Yes, Mr. President (ManxMan)

Chapter Seven

And the good news was that after pulling an all nighter working on a project that Abernathy was supposed to finish, I was finally getting the day off to relax.

But I wanted to stop by Nicolas's office first.

I saw that Cliff was on duty when I turned the corner and I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I didn't have to worry.

"Morning Cliff!" I said brightly, reaching for the door. I don't know how I had this much energy when I was, quite literally, dog tired. I felt like I could sleep all day.

He caught my hand halfway to the door and I looked back up at him. He jerked his head towards the door. "He's in a meeting."

"Oh. Okay." He said he didn't have any meetings this morning. That was the whole point of me coming here now.

Cliff shrugged. "You might wanna step to the other side of me."

I did as he said, leaning on the wall beside him and before I could even ask, the door flew open. It would've smacked Cliff in the face if he hadn't caught it. He knew it was coming.

And who walked out but our lovely First Lady?

I peeked my head around Cliff's frame to watch as she turned around in the doorway. "Nicolas, I swear to God if you leave this girl by herself or with some stranger, I will strangle you."

"Savannah. Be reasonable here." I heard Nic say.

"I'm not kidding. Take your daughter out. She clearly needs you." And she didn't hear anymore of the conversation as she walked away. And thankfully, she didn't see me.

Now I wasn't sure if the door was the reason Cliff told me to move or she was. Either way, I wasn't complaining.

He held the door open, raising an eyebrow at me. "You still wanna go in?"

I swallowed, but nodded. Okay, maybe this wasn't gonna be as smooth of a morning as I thought.

Nicolas was sitting on the edge of the couch, his hands to his head, fingers to his temples, rubbing what clearly had to be stress.

He looked up at me as I walked in and I can't lie, watching the smile form on his face gave me a confidence boost and fluttered the butterflies in my stomach.

"Park, hey. I figured you would be gone by now." He held his arms out to me and I walked into them willingly. I never had a partner that hugged me every time they saw me, but I liked it. Especially with him smelling the way he did.

"Well, I was just coming to see you before I headed out. Abernathy hasn't responded to any form of communication and Andrea doesn't have anything for me, so I figure I owe myself a break. At least until the next disaster happens."

He jokingly looked down at his watch. "You got about 20 more minutes."

"Tell me about it. Hopefully, he comes back tomorrow. Having his job is cool, but also, not having his job is cool." I flopped down on the couch, toying with a strand that had unraveled and laughing to myself. I always thought the room was ran over with a fine tooth comb, so finding something as simple as a thread coming out of the couch seemed like a gross oversight and tickled me.

I didn't want to be nosy.

That's what people said when they wanted to be nosy, and I did. But I still wanted to be respectful. I decided to ask anyway. "Is Isabella okay?"

He scrunched his eyebrows in. "Huh? Oh, you must've heard Savannah yelling on the way out." His hand searched for the back of his neck, squeezing and letting go. I stood up to walk around behind him and pushed his hand out the way. I don't know how good I am at massages, but they always felt better when someone else gave them.