"Because it's our s.e.x life, and it's not made up."

"You're a very complicated woman. But I'm okay with it. Tell Dad h.e.l.lo."

And he hung up.

IF MERCEDES WAS A MORE discreet human being, she would have hid in the bas.e.m.e.nt until Sam's father was gone, but curiosity finally took hold, and she ventured into the guest bathroom, where Mr. Porter was removing the showerhead from the wall.

"You're Sam's dad?"

"Yup. Some of us tell the truth about who we are."

"You don't think I'm an interior decorator."

Mr. Porter looked at her and snorted with laughter. "Sam?"

d.a.m.n. "I probably should have thought of something better."

"I would have," he answered, peering at the spout.

"You must be very proud of him."

"Proud? I suppose so, but that would mean that I had doubts about him, and I don't. We raised him better than that."

"I'm Mercedes Brooks," she said, holding out a hand.

He looked at it, looked at the grease on his palm and nodded. "Sam Porter."

"Wow. There're two of you in the world."

For some reason, Mr. Porter thought that was funny. "He never did like Junior. Call him that sometime if you want to make him mad."

"I don't think I want to make him mad."

"Too early in the relationship?"

"We don't have a relationship," muttered Mercedes.

"Just decorating, huh?" he answered, going back to work. "Not good for a political candidate to be shacking up with an interior decorator."

"We're not shacking up. I have an apartment in the city."

"He shouldn't be in politics anyway. A bunch of do-nothin', money-grubbin' tax-hikers, that's all the politicians are anyway."

"I guess you've influenced his political outlook."

Sam Sr. nodded. "Guess I have."

Mercedes decided to leave Sam's father to his work. "I don't think Sam will be needing my services for very long, so I don't think it'll affect the campaign."

His father studied her from beneath gray brows, and for a moment, Mercedes saw exactly what Sam would be like fifty years from now. She could see an older version of herself, standing here, arguing with him. Then in a flash the vision was gone.

Sam Sr., green eyes recognizing much more than Mercedes wanted, answered, "We'll see. We'll see."

13.

WHILE SAM WAS SPEAKING at a community center in Toms River, Mercedes spent the afternoon writing a story for her blog about a desperate housewife stuck alone in the house, with no one to turn to but the plumber. It wasn't her best work, but she figured it was good enough. Her mind was occupied with other issues.

That evening, when Sam got home from the show, Mercedes decided it was time for a talk. No longer were they just sharing a bed. She was spending days here, plural. Nights here, plural, and now even his father knew it.

If Sam wasn't careful, soon the world would know it, and Mercedes wasn't ready for the nuclear fallout of that. Right now, the only nuclear fallout she had to deal with was her own, and that was more than enough. They weren't co-habiting, but it was that leaving your toothbrush moment, and Mercedes had never left a toothbrush anywhere but her own bathroom sink. Not even when visiting her mother.

There were certain boundaries that she didn't want to cross, and a toothbrush indicated permanence to the situation. It indicated that tomorrow would come, and they would still be together. Her toothbrush would be where she left it, and Sam would be where she left him as well.

And in the current environment, it would make sense that she went back to her own apartment.

She followed him into the kitchen, and watched as he fed Max.

"How did the speech go this afternoon?"

"Good."

"Good is great," she said, trying her best to be happy and enthusiastic. Sam saw through it.

"What's on your mind?"

"I don't think I should leave my toothbrush."

He looked at her, puzzled. "You don't need to leave your toothbrush. I've already bought you a toothbrush."

"What about my clothes?"

Sam grinned.

"Not funny," she answered.

"Definitely not funny, and I should have known better than to convey levity on such a pressing issue. But actually, your nudity is not an issue, not because it's not a very seductive issue, but because you have clothes here. And while we're on the subject of clothes, I don't know if you realize it or not, but shopping is much cheaper in Jersey. Head out to the mall, the sales tax rate on clothing and shoes sold in New Jersey is zero. Zero. What's it in New York? Twenty, thirty percent?"

"Zero percent tax? Shoes, too?" Mentally she started doing the math, and although math wasn't her best subject-English always had been-she knew the fast-track to calculating sales tax. On a hundred dollar pair of shoes- -no, she wasn't going to be sidetracked, not even by the siren's call of shopping. "We need to discuss this," she stated firmly.

"Discuss what?"

"This," she answered, shooting him a meaningful look.

"Another ambiguous p.r.o.noun. And you call yourself a writer?"

"I'm being serious."

He sighed, stared, and then sighed again. "What are you afraid of?"

She looked around the room. The dog, the coffeemaker, the little bank and insurance magnets on the refrigerator. Everything here was designed for long-term usage. No fast food, no disposable anything. This wasn't where she belonged.

"Sam, you're running for Congress. Congress. This isn't the town council. What about all those little old ladies in Hackensack, who are shocked, shocked that you're shacking up with some sleazy s.m.u.t-writer. There is no happy ending. One day you'll wake up and go for some blond Sunday school teacher, and imagine all the cute tow-headed boys that the two of you could have together, and then you'll look at me, my nondescript dark hair, my s.e.x blog which uses words like p.e.n.i.s and c.l.i.t on a regular basis, and you say 'I can't do this.' And then where will I be, Sam? Left out on the street without a toothbrush, that's where. I need to go back to my apartment. I don't like relationships. I don't mind the s.e.x, but anything more is setting me up to get hurt."

"You've had relationships before."

"With jerks, yes. It's an automatic safety, sort of like playing Monopoly with a kid. You go in, start the game, and you know you're going to lose, so it doesn't matter. Being with you isn't playing Monopoly, Sam. It's not a game. It's the big leagues. And if I'm stepping into the big leagues, I can't do it knowing I'll end up being hurt."

"I won't hurt you, Mercedes."

"There's not a guarantee with this sort of thing."

"This sort of thing? You mean a relationship?"

"We're not in a relationship," she corrected him. "We're having wild, pa.s.sionate s.e.x."

"I'm sorry. If we're talking about toothbrushes, we're in a relationship. Do you mind cooking tomorrow? I eventually want to try that ziti."

"Sure."

"See, you're going to cook. We're in a relationship."

"That doesn't count."

"You cook for everyone you have wild, pa.s.sionate s.e.x with?"

"No."

He gave her a smug smile.

"I can't argue with you, Sam. You're a professional. You get people to say the wrong things all the time. You can't count my misstatements against me."

"I don't want to argue, Mercedes. I like being with you, no, I love being with you. I want to have wild, pa.s.sionate s.e.x with you. I want talk-time with you. I want to understand your belief system, if you have a belief system, and if you don't it's okay. I like knowing you're there to talk to. It's very strange, but I didn't recognize that I was lonely until now. Not that Max is chopped liver, and speaking of Max-look, even Max is already attached. Are you going to break my dog's heart?"

At the sound of his name, Max looked up, gazed at her with big puppy-dog eyes, and Mercedes didn't want to see that bright light where people never returned. She didn't want refrigerator magnets, or toothbrushes, or ca.s.serole dishes full of ziti, or puppy-dog eyes, or the man who made her want every single one of those things. Those things terrified her more than airplane crashes, terrorism, and giant man-eating sharks combined.

"Sam."

He pointed to Max. "Look at that face. How can you deny that face?"

"I'm scared."

"I know. Stay here. Stay with me. I'm not your father, Mercedes. Sometimes you have to trust."

Trust. Now there was a four-letter word. Men weren't designed for trust, they were designed for other four-letter words. "We're going to see Tony tonight?" she asked, deciding to change the subject to something less emotionally upheavalish.

"Just at a bar. No pressure. Very casual. You don't have to take your toothbrush. But maybe you can give him some pointers on relationships."

Mercedes glared.

"You think anyone will notice you?" she asked.

"No, people don't notice me, it won't be a problem."

"Sam, be serious."

"I am."

"What about the reporters?"

"They dog me at the studio, at the talks, but I don't think Sam Porter going to a bar will make CNN."

Mercedes crossed her arms across her chest. "I don't know."

"Tony needs you," he said.

"Fine."

"So, about this story you wrote today. The housewife. Alone. The plumber who comes to fix the showerhead. For the record, I'd feel a whole lot more secure in this thing that isn't a relationship, this wild, pa.s.sionate s.e.x, not-a-relationship-thing, if you didn't indulge in s.e.xual fantasies that involved my father."

"Fiction. h.e.l.lo?"

"Normally I'd buy that line, but you wrote about me, and that was fiction, and yet not. So I know there's a gray area."

"Your father is not in the gray area, Sam. You're the only one in the gray area."

"But why a plumber then? Why not, let's say, a pizza delivery boy?"

"Have you ever seen a pizza delivery boy? They're always scrawny and skinny, and I'm sorry, my imagination doesn't work that hard."

"But plumbers are s.e.xy?"

"Oh, yeah, much more so than pizza delivery boys."

"My father is a plumber, Mercedes. He's been a plumber for over fifty years. You're freaking me out."

"This is not The Graduate, Sam. Swear."

"Okay," he said, doubt in his voice.