The album playing low in the room is an old favorite Alex remembers from Denver: Muddy Waters. When Luna looks up and sees Alex in his doorway, he drops his pen on a haphazard pile of papers and leans back in his chair.
“Fuck you doing here, kid?” he says, watching him like a cat.
Alex reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of Skittles, and Luna’s face immediately softens into a smile.
“Atta boy,” he says, scooping the bag up as soon as Alex drops it on his blotter. He kicks the chair in front of the desk out for him.
Alex sits, watching Luna rip open the packet with his teeth. “Whatcha working on today?”
“You already know more than you’re supposed to about everything on this desk.” Alex does know—the same health care reform as last year, the one stalled out since they lost the Senate in midterms. “Why are you really here?”
“Hmm.” Alex hooks a leg over one armrest of the chair. “I resent the idea I can’t come visit a dear family friend without ulterior motives.”
“Bullshit.”
He clutches his chest. “You wound me.”
“You exhaust me.”
“I enchant you.”
“I’ll call security.”
“Fair enough.”
“Instead, let’s talk about your little European vacation,” Luna says. He fixes Alex with shrewd eyes. “Can I expect a joint Christmas present from you and the prince this year?”
“Actually,” Alex swerves, “since I’m here, I do have a question for you.”
Luna laughs, leaning back and lacing his hands together behind his head. Alex feels his face flash hot for half a second, a zip of good-banter adrenaline that means he’s getting somewhere. “Of course you do.”
“I wondered if you had heard anything about Connor,” Alex asks. “We could really use an endorsement from another Independent senator. Do you think he’s close to making one?”
He kicks his foot innocently where it’s dangling over the armrest, like he’s asking something as innocuous as the weather. Stanley Connor, Delaware’s kooky and beloved old Independent with a social media team stacked with millennials, would be a big get down the line in a race projected to be this close, and they both know it.
Luna sucks on a Skittle. “Are you asking if he’s close to endorsing, or if I know what strings need to be pulled to get him to endorse?”
“Raf. Pal. Buddy. You know I’d never ask you anything so unseemly.”
Luna sighs, swivels in his chair. “He’s a free agent. Social issues would push him your way usually, but you know how he feels about your mom’s economic platform. You probably know his voting record better than I do, kid. He doesn’t fall on one side of the aisle. He might go for something radically different on taxes.”
“And as for something you know that I don’t?”
He smirks. “I know Richards is promising Independents a centrist platform with big shake-ups on non-social issues. And I know part of that platform might not line up with Connor’s position on healthcare. Somewhere to start, perhaps. Hypothetically, if I were going to engage with your scheming.”
“And you don’t think there’s any point in chasing down leads on Republican candidates who aren’t Richards?”
“Shit,” Luna says, the set of his mouth turning grim. “Chances of your mother facing off against a candidate who’s not the fucking anointed messiah of right-wing populism and heir to the Richards family legacy? Highly fucking unlikely.”
Alex smiles. “You complete me, Raf.”
Luna rolls his eyes again. “Let’s circle back to you,” he says. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject. For the record, I won the office pool on how long it’d take you to cause an international incident.”
“Wow, I thought I could trust you.” Alex gasps, mock-betrayed.
“What’s the deal there?”
“There’s no deal,” Alex says. “Henry is … a person I know. And we did something stupid. I had to fix it. It’s fine.”
“Okay, okay,” Luna says, holding up both hands. “He’s a looker, huh?”
Alex pulls a face. “Yeah, I mean, if you’re into, like, fairy-tale princes.”
“Is anyone not?”
“I’m not,” Alex says.
Luna arches an eyebrow. “Right.”
“What?”
“Just thinking about last summer,” he says. “I have this really vivid memory of you basically making a Prince Henry voodoo doll on your desk.”
“I did not.”
“Or was it a dartboard with a photo of his face on it?”
Alex swings his foot back over the armrest so he can plant both feet on the floor and fold his arms indignantly. “I had a magazine with his face on it at my desk, once, because I was in it and he happened to be on the cover.”
“You stared at it for an hour.”
“Lies,” Alex says. “Slander.”
“It was like you were trying to set him on fire with your mind.”
“What is your point?”
“I think it’s interesting,” he says. “How fast the times they are a-changin’.”
“Come on,” Alex says. “It’s … politics.”
“Uh-huh.”
Alex shakes his head, doglike, as if it’s going to disperse the topic from the room. “Besides, I came here to talk about endorsements, not my embarrassing public relations nightmares.”
“Ah,” Luna says slyly, “but I thought you were here to pay a family friend a visit?”
“Of course. That’s what I meant.”
“Alex, don’t you have something else to do on a Friday afternoon? You’re twenty-one. You should be playing beer pong or getting ready for a party or something.”
“I do all of those things,” he lies. “I just also do this.”
“Come on. I’m trying to give you some advice, from one old man to a much younger version of himself.”
“You’re thirty-nine.”
“My liver is ninety-three.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“Some late nights in Denver would beg to differ.”
Alex laughs. “See, this is why we’re friends.”
“Alex, you need other friends,” Luna tells him. “Friends who aren’t in Congress.”
“I have friends! I have June and Nora.”
“Yes, your sister and a girl who is also a supercomputer,” Luna deadpans. “You need to take some time for yourself before you burn out, kid. You need a bigger support system.”
“Stop calling me ‘kid,’” Alex says.
“Ay.” Luna sighs. “Are you done? I do have some actual work to do.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Alex says, gathering himself up from his chair. “Hey, is Maxine in town?”
“Waters?” Luna asks, crooking his head. “Shit, you really have a death wish, huh?”
* * *
As political legacies go, the Richards family is one of the most complex bits of history Alex has tried to unravel.