“I can, if you tell me to whom I’m speaking.”
He smiled and said, “My name is Eli, the man he mentioned in the speech today.”
There was joyous laughter on the line before Dante said, “A great love? My husband will be so excited to hear I helped someone return to their great love.”
Eli felt himself starting to cry and he was gripping the phone so tightly it hurt. “I would like to meet him some day.”
“I’m sure it can be arranged.”
Waiting there for the call, Eli, paced in the back of the store, the alley stinking with the full trash dumpster there, but even that didn’t bother him. All he could seem to do was think the worst.
Instead of finding him, Lee had gone to a sex dungeon. Possibly. Or maybe he just drove off to nowhere to lick his wounds and hate the world.
There were so many possible places, and hardly any of them eased Eli’s mind.
When the phone rang, he picked it up immediately, trying to brace for bad news, but it wasn’t so much bad or good.
“Eli, it’s Ryan.”
“Ryan! Ryan, is he heading there?”
“Yes. He made a reservation for three weeks and said he may ask for a job.”
“A…a job?”
“As one of the Masters here, Eli. He wants to hide from the world for a while.”
Suddenly, Eli was enraged. “That’s the most cowardly thing I’ve ever heard! He tells his truth, finally, and thinks he can hide? That’s no better than hiding his sexuality. To come out then go straight into hiding? What the fuck is with that? I can’t believe it!”
“Hey, Eli, remember, I’m still on the line?”
His rant stopped cold, Eli said, “Sorry. I’m just…”
“Passionate. I get it. Can you get down here?”
He was about to start all over again on the rant, but then, it all died on his tongue, as he knew then where Lee was going to be. “Ryan, I can, and maybe before him. Can you do a really low-down sneaky thing with me?”
“I idle at low-down and sneaky.”
“Great. I’ll be at the airport there in a few hours. Can you please send the helicopter and all?”
“I’ll have the chopper bring you all the way in. We need to hurry.”
Mars had Lee’s driver take him to the airport where Lee’s plane had landed only an hour before after arriving from Lee’s home state.
It didn’t take long to get in the air again, and Eli was grateful for once that Lee’s name could still cut through the normal red tape.
He watched outside the window as the US turned into another country, knowing that on one of those highways, Lee was driving. As good as his word, Ryan not only sent the helicopter, but was on it himself.
He held Eli’s hand on the flight, watched him cry a bit from the anticipation that he’d see Lee again and trying to think what he’d say to him.
Ryan had news, though, that shocked Eli to his core. “The whole fucking country is shouting for him to run for president still. Even more now.”
“After that speech? He admitted to not only committing crimes but catching others doing it!”
“They’re all saying that we need someone that can admit to their faults and run the country like he just ran the Senate. Taking out the corruption and replacing it with fresh faces willing to help the common people. It’s amazing.”
“Do you think he will?”