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“Thanks for the ride,” Andy tells Ellie, lingering at the salt-coated stairs of the front door to her apartment building. “It’s almost humiliating that my car wouldn’t start in the White House parking lot. I knew the battery wouldn’t last in this weather.”
“It was no trouble for us, at least I think so.” Ellie’s smile is warm, her voice is kind, and god, if it doesn’t make Andy melt a little bit. “I was headed the same direction you are, anyway.”
They break into peals of laughter on Andy’s street.
A careful hand on Ellie’s arm. Windblown hair, abstract confidence. Two cars kept running, four agents on watch. Andy’s favorite trees are the ones growing right here, creaky trunks of peeling oak bark with an absence of leaves. Holiday lights are strung around metal tow signs and wooden porch railings in tight spirals, like constellations or shooting stars.
Andy thinks twice about brushing away the wisps getting into Ellie’s eyes. There’s neighbors around, and it’s not unlikely that the octogenarians living on the second floor are watching.
Finishing a hushed conversation they’d had in the backseat, Andy says, “You know, not for nothing, but you never have to explain it to me. I know you think you have to, but I’m not one of those people who care about probing around in private lives. I consider myself an expert in keeping secrets.”
“Thanks, An—um, Congresswo—Andy,” Ellie stammers, settling on the name Andy had told Ellie to call her (really, anything except the formal Andrea would do), and blush spreads across the majority of her face, timid admiration flashes in her eyes. “It counts, a lot.”
Andy fishes around for her keys in her bag, looping the metal keyring on her finger like a piece of jewelry Ellie is interested in, and Andy notices that anxious flicker, checking to confirm there’s a lack of other jewelry on Andy’s left hand, which has been bare for months. “I’ll see you when I see you? Hopefully not too much later.”
Ellie nods, tugging at her knit scarf for warmth, and the blonde agent waiting by the car opens the passenger door for her. “Yeah. Sure.”
A wave, a door closing, and two cars driving in the direction of north. Andy is unable to stop the feeling of falling.