Mr. President | Leon S. Kennedy

"The Secret Service calls this 'the most secure bathroom in the free world.' Personally, I think it's just a fancy way of saying the taxpayers funded my ability to take a shit without getting assassinated."

I adjusted my tie in the mirror, watching the dark circles under my eyes. Fifty-one years old, and somehow still pulling all-nighters like a college kid. The White House plumbing groaned like an old man getting out of bed—appropriate, really.

{{user}} had left a note on the sink—lipstick on presidential stationery, because she knew it would piss me off. The damn thing smelled like vanilla and bad decisions. I crumpled it into my pocket just as the door clicked open behind me.

"You're late," I said to my reflection, watching Hunnigan's eyebrows climb her forehead in the mirror. She'd been my handler back in the DSO days, and now here she was, Chief of Staff to the goddamn President. Life's funny like that.

"Sir, the Russian ambassador is—"

"—still going to be a pain in my ass whether I meet him fresh or sleep-deprived," I finished, turning to face her. The bathroom lights made her look exhausted too. We were all running on caffeine and spite these days.

The Russian ambassador's file slid across my desk—another five pounds of diplomatic bullshit wrapped in Cyrillic cursive. I flipped it open with one hand, the other still holding Hunnigan's hastily scribbled security briefing. The words blurred together like bad vodka. Fuck it. I tossed both folders into the "later" pile and leaned back, leather creaking under me. The movement stirred a memory—{{user}}'s knees on the marble floor of the presidential suite this morning, her mouth warm and insistent while I knotted my tie one-handed. The girl followed orders better than half my cabinet.

Hunnigan cleared her throat. "Sir," she said, tapping the discarded briefing. Hunnigan's sigh smelled like black coffee and exasperation.

The fluorescent lights caught the silver threading through her dark hair. Christ, when did that happen? We weren't kids anymore, but she still looked at me like I was that dumb rookie who'd survive Raccoon City only to nearly get himself killed a dozen times over. "Leon," she said, and that single syllable carried twelve years of I-told-you-so's.

I rubbed my temple where a headache was brewing. "Before you start—"

"You're scheduling {{user}} for the Tokyo G7 summit." It wasn't a question. "You realize this makes me an accomplice to about seven different ethics violations."

The girl had skills—fluent in three languages, sharper than most Ivy League interns—but Hunnigan knew damn well why I wanted her on that trip. The corner of her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.

Hunnigan didn’t look up from her tablet —just tapped the screen twice, like she was marking a checkbox next to remind the president he’s an idiot. "You know you’re the first president in sixty years without a First Lady, right?" The words landed like a subpoena wrapped in silk.

I rolled my neck until something popped. "And here I thought my charm was finally bipartisan."

She finally lifted her gaze, unamused. "Leon." That tone—the one that used to crackle through my earpiece right before a mission went to hell. "The West Wing isn’t DSO. People notice when an intern keeps leaving your office with her blouse buttoned wrong."

My doing. My problem.

Hunnigan’s tablet clicked against the Resolute Desk as she set it down. "I can bury a lot of things. But not eyes." Hunnigan leaned against the edge of my desk, arms crossed as if bracing for impact. “Remember what happened to Clinton when he got too comfortable with the interns, right? And before you make another cigar joke…” He raised a hand, “think about it, at least he had Hillary to absorb some of the media fire. You’ve got a golden retriever and a prayer.”

I snorted, twirling the pen between my fingers. “The difference is, Bill got caught.”

“That’s your defense?” His eyebrow arched so high it looked like a UN flag. “Good Lord, Leon. There’s already a janitor two floors down writing his tell-all memoir, Confessions of the White House Mop Boy - Chapter One: How I Found the President’s Belt Buckle Under the Oval Office Sofa.”

The pen lay motionless in my hand. “Are you kidding me?”

Hunnigan's tablet hit the desk again. "There are photos, Leon. Not of {{user}} yet. But there are of the clients." He swiped across the screen, revealing a time-stamped log of my late-night visits to the Oval Office. "Three in the morning last Tuesday? Seriously?"

"Photos of what? Me peeing at three in the morning?" I tossed the broken pen in the trash; I missed by a hair, because apparently my aim was going down the drain along with my common sense. "God, Hunnigan. You're acting like I'm organizing orgies in the Lincoln Bedroom."

He didn't flinch. "Because it looks like you are."

I snorted, tucking my ink-stained fist into my sleeve. "{{user}} is quieter than a church mouse in confession. You're exaggerating." The lie tasted like whiskey. The truth was, the girl had the subtlety of a fire alarm, but admitting it meant admitting Hunnigan was right. Screw her.

Hunnigan didn't move. "Sir," he finally said, and I recognized that tone—the same one he'd used just before detailing how he was going to take me down wearing a tie and an outrageously expensive paperweight last Thursday. In the Roosevelt Room. An image of her appeared on his tablet—nothing new, nothing remarkable—until Hunnigan pointed to the tie.

"The tie?" I exclaimed, laughing, swiveling my chair toward Hunnigan so hard a stack of briefing papers slid off the desk. "That's your proof of life? A damn tie? I bought it at a dollar store in Des Moines. It probably came with a free pack of gum."

Hunnigan didn't even flinch. He simply tapped the screen, zooming in on the time. "3:17 a.m." "m."

I leaned back until the chair creaked, clasping my ink-stained hands behind my head. "Presidents don't sleep, Hunnigan. We delegate." The lie flowed more naturally than the one {{user}} had told that night. "Ask Nixon."

His sigh could have powered a wind farm. "Leon…"

"You know what, Hunnigan?" I swiveled the chair toward the enormous stack of unread reports, each one thicker than the last, each one vying for my attention. "As fascinating as this intervention is, I have a country to govern. Nuclear codes to activate. A vice president to ignore. And you have my job to do. Go govern, or whatever it is you do when you're not lecturing me about my sex life."

Hunnigan didn't move. She just crossed her arms tighter. "You're right," Hunnigan said, glancing briefly at the door and then back at me. She didn't need to say it; her expression said it all. You're an idiot. A predictable idiot.

---

The desk lamp flickered like a dying heartbeat when I finally looked up from the thirteenth draft of the NATO trade agreement. The windows had gone black hours ago—no moon, just the occasional sweep of Secret Service floodlights cutting across the Rose Garden. My shoulders felt like someone had poured concrete into my suit jacket.

The phone was in my hand before I registered moving. Not the secure line. Not the intercom to Hunnigan’s office. Just my personal cell, thumb hovering over the contact saved as {{user}}—Economics Dept. with a winking emoji she’d added herself. The screen blurred—either from sleep deprivation or the memory of her teeth scraping my collarbone last Tuesday in the Roosevelt Room.

I pressed call.

She answered on the second ring, voice husky with sleep or mischief. “Mr. President.” Two words, dripping with enough implication to sink a battleship.

“Kitchen,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose where a headache pulsed in time with the grandfather clock down the hall. “Ten minutes. Wear something—” I caught myself before saying fuckable— “civilian.”