Chapter 5
Josh and Donna kept dancing long after the song had ended, their entwined form silhouetted in the semi darkness like a piece of living art. Annabeth smiled.
She’d had fun. Singing had always been a release for her. Usually it involved a shower and a loofah brush for a microphone however.
The pianist, whose name she had discovered was Tony, kept tinkling away as she rose from the bench seat.
“You’re really good, you know that?” he commented.
“This politics thing doesn’t work out? Come back – I’ll find you a job in a second.”
She smiled at him and patted his shoulder.
“You’re sweet; deluded, but sweet.”
She turned to step down from the stage and found Leo standing at the edge offering his hand.
“Well thank you, kind sir.” She grinned and was rewarded with one in return.
“You were amazing.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“Oh yeah?” he smirked.
Annabeth feigned a shocked expression.
“You’re a bad, bad man Mr McGarry!”
“So I’m told quite frequently.”
She started to move towards the booths but Leo apparently had his other ideas.
“Care to take a turn on the floor?”
Annabeth glanced at the now empty dance floor. Looking past Leo, she could see Josh and Donna settling themselves back into the booth they had occupied previously.
“Ok then,” she shrugged enthusiastically. “C’mon twinkle toes, show me what you’ve got!"
**********
Leo’s arms were wrapped lightly around Annabeth’s diminutive form, her head resting lightly on his chest as they swayed gently in time to the music. It was probably wildly inappropriate all things considered, but it felt good to do this again. The last time he had danced like this had been with Jordan so many moons ago. Annabeth’s singing, and now her gentle humming along with the lounge act, soothed his jittery nerves. Today had been a good day. The polling numbers… and then a visit to the White House – it had been too long since he had seen the President. Just… a good day.
Looking over Annabeth’s head, Leo took a good look at the two couples in the room. He smiled; it was like looking at a pair of bookends. Off to his right Helen and Matt sat in a booth together. Matt’s arms were stretched out along the length of the back of the booth bench, Helen nestled closely into the space under his right arm. Her head was tilted back ever so slightly, her eyes were closed, and there was a dreamy smile on her face. Leo watched as Matt glanced down at his wife and then back up, catching his eye. Matt smiled briefly before pointedly looking across the room towards the other couple; apparently he had noticed them too.
Turning Annabeth mid sway, so as to get a better view, Leo allowed himself an even bigger smile. In a booth along the back wall sat two people who should have been together a hell of a lot earlier than this. Leo wasn’t, or hadn’t, ever been as blind as he made out about where things stood with his ex-deputy and his assistant. The interplay between Josh and Donna had been so much part of the woodwork when they had been in the White House that nobody who knew them had thought their behavior towards each other was anything out of the ordinary. People knew where the lines were drawn in that bizarre relationship and never mentioned it. Seeing them steaming down a corridor shoulder to shoulder, or watching Donna liberating a French fry from Josh’s plate at lunch had become so familiar to everyone that most of the time no-one thought anything of it. But it was easy to understand how it could have been misconstrued by outsiders into something more sordid. After all, how many other high level political operatives were there who had been given post operative care by their attractive young assistant?
From the start Leo – and everyone else who had eyes – had seen what Josh and Donna seemed to be oblivious to – or were denying themselves with the greatest show of restraint know to man – they were head over heels for each other. Leo knew how devastated Josh had been when Donna had left to join Russell’s campaign, and he sometimes wondered – if she hadn’t gone that blustery winter’s day, would he be here at all? Sitting in a hotel bar with a congressman from Texas as the democratic nominee for Vice President? Leo decided that his life would probably have been a hell of a lot easier if he had just handcuffed the two of them together and made them slug out whatever differences they had, or at least been given the opportunity to whack them both upside the head to point out a few home truths. But no, the tragedy that was Lyman and Moss bordered on the Shakespearian. There was something to be said for martyred stoicism but these two took it just a bit too far.
But no, if two near-death experiences couldn’t make Josh and Donna face up to the truth of what lay between them, then Leo doubted anything could have done so until they were ready to face it themselves. He’d long suspected that part of the reason they had never crossed the line between friendship and something more was because of the harm it could have done to the Bartlet administration, politically. Because narrow minds would draw conclusions about the nature of their relationship, and God knew, there’d been enough rumors about them over the years. So instead they had ploughed on, the best working relationship since Perry Mason and Della Street.
But the choice had to be theirs – and from what he could see from here, they had finally made it.
Leo allowed himself a chuckle, when this got out there were a lot of people who weren’t going let anything screw any chance they had up now – including the outgoing residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!
Like Matt and Helen, Josh and Donna were snuggled closely together in their booth, Donna leaning back into Josh’s chest. But whereas Matt’s arms were draped across the back of the seat, Josh’s were far more engaged. His right arm was wrapped around the shoulders of the woman in front of him – encircling her almost completely, his arm resting across her chest, his left hand absently stroking her hair. A smile played at the edge of his lips, as he gently wrapped his other arm down around and lowered his cheek gently on the top of Donna’s head, seemingly oblivious to everything else around him. Equally unaware, Donna turned her head slightly so her cheek rested against Josh’s chest, and Leo could see that Donna’s left hand had snaked up to the lower part of Josh’s right bicep. Whilst absently stroking his arm, Donna’s attention was focused solely on the key she was twiddling around in her right hand a mysterious smile forming on her angelic face.
As Leo watched, Josh lightly kissed the top of Donna’s head. The key twirling stopped momentarily as Donna looked up and over her shoulder at him, taking in his questioning smile. For two normally talkative people, they’d raised wordless communication to an art form. Donna responded by sitting upright and reaching for her coat which lay draped across the end of the booth. Wordlessly the young couple rose from the booth and moved towards the door, Donna leading Josh gently by the hand.
They didn’t move quickly, there was no rush and stumble to get out of the lounge; they just strolled along as though this was something they had done a million times before. As they moved through the semi-darkness past Leo and through the doorway, the words of the song the young piano player was singing caught Leo’s attention.
“Then the world discovers as my book ends
How to make two lovers of friends”Leo sighed heavily and gave his dancing partner a reassuring squeeze as he closed his eyes and let the music move in him as well. It was about damn time.