Kiernan and Montana aren't looking for complicated in their Chicago summer, but somehow complicated has found them.
[co-written with @w1ldflow3r]
[extended summary inside]
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"Whenever you want to incorporate punctuation, just know I'm okay with that."
I tried (and probably failed) not to glare at Tag as I looked up at him. He'd spent the last five minutes hovering at my cubicle while I started working on Symons's remarks for an event in Springfield.
"I can't write with you standing over me."
Tag looked entirely unsympathetic. "You need to learn to work under pressure."
"I went to Yale."
"And?" Tag drawled out, lifting an unimpressed eyebrow. "You're not the first Yale graduate I've worked with, and you won't be the last. Your Ivy League pedigree isn't going to catapult you to whatever pretty office in Washington you dream about."
There were times when I could push back against Tag with a witty remark or even a substantive opinion, but this wasn't one of them. I'd only started working for him a short time ago, but I knew how his tone worked, and I knew when he was issuing the kind of advice that was hardly ever put into words by people in politics.
My ambitions weren't rare. I wasn't fundamentally extraordinary. If I wanted to get where I wanted to go, my CV wouldn't be a golden ticket—no matter how damn impressive it was.
So I nodded and I returned my attention to my laptop. After scanning the last sentence, I threw in a comma with an indignant click of the key.
"Good, now go get some fresh air," Tag instructed as he turned away. "I can't have you sitting here and thinking of all the ways you could get me fired. I want that on my desk by the end of the day."
"Got it."
･:*˚:✧｡｡✧:˚*:･
My iced dirty chai latte hardly offered me reprieve from the mugginess of the early afternoon. The condensation on the cup nearly caused me to drop it as I settled onto a bench in the little park near the campaign headquarters, and set my bag next to me.
"What are you up to today?" Ines asked, having just FaceTimed me from her bed. The soft morning light streaming in through the blinds behind her gave her strawberry blonde hair a golden tint.
I flipped the camera around for my sister to view the green square. "I'm literally watching a small child somersaulting through a flock of pigeons."
Ines barked out a laugh. "He's living his truth."
I smiled as I returned to the front-facing camera. "I only have fifteen minutes, so I want to hear about your night out on the town."
"Same music, same people, the same bars, and same hangover," Ines rattled off as she stifled a yawn. "Which is why what we need to discuss is what went down in South Bend on Saturday. Did you become a nun for the Fighting Irish? Did you play nice with Corn-Fed Jed?"
