my mind. You’re down deep in my bones. You’re everywhere, and you’re everything. I can’t escape, but I also don’t want to escape. From you, or from this.” His eyes are huge, tumbled sapphires lit on fire. “You feel inevitable. Like I’ve been waiting for you.”

“That’s how you make me feel. I’ve kept this inside myself for years, and then I met you, and… You make me dream impossible dreams.”

Explore him, though this undiscovered place between us feels fragile. Slowly. We’ll have to go slowly. He said decades. Why now? Why me? Why him? I don’t know the answers, but maybe I don’t need to. Maybe we just need to be together and watch this rain.

We’re thirsting for justice. No, not justice. Revenge. And there’s no fuel more potent than fury.

He’s so fucking gorgeous I can’t stand it. I want to burn this image into the backs of my eyes so I can see him like this every moment. I’m aching, so hard and hot it feels like I’m going to break something. I’ve never been this gone, never been this wild, for anyone. Again, he undoes me, all the way to my quick.

“Reese…” “Mon cher.” I nuzzle the side of his face, kiss the corner of his mouth. “Mon Brennan.” Time rolls on, but we remain outside of it. I am his, and he is mine, while we are locked in this fog that crawls over the balcony and separates us from the world.

Our lives do not belong to us. And I am stealing this man, greedily snatching moments for myself. He’s needed in so many ways, meaningful ways, and I’m— I’m risking the world for the taste of his kiss.

I feel Brennan’s heart breaking as if it’s my own.

I don’t want to be alone. I want someone I can turn to. Someone I can trust with these moments when I wrestle with now and forever and what the best choice is. Someone I can trust with my doubts and my fears, my dismays and my desires. I want Reese. He’s the man who fills the emptiness in my life. I crave his smiles and the sound of his voice. His understanding, and how he seems to have assembled my secrets like I was a puzzle made for him alone. He knows me.

My thoughts have taken on the sound of Reese’s voice. That low rumble, that slow roil. He’s inside me, like he’s supposed to be there. At night, I fall asleep with his name on my lips.

Reese crosses to my door and slouches against the casing. His eyes shine like private stars for me alone.

Are we over before we’ve even begun? The answer to that needs to be Yes.

If you’re reading these words, he wrote a few days before he was shot down, then I’m gone. But the best part of me will always live within you, Brennan.

Brennan, always remember that good men make their own way when all the options are bad. Choose good. Always choose good.

The world is accelerating, but you are my center, Reese Theriot.

“Fortunately for President Walker, every agent takes their presidents’ secrets to the grave.” Their president. Such a tiny phrase, but it’s enough to make my heart gallop. I want to be yours, Reese.

He tips his head back and laughs as we round the bend in the stairs. I almost miss the next step. He’s too captivating. The arch of his neck and the way the chandelier light glides down the broad expanse of his back. I want to freeze time, capture him in my mind exactly like this. Laughing with me like he doesn’t care who hears or sees.

“Let me pour you a drink?” “I can’t stay.” Regret stains his voice. “We’ve barely seen each other.” His gaze slides to the windows as he bites down on the inside of his lip. “Mon cher, I wish I could stay forever.”