I still don't own The Good Wife.
/
Eli felt his blood run ice cold, and he gripped his phone tightly, reminding himself to breathe.
The reporter questioned the silence.
"Mr. Gold? Are you still there?"
"Yes. I'm still here."
"So do you have quote for me?"
Eli breathed deeply.
"The Florrick campaign has no comment at this time. Goodbye."
After hanging up, Eli quickly dialed Johnny's number.
"Eli?"
"Is Alicia with you?"
Johnny glanced at the woman in his passenger seat.
"Yes. I'm just getting ready to drop her at the office."
"No! Don't do that! Put me on speaker."
Johnny did so.
"Ok, Eli. What's going on?"
"Neither of you answer your phone today unless it's me. They know."
Alicia looked at the phone, confused.
"They know? Who knows what?"
Eli huffed impatiently.
"They. The press. They know about the two of you. I just got done talking to a reporter."
Alicia was too horrified to speak, so Johnny responded.
"What did you say?"
"No comment. But this is going to blow up today and we need to brace ourselves for the storm. Head to the campaign office."
Alicia bit her lip.
"Can I meet with my client first? It will take 15 minutes."
"Jesus Christ, Alicia. You are going to be the trending topic of the day and you want to meet with a client?"
Alicia held her ground.
"This is going to get nasty and I will still need my firm if this totally destroys my campaign, Eli. I need to go do this meeting and then three of us can talk."
Eli exhaled out of his nose, trying to calm down.
"Ok. Ok. Do your meeting, and then we talk. Johnny will stay there and bring you straight to headquarters. Be here in less than hour. Ok?"
Both Johnny and Alicia agreed.
"Ok."
They hung up and finished the drive in silence. Alicia grabbed her purse and client files and slid out of the car. Johnny's voice followed her out.
"I'll be here waiting."
Alicia nodded.
"Ok."
Alicia went into autopilot-lawyer mode for her meeting and it flew by. After it ended, she pulled Cary into Diane's office.
"Um. Well, you guys are going to hear about this sooner or later and I would rather you hear it from me then seeing it on the news. There are going to be articles and stories coming out today about me sleeping with my campaign manager."
Diane stared at her.
"Are they true?"
Alicia looked down.
"Yes. They are."
Cary just nodded.
Alicia met the eyes of her partners.
"I don't know what this means for the campaign or our firm. We could lose clients."
Cary shrugged.
"We'll get more."
Diane moved around her desk and placed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder.
"It's not the first time we dealt with your 'baggage' and we made it work before. Okay?"
Alicia felt tears well up.
"Thank you, and I'm sorry."
Cary hugged her.
"It will be ok."
Alicia wiped her eyes.
"I have to go deal with this, so I will see you both later. Ok?"
As she left, Diane called after her.
"Let us know if you need anything."
Alicia smiled softly, before walking out of the office building to Johnny's car. He was leaning against the passenger door, holding two cups of coffee. He handed her one, as he opened the door for her.
"Thank you. For the coffee."
Johnny nodded.
"Figured we'd need it today."
Alicia choked out a laugh.
"Yeah. You're probably right."
As he started driving, Johnny glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
"So. What are we going to do?"
Alicia shrugged.
"I'm sure Eli has a plan or something. Let's talk when we get there."
Licking his lip, Johnny nodded.
"Ok."
After another moment of silence, Alicia spoke up.
"It will be ok, right?"
Johnny clasped his hand around hers, rubbing his thumb back and forth across her hand.
"Eventually."
/
Sorry about the wait! I wasn't able to post from Italy. My dance team won gold, though. Team USA is the current World Champion in the Pom division. :-)