If I’d learned one thing about Dre in our short time together, it was that he couldn’t control his facial expressions. He wore his emotions plainly on the outside. It was kind of sweet, though it would have made it almost too easy for me to beat him in a debate. At the moment, he was looking shocked.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Dre said. “It’s just . . . I didn’t expect you to be—”
“Anything more than a clone of my mother?”
“Like me.”
Dre’s answer might have offended me under different circumstances, but there was such an honesty to it that it caught me a bit off guard. Only, before I could come up with a suitable response, the lights flickered and cut out, plunging the room into darkness.
“Dean?!”
“Stay where you are,” I said. “The emergency lights will come on in—”
The emergency lights over the door flared to life, bathing the walls in their halogen glow.
“What the hell is going on, Dean?”
I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to lie to Dre. My heart was pounding faster and my mouth was dry. Keeping him calm was the only thing keeping me calm. “Sit,” I told him. “You don’t want to trip in the dark and break your leg.”
Dre marched mechanically to the couch and sat across from me. He tugged at his tie and tried his phone again, his frustration growing. “I can’t deal with this!”
“Everything will be fine,” I said. “I promise.” It would only be a lie if I couldn’t keep that promise, but I couldn’t bear to see Dre so upset, especially about something over which we had no control.
“Maybe this time, but what about next time? Or the time after that?”
“There’s always a bomb scare or a threatening letter or a suspicious package.” I was supposed to be trying to make Dre feel better, and I realized I was probably having the opposite effect, so I hurried along. “But in all of the years my mother’s been in office, she’s never even come close to being in real danger because the people in charge of her security are good at their jobs. And so is the Secret Service.”
“I hate this! I hate that every time my dad leaves the house, I’m worried someone with a gun and a twenty-page handwritten manifesto is going to find him and shoot him.” He stood and began pacing again despite the dark. “This whole thing is ridiculous. Journalists digging into the most obscure parts of our lives, photographers following us everywhere. What’s the upside? What makes this worth the bullshit?”
I tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t sound cheesy, but honesty often carries a whiff of cheese. “The opportunity to make the world a better place. That’s the only good reason to do it.”
“Is it enough?”
“I hope so.”
Dre sat back down, looking slightly more relaxed than before. “Thanks,” he said. “I tried talking to Mel about this stuff, but I don’t think she gets it.”
“I know what you mean.”
Dre smiled. “You really do, don’t you?”
Dre
IF SOMEONE HAD told me that Dean Arnault would be the one who kept me from having a panic attack while my parents’ lives were potentially in danger, I would have laughed so hard I might’ve peed my pants. The idea that we could have anything in common was ludicrous. Yet, there we were, sitting in the dark having a conversation like two people who could’ve been friends. And the messed-up thing was that there was a small part of me that didn’t want the lockdown to end so that I could spend more time alone with Dean.
“So your parents don’t know about you, then?” I asked. Dean and I had fallen back into silence, and I needed to keep talking or my brain would spin out scenarios about what was happening on the other side of the doors—like the one where a dude with a bomb strapped to his chest had cornered my parents so he could tell them his hard-luck story and make them feel sympathy for him before blowing them up—and I wanted to avoid that.
“No.”
“Is it because your mom would disown you or something?”
Dean’s mouth tightened into a frown. “No,” he said. “She wouldn’t because she’s not an awful person. I haven’t told her, or anyone, because there’s nothing to tell yet. When I know for sure, I’ll tell my parents, but until then it’s no one’s business but mine.”
I felt like I’d struck a raw nerve. “What’d I say? I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s not that.” Dean dry-washed his hands, rubbing them over and over.
“Then what?”
“Before you met me, you’d made these assumptions about me, most of which were probably wrong. And now that you know this one thing about me—a thing that I don’t even consider to be a particularly huge part of who I am—you’re making an entirely new set of assumptions about me. Most of which are also probably wrong.”
“You may not think it’s a big part of who you are,” I said, “but it’s still a big deal. And you can’t tell me that your mom running for president isn’t affecting your decision to keep it to yourself.”
Dean opened his mouth, but nothing came out for a second. It was the first time I think I’d stumped him. Finally, he said, “Can we not talk about this anymore?”
I hadn’t expected to see Dean look so unsure of himself. I had him on the run, and I could’ve gone on the attack, really nailed him for being queer and supporting his mom, who definitely didn’t support our community, but no matter how Dean had played it off, it’d taken a lot of courage for him to tell me his secret, and I owed him better than jumping on him for it.
I held out my hand. “Gimme your phone.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your cell phone?” I said. “Square, flat, probably got some pictures on it you wouldn’t want your friends swiping through.”
“There are no such pictures.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “It was a joke. Now gimme your phone. Unlocked.”
Part of me expected Dean to refuse. I’m not sure I would’ve given up my phone, and if I had, I’m sure Jose would’ve cussed me out for it. Besides, I was the son of his mother’s enemy. But that didn’t mean we had to be enemies, did it? Dean and I could be friends, even if our parents weren’t.
Dean reached into his coat pocket, unlocked his phone, and handed it to me. The background picture was his mother’s campaign logo.
“Mama’s boy.”
“And proud of it.” Dean watched me quietly for a second before saying, “What, exactly, are you doing?”
I held up his phone so he could see. “Downloading Promethean.” The app’s icon was a stylized flame.
“Okay?”
“And now I’m setting up your account and adding my username to your contacts.”
“Why again?”
I sighed the sigh of the weary. Clearly, I had a lot to teach Dean. “Promethean is totally secure. Like, end-to-end encryption that even the company doesn’t have the keys to.” Dean was still watching me like I was speaking in Klingon. “It’s so we can talk? Without anyone knowing? In case you want to. About whatever.”