"Cammie, right?" Preston asked. "Macey didn't tell me you were coming."
"Yeah. It's a great chance to see the political process up close and—"
"Seriously," Macey snapped. "Go. Kiss. A baby."
"Can you believe her?" Preston asked, cocking his head toward Macey. "Every time she sees me, all she does is call me baby and talk about kissing."
Macey looked like she kind of wanted to kill him. But I kind of wanted to laugh.
Maybe it was just that I had boys on the brain. Maybe it was the relief of knowing, for the time being, that Macey was okay. But at that moment Preston seemed kind of…Hot?
No. No way, I told myself. And then I looked at Macey, who hated being in uncomfortable shoes and at her parents' disposal, and I thought that maybe Preston Winters was the one person who might hate all those things as much as she did. And as every spy knows, common enemies are how allies always begin.
"So hey," Preston said softly.
A gospel choir was singing in the distance. The Secret Service was getting ready for the long walk back to the busses. But Preston didn't seem to notice; he didn't seem to care. He seemed totally immune to those prying eyes and listening ears as he leaned closer and said, "I'm really glad I saw you."
Oh my gosh, I thought. Is it possible that two boys are flirting with me within ten minutes of each other?
But it wasn't flirting.
It was worse.
Totally, infinitely, utterly worse, because while the gospel band stopped singing and some military planes flew overhead, Preston looked at me as if he were really seeing
me and said, "I wanted to thank you … for Boston."
The girl in me started to exhale just as the spy in me studied the change in his breathing pattern and the dilatation of his eyes. I was seriously beginning to panic as he said, "That was really…awesome of you."
"Oh, it was nothing!" I blurted.
"Cammie's always doing stuff like that," Macey said, hearing my unease. "She's a total Girl Scout."
"Well, whatever she is," he said, turning to Macey, "it looked like you were one too."
As Macey glanced at me, I knew that neither of us wanted to imagine what might happen if the potential first son thought too hard or too long about what he'd seen on that rooftop.
"I was so freaked out," Preston said. "But you two, you were…rational."
"So, Macey," I said loudly, "I really enjoyed your speech."
"I mean"—Preston went on as if I wasn't even standing there … as if he wasn't standing there. Instead he stared into space as if the movie of what had happened in Boston was playing in his mind—"there were, what? Ten guys after us?"
"Two men. One woman," Macey and I corrected him at exactly the same time.
"And you guys were …" He looked at us as if he were seeing us for the first time. "You're girls!" he blurted as if the fact had totally eluded him until then.
"Thanks for noticing," Macey said, grabbing my arm and pulling me away.
Preston followed after. "But you held your own against like a dozen—"
"Three!" Macey and I corrected him again.
"Men." He stopped in front of us, blocking our path. Which meant that unless we wanted to impress him with our unusual physical abilities even more, we were probably going to have to wait him out.
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, he looked right at Macey. "How much do you weigh?"
"Hey!" I blurted, stepping between them. "It was nothing. Really! It was like those women who lift trucks off their babies—that's how I felt." I tried to sound like that moment was as exciting and adrenaline-filled and foreign to me as it had been for him.
"Yeah," Macey added.
"But the moves…" he started.
"My mom made me take a self-defense class," I blurted. (Totally not a lie.)
"Wow." He nodded. "Hope you got extra credit."
"I did," I said. (Also not a lie.)
"Well …" Preston ran his hand through his hair and straightened his tie. "They must be teaching you something special in that school of yours."
Macey and I looked at each other as if we knew we could kill him, but getting away might be way more difficult than usual.
And then he laughed.
And we breathed.
And he looked at both of us with (if he hadn't been a politician's son and all) an expression of genuine gratitude as he said, "I'm just glad I get to do this with girls like you."
"Mr. Winters!" one of the agents called. "We're moving."
A team of agents surrounded him, ushering Preston away, but Macey lingered a second longer.
"Well, he seemed…nice ?" I finally found the strength to mutter.
But Macey merely looked at me. "You're a spy, Cam. Don't you know that nothing is ever as it seems?"
I didn't get to mention Zach. I didn't get to tell her what I thought of her speech. I didn't even get to ask Aunt Abby if she was really serious about telling my mom that I'd been caught out-of-bounds.
Instead I watched the Secret Service swarm around my roommate once again. A gate swung open and Macey stepped toward her parents. Her father reached out for her hand, but she was already waving, pulling in votes and smiles and handshakes.
And there was already a voice in my earpiece telling me it was time to go home.
Chapter Fourteen
Do you know how long it took to get back to school? One hundred and seventy-two minutes. Do you know how long it took for things to return to normal? Well… I guess I'm still kind of waiting.