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It was Friday afternoon, and once again, Lynelle was reeling. There was talk of a shutdown, and she was growing incredibly tired of lobbyists. She’d finished up early this week and had nothing to do after lunch. Her coworkers had mostly gone home.
Scrolling through her email, she was finishing her final check of the day when she saw an ad from the Montana Office of Tourism that she hadn’t noticed. She’d seen it a hundred times before, due to the fact that she was firmly planted in the target demographic (according to her computer), but it didn’t seem to have the siren call it did now.
As impactful as her job was, Washington still wasn’t home. She checked her watch, then grabbed her car keys and headed to her car. She figured she’d swing by her apartment to grab a few things and then take herself on a road trip for the long weekend.
She gathered some casual clothes, a sensible pair of boots from home, her phone, a book, and a toothbrush. Then she located one of her reusable shopping bags and threw everything in before she headed for the door.
She locked her apartment behind her, walked to her car, and then just started driving. She figured she could take a nap somewhere on the Great Plains and still make it in by 4 A.M. Mountain Time on Sunday.
Several hours later, she had successfully made it through the Appalachians and was speeding her way through the flat stretches of Western Ohioan farmland. She caught the sunset just before she blew through Chicago, then drove into and out of a storm system in Wisconsin and Minnesota respectively, admiring the lightning as she passed it by in the darkness before the sun rose again. She was making good time, but stopped for a quick 4-hour nap just over the South Dakota line early on Saturday afternoon. She figured no weekend was worth wrecking her car from sleep deprivation.
When she woke up, she wondered if she’d be able to catch a Montana sunset on Sunday. She intended to make it happen, so she got back on the interstate. Her GPS told her she’d get in at 3 A. M. Hopefully someone was home.
It was a gamble, but she felt the shared trauma of being forced into politics to preserve their lifestyle had cemented whatever tangled mess she had with John. She wasn’t sure what it was, but then she never was before he’d become the governor, anyway. He would always be around for her, if nothing else. So she kept driving.
The sun set a few hours before she reached Rapid City. She didn’t feel home until she hit the mountains in the dark and listened to the engine trying to keep up with the grade.
When the mile markers indicating distance to Bozeman got below 100, she was starting to get tired. She was on time, pulling into the ranch’s driveway at precisely 3:00 in the morning. The only car in the drive was John’s truck. She parked her car next to it and grabbed her bag, then headed for the door.
She rang the doorbell once, then stood patiently. Usually John was a light sleeper; he’d be out to let her in.
When the door opened, she was actually facing Beth.
“Congratulations! You just won the award for the world’s most inconvenient booty call!” Beth whisper-shouted.
“Are you done?”
“Did you just get out of prison or something? He seems to only fuck jailbirds these days.”
Lynelle just rolled her eyes. She was far too tired for this.
“Okay, now I’m done,” Beth relented quietly, stepping aside so that Lynelle could come in.
“Where is the inmate, anyway?” Lynelle asked, genuinely curious.
“Out on parole,” Beth said, snorting a laugh.
Lynelle nodded, frowning.
“Why are you up here?”
“Rip’s in Texas. I came up to go over the finances with Daddy and was here late. Anyway, I’m gonna sleep as far away from this house as possible tonight. Don’t want to interrupt anything,“ Beth spat awkwardly, narrowing her eyes.
The venom was gone; evidently, having a common enemy forced her to get along with Lynelle.
Lynelle was trying to figure out how one was supposed to respond to that and Beth was turning to leave as John came down the stairs in a t-shirt and boxers.
“Alright now I’m really leaving. Have fun, you sick fucks,” Beth yelled before turning to walk out, still lacking her usual bite.
John ignored it, then called, “Goodnight, Sweetheart!” As she promptly sauntered out the door. He shut it after her, then turned back to Lynelle.
“You drive?” He asked, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head, then lingering there in an embrace.
He’d always dwarfed her small frame, so different than her late husband, who’d been a few mere inches taller than her. Years ago she would have been bothered by it, embittered by the comparison, but it felt like a safety net now. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that fact; it conflicted with her memories of her husband painfully, but it meant she had clawed her way back to some semblance of peace.
“Yeah. Just needed to be home. Washington feels like a cage when you’ve lived your whole life here,” she explained pensively.
Montana was home. He didn’t need to know it was any more complicated than that.
“Jesus Christ, when was the last time you slept, Nelle?”
“A while,” she laughed in spite of herself. She tried to do the math and couldn’t.
“You should go to bed,” he suggested softly, still holding onto her. He laced their fingers together with one hand; he cupped her cheek with the other. She leaned into the contact, eyes sliding closed.
“This job is gonna kill you if you’re not careful. I think you should quit,” he joked.
“Mmm, you just want me home more often.”
“So what if I do?” He chuckled before closing the distance between them.
It was a slow, lazy kiss— 3 A. M. was neither of their finest hours, but there was a comfort in it that felt intertwined with the idea of home in her mind. This was hers, she reminded herself. It was something exclusive to Montana; it didn’t belong to everyone in D. C. or even to her constituents. It used to belong to her grief. Now it was hers alone. She smiled into John’s mouth, savoring the reverberation against her face when he laughed softly.
She pulled back, admiring the softness she found in his crinkled eyes. John squeezed her hand and turned to head upstairs to bed. She let him lead her, padding softly up the stairs behind him.
John, always a gentleman, if sometimes dense, awkwardly asked: “You want the guest room?”
“You know damn well I don’t,” Lynelle laughed loudly before stepping into his space and kissing him thoroughly.
She let him map her mouth with his for a moment before she gently bit his lower lip, eliciting a low chuckle from John. He pulled her closer, pressing her up against him. She felt him pull back from her lips and was lamenting the loss of contact when she felt him lean down to kiss her forehead.
“Bed?” He asked simply.
She nodded in reply, then followed him into the main bedroom.
“Nelle?” He called, tossing her something.
She caught it, then unfolded it reverently. It was one of his shirts, soft brown corduroy, and dress length on her, she knew from experience. She hadn’t seen him wear this one, though.
“What’s that for?” She asked gently.
“One of my shirts from approximately 1990.”
“Okay…” she trailed off, confused, but listening intently.
She figured it had to be an olive branch of sorts after the incident with the inmate, especially based on how her presence was received earlier.
“It was one of my favorite shirts for a long time,” he started quietly, looking at the floor. “After a while, it disappeared from my closet and appeared in Evelyn’s. After… I just couldn’t look at it.”
Lynelle just held his gaze as well as she could, trying to wrap her head around the gravity of the gesture.
“Anyway, Lynelle, I wanted you to have it because that shirt belongs to the woman I love. Whether you can handle being that or not,” he admitted, “you are always welcome here.”
She slowly wrapped her arms around him and tucked her head into his chest as rogue tears began to drift down her face. He kissed her hair again, a comforting reminder that she was home. Maybe home could be more than one person for her.
“I think I can handle that,” she laughed through tears, before slipping into the bathroom to don the shirt.
When she came out, she climbed into bed in just the shirt, dropping a gentle ‘I love you’ and a kiss to John’s temple before settling in next to him.
She had just closed her eyes when her phone loudly jolted them both back to wakefulness. She picked it up and read the notification, still nestled into John’s shoulder.
“Winter storm warning for Bozeman. June in Montana.”
“Well I guess you’re not getting back to Washington by Wednesday, honey.”
“I didn’t bring my winter clothes, John.”
“You can wear mine.”