The Goode Governor Read online

  The Goode Governor

  A Lesbian Romance Series

  J.J. Arias

  Copyright © 2019 by J.J. Arias

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For my wife

  * * *

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Ready for More Goode Girls?

  About the Author

  Also by J.J. Arias

  Prologue

  George stomped up four flights of poured cement stairs. Indignation warmed her when the cold, end-of-winter night slapped her bare face as she emerged onto the top floor breezeway. Without pausing to catch her breath, she strode toward the far corner of the U-shaped apartment building.

  Window after window adorned with collegiate banners and flags created a colorful blur in her peripheral vision. They were mostly the garnet and gold of the largest university in Florida’s capital city. George’s white and purple windbreaker, proudly displaying the Goode College screeching Owl mid-flight, blew open in the wind as she raced.

  Of all the reasons to break up with somebody, she fumed, her jaw tightening as she relived the evening’s unexpected turn of events.

  Without using the scrunchie resting on her wrist like a bracelet, George let her hair tangle and knot into something resembling a voluminous mushroom. The hairdresser’s valiant effort in transforming her dark brown hair into a layered and highlighted replica of Jennifer Aniston’s do was for naught.

  When George reached her destination, she banged once before storming through the unlocked door.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” Nathan said casually, as if hellfire personified hadn’t flounced into his tiny apartment.

  With his head craned backward off the frayed sofa’s armrest, he looked more like a shaggy blond sloth than a man. “I thought by the terms of your U-Haul agreement, you had to stay at her place and adopt a cat,” he said, making himself chuckle in apparent ignorance to George’s flushed cheeks and flared nostrils. “Good thing you’re here. We’re about to find out whether Nurse Hathaway gets to keep her job,” he explained, wiggling his eyebrows toward the TV perched on a stack of Yellow Pages.

  George was too agitated to care about ER. Even her crippling crush on Julianna Margulies couldn’t override her mood.

  “So are you going to tell me what happened?” Nathan asked, getting up to mute the TV. “Because if you’re just going to pace and mutter to yourself, I’d rather—”

  “We broke up!” George announced as if hours of torture had finally broken her resolve to keep the secret. It was still impossible for her to believe. After months of pressuring George into commitment, Katie had ended their relationship without warning.

  “Whoa, are you alright?” he asked, dashing to her side and pulling her in for a hug.

  “No!” she roared, breaking out of his grip. “I’m freaking pissed off!”

  “Alright, don’t have a cow,” he replied. “Let me call Josephine. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna need backup,” he added with a squeeze to her bicep.

  Nathan disappeared behind the small partition closing in the galley kitchen where an avocado green phone was fixed to the wall. Its curled cord hung in knots of overstretched plastic, and it matched the hideous color of the shag carpeting standard throughout the building. The cheap apartments, aimed at broke students, hadn’t been updated since they were converted from motel to complex in the 1970s. Twenty years later, none of the interior design choices had aged well.

  Moments later, Josephine in her grey sweatpants, oversized Dallas Cowboys t-shirt, and hair wrapped in a colorful silk scarf, appeared in Nathan’s living room.

  “You got up those stairs fast,” Nathan said with a laugh.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes focused on George.

  “Kooky Katie dumped her, I’m pretty sure,” Nathan replied on George’s behalf.

  When George didn’t dispute the assessment, Josephine nodded and dragged George to the nearly dilapidated sofa. “Good thing I brought these,” she said with a wink.

  “Gummy bears!” Nathan exclaimed like an overstimulated child.

  After each of them took a handful of the vodka-infused candy, it was time for George to spill.

  “Did she cheat on you?” Josephine guessed, her eyebrows knitting together as if that might soften the blow.

  George shook her head.

  “Is it worse than that?” Nathan asked, his mouth full of boozy bears.

  When George nodded, the others traded wide-eyed glances and evident concern. George took a deep breath to steady herself. It was almost too awful to say out loud. Josephine patted her shoulder and offered her the bag of liquid courage.

  “She voted for Pat Buchanan,” she explained softly, moving her hair out of her face to expose tanned olive skin and bright brown eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Nathan shook his head as if his ears had malfunctioned. “What?” he asked, confusion prominent on his face.

  “She voted for him in the primaries. Twice!” George explained, the vein in her neck throbbing as she relived the hideous fight.

  Nathan and Josephine’s stunned silence matched George’s own shock when she’d learned the truth.

  “I mean who wastes a vote like that, right?” George stood up to pace. “Even if she could somehow get behind his ideas, which is just ridiculous, she knew he couldn’t win,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air as she wore a path in the carpet. She needed to move, to exercise the disquiet in her tense body. “I mean once, maybe, but twice?” She shook her head.

  Nathan cleared his throat. “So you guys broke up because you didn’t like who she voted for in a presidential primary? Even though it doesn’t matter?”

  George shot him a devastating glare. “Doesn’t matter? I can’t think of anything that matters more!” she exclaimed, looking at him like he’d been replaced by a pod person.

  “But he didn’t even win—” he started rationally, but Josephine’s hand on his arm stopped him mid-sentence.

  “Plus” –George took another gulp of oxygen— “she wouldn’t admit it, but I think she voted for Ross Perot.” The words left her lips like they were coated in toxic sludge. “And she had the nerve to call me intense! I mean, what the hell does that mean?” she added as she paced between a stack of old pizza boxes and a bean bag held together by duct tape. She rubbed the soreness in her jaw.

  “I can’t even imagine,” Nathan muttered under his breath, making a herculean effort to contain a smirk.

  “You’re not intense,” Josephine chimed in. “You’re just passionate,” she decided after a moment.

  “Ten points for the world’s best spin doctor,” he joked before catching a pillow with his face.

  Taking the bag of candy from Josephine’s lap, George plopped down between them again and shovel
ed another handful into her mouth. Already tipsy from their effects, she was ready to be a little closer to buzzed. A little closer to numb.

  “Like, excuse me for having principles, you know?” she said, her heavy tongue slurring the words at the end. “What does that say about a person? She’s willing to throw away her voice in such an important election,” she added, her tone giving away her bewilderment and defeat. “Like, how can you have a future with someone like that?”

  George’s best friends wrapped their arms around her. She allowed the group hug to soothe her. It was easier to relay how the fight had started rather than how it ended. Katie had accused her of belittling her and mocking her ideas. She had called her selfish, insensitive, and elitist. The words had gutted her. She’d never expected that her vulnerabilities, exposed in late-night conversations in the dark, would be fashioned into weapons aimed at her.

  “I really liked her,” she admitted, the ache in her chest growing stronger as her anger subsided. “I—” she started until a crack in her voice stopped her. “I think I loved her,” she admitted as her eyes stung with unshed tears. “How could she just end things like this?”

  The rhetorical question hung in the room like a stench. She would do anything to push the weakness away. To regain control. To be the person Katie had chased relentlessly. Maybe that’s all I am. Something to chase, but nothing to keep. George wounded herself with the thought.

  “You know what they say,” Nathan started as he cupped her face. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone new,” he finished, his light-colored eyebrows wiggling. “I’m pretty sure that applies to lesbians, right? I mean, I’m not sure what position…”

  “No way,” George objected as she dried her eyes. “This relationship shit is way overrated. I’m done,” she said adamantly, crossing her arms over her chest.

  The proclamation was met with strenuous resistance. “Don’t say that, Georgie,” he protested. “We’re only just starting our adult lives. There are so many more heartbreaks waiting for you out there,” he insisted, as if that was the best sales angle.

  Josephine interrupted before he could say more of the very wrong things. “Honey, you are an amazing and formidable woman,” she started in the kind of inspirational tone only she could summon. “You’re going to meet someone wonderful, I know it. She’ll appreciate your drive, ferocity, and dogged adherence to your ideals. The right person will see that you’re a loyal and hardworking woman of her word,” she said with a squeeze to her hand. “That’s how we see you, and the right person will see you that way too,” she finished, taking the liberty to speak for herself and Nathan.

  “It’s true,” he added with an enthusiastic nod. “Sure, your unstoppable determination and uncompromising staunchness might be seen as inflexible and uptight, but we know that in here,” he pointed at her chest, “you’ve got a huge heart and so much to offer. Plus, there’s literally no one else I’d rather have on my team than you.”

  George wanted to smile at the kind words, but she couldn’t connect them to herself. What kind of person could be so oblivious that she didn’t see a break-up coming? How could she be expected to react to something she was so woefully unprepared for? She just couldn’t let this happen to her again. The intimacy hadn’t been worth the price of such exposure. Nothing ever felt quite so bad as heartbreak.

  “Thanks guys,” George started softly. “But I really think I’m done with dating. This just isn’t for me. And anyway,” she said, engaging the rational side of her brain, “it’s too distracting and time-consuming. I’m not going to be this country’s first female president if I allow my attentions to be diverted by things that won’t pay off in the end. Love is never a sure thing, and I just don’t have any room for it,” she decided with a firm nod.

  “You’re just upset now,” Nathan said confidently. “You’ll change your mind the next time some smoking hot girl sits down next to you and asks to borrow your pen even though she’s got one in her purse,” he joked, giving her a nudge.

  “Or,” Josephine started with a mouthful of gummy bears, “the next time a cute sophomore asks you to tutor her on advanced game theory,” she said with a grin.

  George stifled a smile but left her arms firmly crossed.

  “Come on,” Nathan said as he jumped up from his squeaky sofa. “We should go out. You need to dance it out. Doctor’s orders,” he said, glancing at the TV where George Clooney stood in hospital scrubs.

  Josephine sprang to her feet. “Gimme thirty minutes and I’ll be back and ready to boogie,” she said before bumping hips with Nathan.

  They looked at George expectantly, as if they could change her will if they stared long enough.

  “Fine,” she relented with a roll of her eyes. “But only because I can’t stand to look at those pathetic faces a moment longer,” she added, grateful they had given her an excuse to be dragged out of her dark mood.

  Chapter One

  George awoke with the sun as she did every morning and slipped out of her king-sized bed, ready to take on the day. With her two energetic Australian Shepherds, Cleo and Victoria, at her feet, she lifted her dark brown hair into a short ponytail and put on black running pants and a light tank top.

  Careful not to wake her staff, she tiptoed down the stairs to the main floor of the Governor’s mansion. Hardly able to restrain themselves despite daily obedience training, the dogs bounded out of the house and onto the manicured lawn to do their business while she stretched in the gym.

  The moment of perfect silence was hers alone. In her sanctuary, George strapped into her rowing machine and cleared her mind. Her arms burned with each pull toward her ten-thousand-meter target. Her powerful thighs threatened to tear apart as she pushed herself harder and harder.

  When she’d met her goal, George released the handlebar and let it slide gently in place despite her desire to let it go flying as soon as she’d crossed her self-imposed finish line. Using the notepad she kept next to the rower, she jotted down her time and distance as she had every day since college. Wiping off her sweat, she eyed the other exercise equipment in the room. Free weights would round out her morning.

  “Good morning, Governor,” Josephine, with her salt and pepper braided hair pulled into a bun, greeted her as soon as she emerged from the gym.

  In the hour she’d spent in her personal temple, the estate had come alive with activity. Apart from her chief-of-staff waiting for her with tablet in hand, dozens of others darted around the public part of the mansion with purpose. She often wondered whether they were so intent on every task when she wasn’t around.

  “Good morning, Jo,” George replied as she tossed the damp towel into the bin and started toward the stairs leading back to the residential side of the mansion. “Ready for a return to our old stomping grounds?” she asked with a smile.

  “Quite,” she said with a smirk. “I think it’s a great way to kick off your re-election campaign. It’ll help humanize you. Show Florida voters you were a bright-eyed college kid once, so full of spirit and grit. An athlete who spent hundreds of hours volunteering and improving the community you now serve,” she added, her chest puffed out with pride.

  “It’s a genius move,” George admitted. “I’m glad you came up with it.” She laughed. “Maybe we can go to that sub shop we used to love. I’m sure Nathan will get a kick out of that, and it might be a good photo opp.”

  “Already part of your itinerary,” Josephine said as she flashed the tablet screen. Her day, laid out before her in a color-coded laundry list of nonstop tasks for the next twelve hours, would have staggered any normal person. To George, it was a regular day back on the campaign trail.

  “Governor,” a staff member called as they began ascending the stairs to the private quarters.

  The smile disappeared off George’s face and was supplanted with a serious expression before she turned to the young man at the foot of the stairs. When he’d relayed a series of messages, he excused himself and vanish
ed down an adjoining hallway.

  “Speaking of Nathan,” Josephine began as they passed an enormous oil painting of George seated in an ornate chair, a suited man standing behind her, and two Australian Shepherds at her feet. “I’m not sure he’ll make it back in time for the commencement address. There’s bad weather expected in the mid-west when he’s due to fly out,” she added, her eyes on a colorful radar image on her screen.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” George replied with a roll of her eyes. “All I need him for are events like this where his presence is expected. He knows we’re campaigning now. He can’t see his girlfriend every weekend,” she snapped, annoyed that she would have to call him later and discuss it. A marriage of convenience should at least be convenient, she thought. She reminded herself that it wasn’t his fault she polled better when they were together, or that it irritated her

  “If he does get delayed, we’ll say how unfortunate it is that the First Gentleman’s trip, aimed at courting new businesses to headquarter in Florida, has been extended by bad weather. It’s not a big deal,” Josephine explained casually, her fingers flying as she drafted a standby press release that would be perfected by her team before issuance.

  “Three years in and I still can’t get used to that term,” she commented, pulling off her sneakers as soon as they entered her bedroom. “First Gentleman,” she repeated out loud, distaste screwing up her face. “And the way they hurl it at me,” she continued, replaying the countless assaults in her head. “What does the First Gentleman think of this? What will he say about that? Who cares!” she interrupted herself. “Nobody asks anybody shit about any First Lady other than what is she wearing and what her child-related pet project is,” she grumbled. George had never expected that being the first female anything would be easy, but she was still surprised by the sexist questions she was forced to endure.