The Candidate ✓ (Book Two)

Chapter Nine

  During Kyle's presidential campaign, there were endless press conferences and town halls- more so than during his actual presidency. Not that he didn't hold enough while he had the office- there was still at least one a week, but the ones during the campaign were for people to pick through his brain and learn almost everything there was to know.

  That strategy clearly worked for him, and now- Lolita's decided to use that same strategy again. I sit in front of my bathroom mirror now, Kendra doing my makeup while Lolita works on a voter map of some sort.

  "I like you." She suddenly blurts out, gesturing to Kendra. "Why don't you come on the campaign trail? We could use a makeup artist with your level of expertise."

  "I... own a multi million dollar clothing brand that I...design all of the pieces for myself. I wish I had the time but I don't." Kendra says as she makes me close my eyes.

  "Damnit-" Lolita mumbles under her breath. "Okay. Guess I'll just get my old artist on it... done."

  Lolita taps on Texas a few times, and it turns a blueish- lime color. Kendra shrugs, focused on blending out the concealer under my eyes. "If people were to vote right now, we'd narrowly win by five electoral votes because of Texas."

  "We were almost twenty ahead just last week-"

  "Yeah, and then Marisol held her first campaign event. Put her in happy colors." Lolita rubs her temple, walking out to the upstairs lounge to work on something else while she waits on us to finish up.

  It's about ten minutes before we do, and Kendra puts me in an orange pantsuit that matches the color of my lipstick perfectly. I put my arms out and spin around in a "this good enough?" way. Lolita holds out a thumbs up. I sit down to answer the eight hundred something dm's currently unopened, but in almost two hours- my fingers are cramping up and Lolita's pretty much yelling at me that we need to get going.

  She's not wrong- the town hall stop is an hour drive away. This is the first "campaign stop" , and the last one before we start traveling all over the country. I kiss Kyle goodbye, and board the motorcade with Lolita. David'll meet us there- he said he had some sort of family emergency a few hours ago. I didn't want to pry, because he sounded like he was about to have a mental breakdown- but he also said he would be fine by the time the town hall starts, so I hope that's true.

  I lean my head against the window, staring at the four hundred unopened DM's, and give up. They'll have to get answered later. "Coffee?" Lolita asks, pulling an extra bottle of cold brew out of her purse. I nod my head yes and thank her. Cold brew's nasty to me- but it gets caffeine in your system quickly, which I need right now.

  I chug it down without tasting it.

  "Christ slow down you're gonna have diarrhea all over the town hall stage." She shakes her head.

  I give her the "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not fucking new." look, and continue chugging it. I grimace when I've emptied the bottle and can't help but taste it. I wipe the liquid from the corner of my mouth and toss it in the motorcade's small trash can. When we arrive, people are already lined up outside- going through security. It almost looks like the line at an airport- every single person going through what I think might be the same type of X-ray machine and having their possessions scanned as well. As we're pulling up, some guys water bottle gets confiscated for having straight vodka in it. Nice- l like him already.

  Never mind the fact that that amount of vodka could catch half of the room on fire. People start excitedly waving as they see the motorcade pull in. "Ella can you roll the window down?" I ask, though I already know what the answer's going to be.