The Next Mrs Russo - Jana Aston Page 0,15

box,” I repeat back for lack of anything else to say. A lone wisp of blonde hair has escaped my artfully arranged loose, low pony and fallen into my face. Too loose, I guess. I blow it out of the way and slide past Warren into the closet under the stairwell where the fuse box for this house is located, flipping the one labeled ‘kitchen light.’ The elderly aunt I inherited this place from might’ve been terrible at home maintenance, but she was a top-notch labeler.

This fuse kills the overhead light in the kitchen and hallway so we’re plunged into a dusky early evening shadow. I immediately blurt out, “Okay, I’m ready!” with way too much enthusiasm. Then I clap my hands together and nod toward the door. I add a weird little thumb point to round off this sophisticated display.

Warren doesn’t move, he simply glances between me and then back to the ceiling light. I’m mollified to see that the drip has stopped. See? Problem resolved.

“Have you called a plumber?”

“Are you crazy? On a Saturday night? You think I’m paying a plumber for weekend hours for what amounts to less than a glass of water? They already bill more than doctors do during regular business hours. It’ll hold till Monday.”

Warren makes one more visual sweep of the ceiling then, with a small shake of his head, says, “Okay,” and follows me to the front door.

So. This is going really well.

We manage to make it outside and into his car without exchanging another word. Once we’re on the Thruway I decide to test out my stellar conversational skills.

“So.”

Yup. That’s what I lead with. Just the one word. Not a complete sentence. Not even a fun, useful phrase like, “Good evening,” or “By the way, you look incredibly hot in that suit.”

I might as well just have grunted but before I get the chance it occurs to me that we’re alone.

“You drive yourself around?” I ask, while turning to peer into the back seat of his car as if there might be a guy back there keeping us company. To be fair, it’s a reasonable assumption. Does the governor have security? Who knows! I assumed he had a guy.

Warren side-eyes me a moment before answering. I’m not offended by the side-eye because he’s driving. And also because I’ve done nothing but babble awkward partial sentences since he showed up at my door.

“I didn’t know if you were allowed to drive yourself, is all,” I interject before he even has a chance to speak. “I was wondering, actually.”

Cool, Audrey. Cool. Why don’t you just admit that you Googled this very question but never found a satisfactory search result? Somehow I manage to keep my mouth shut and let him answer.

“For personal events, I usually drive myself.”

“Cool.”

Then I physically sink my teeth into my bottom lip in an attempt to keep my stupid mouth shut because I sound like an idiot with high school-level conversational abilities.

Except.

Except this doesn’t even matter! This isn’t a real date, I remind myself. There is no pressure. Absolutely none. This is nothing more than a chance to spend a few hours with my crush. Like if I’d won some weird sweepstakes to have lunch with a Hollywood A-lister on the set of their latest movie. Have you ever seen one of those contests? Like, buy a raffle ticket for the chance to win a dinner with Dolly Parton! Or donate a bunch of money and win a Zoom call with Ryan Reynolds! I always imagined that the winner ended up getting something like five minutes with the celebrity while a small army of agents and assistants hovered nearby.

This is so much better.

And sure, it’s a weird crush. A more predictable crush would be on an actor or an athlete or a musician selling out stadiums worldwide, but we love who we love.

This is my chance to spend a few hours with him, zero pressure. Alone, at least until we reach the reception. Who gets an opportunity like this? No one. Hudson Opera House is a forty-five-minute drive from Albany if you’re driving the speed limit and surely the governor obeys the speed limit, am I right? Or something close to it. The optics of him getting pulled over for speeding by a state trooper would be bad.

A quick peek at the speedometer confirms it. He’s going maybe eight miles over the limit, exactly as I’d expected. So I’ve got at least thirty minutes left until we reach the