A/N: Holy. Shit. You guys. It's been over two years since I updated this. By now, The Good Wife is off the air and Barba's not even on SVU anymore. But, I'm studying for the bar exam, and I have those two shows on in the background for white noise... which made me want to read this story again. And then I wanted to WRITE this story again. I'm so excited to have two chapters for you - I'm posting this one tonight and I'll post the second one in a week or so once I finish giving it final edits. If anyone out there is still reading this, please leave a comment so I know you're here! I can't wait to continue this journey while I study.

Song: "You Need to Calm Down" by Taylor Swift

"If Mr. Buchanan thinks that the way to reduce the city's crime rate among the homeless is by putting more homeless people in jail, then I invite him to look at the statistics—"

"No, no, no!" Eli threw down his clipboard and stormed onto the mock stage. "Do not mention statistics."

"Why not?" Rafael was still gripping the sides of the podium as if to keep himself upright. He had been standing there for six hours, the hot lights beating down on him, sweating through his shirt while Eli barked orders—at the interns, at the speechwriters, even at him. Marissa had long abandoned him for the safety of the dressing rooms. Eli had told her to get out and then chased after her when she did. "What else should I call the gathering of data for analysis and to infer proportions from a representative sample?"

"You can cite the statistics all you want, but I do not want to hear that word."

"Why not?"

Eli let out an exasperated sigh. "Because the general public tunes out when they hear that word."

Rafael was about to argue, when Lauren burst through the door, Marissa on her heels. "Eli, we have an issue," she said, face buried in her phone.

"The five words I never want to hear," he replied under his breath. Then, he turned back around with a plastered smile. "What is it?"

Marissa sighed. "Our little spy inside Buchanan's campaign—"

"Which I know absolutely nothing about," Lauren added, still typing on her phone.

"—just told us Buchanan's people somehow got the debate questions in advance."

Eli's eyes, which had been darting between the women, his phone, and a flickering light behind Lauren's head that he would have to remind someone to fix, narrowed immediately. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, he said that he was accidentally copied on an email from the moderator's PR guy that gave the campaign manager the general gist of, like, half the debate questions," Marissa said. She glanced over at Rafael, who looked like a truck had run over him—twice.

"Okay, so, what's the issue?"

"Well, he offered to print the email and bring it over—"

"Tell him not to offer," Eli said, as though this should have been obvious. "Tell him to do it."

"Dad, it isn't that simple. What did we learn from the 2016 election?"

"Yes, but in this metaphor, we're Trump, not Hillary."

"As horrifying a thought as that is, it still isn't that simple," Lauren interjected. "We don't have ethical issues alone, Eli. We have legal ones."

"I don't—"

"We aren't even supposed to know about this. The spy we may or may not have in there isn't just offering to feed us campaign strategy, which is already ethically murky. He's offering to give us private email communications. We don't want to cross that line."

"Okay," he spat, "I realize I technically hired you as this campaign's legal counsel, but that was only to give you two cover."

"Hey!" Rafael said, but Eli brushed him off.

"I don't need your legal acumen to tell me how to run my campaign."

Lauren wasn't surprised by this little tantrum. She'd been working on the campaign for almost two months and Eli never hesitated to remind her that she was only part of the team because he knew he had to find some excuse to have her around. Once it had become clear that Rafael intended to pursue this relationship, Eli had to find a reasonable solution to the problem. He had hoped exposing Lauren's past and her lies would have rectified the situation. Unfortunately, his plan seemed to have backfired; Rafael had become even more protective of their relationship, and of her, since that January night. So, Eli had decided, he would handle it, but he didn't have to like it.

Lauren tried to stay as measured as possible. "I don't like having to say this any more than you like hearing me say it, but do you really want to take the chance that the man running for the most prominent legal position in the city gets accused of stealing campaign communications?"

"We didn't steal anything. It won't be forwarded to us. It won't even be printed, because I'm going to have him hand-copy the questions. He's going to be a turncoat Buchanan staffer giving us information to which we are, in theory, entitled." The way he spoke, as if all this made perfect, logical sense, reminded Lauren that in a past life, Eli had been an attorney as well.

"What you're suggesting is actually illegal, even if what the moderator and/or his PR people did was corrupt. You can't intercept or use email that isn't intended for you." Hoping for backup, she looked at Marissa, who closed her eyes and thought for a second.

"Is there any way possible to get the same information legally?"

Finally, Lauren thought, someone is thinking like a rational human being.

"Other than telling the moderator that we're onto him and we know he gave Buchanan the questions?" Eli asked.

Then, Marissa's eyes lit up. "Hey, hey, wait a second."

"What?" everyone asked, in almost perfect unison.

"We tell the truth. They don't have to know how we know. They just need to know that we know."

"I'm losing interest, Marissa," Eli said, his eyebrows drawing nearer together.

"Oh, calm down." She waved him off. "Listen. What if we hypothetically asked our spy who absolutely doesn't exist to give us one—maybe two—questions. Not the whole email, just enough to call their bluff."

"Call whose bluff? If we try to blackmail Buchanan with it, he'll throw us under the bus."

"No. The moderator's team."

A slow, understanding smile crept over Eli's face. "So you're thinking that if we threaten the moderator with a big stick—"

"They'll either have to give us the same information they gave Buchanan and pretend it was just an oversight or totally change the questions and blindside him completely."

"And they aren't going to admit they gave him anything, so…" His eyes lit up as Marissa nodded again. It was as if, for a moment, their minds melded.

Rafael and Lauren watched this exchange as though it were a tennis match, the plot lobbed back and forth so fast that it seemed almost impossible to follow. "Wait a second," Lauren said, holding up a hand, a little too close to Eli's face for his liking. "There's one flaw in this plan."

"And that is?" Marissa asked with an unexpected sharpness to her voice. She realized how her father felt whenever she questioned what he believed to be a brilliant idea. She knew Lauren didn't mean anything by it, that she was only doing her job, but the question itself still stung.

"What happens if this plan backfires on us and the moderator tells us to go to hell?"

Eli expected her to say more for some reason, but she stood wordless, hands on her hips with her iPhone clasped in a fist. "Chances of that are minimal once he realizes we have him by the short hairs," he replied. "Email scandals these days—"

"Are a dime a dozen, and you know it," she replied, "and so will he."

"Well, the only other option is letting Buchanan have the upper hand—"

"Eli," Rafael finally interjected, "I told you I want to run a clean campaign. I've gone up against Buchanan plenty of times. I know how he operates."

"You may have gone up against him in court," Eli snapped, "but I think I know more about what candidate Buchanan will do. You are in no way prepared for this."

Rafael felt heat burning under his collar. "If I can't beat him without cheating, I don't deserve to win."

"Stop being so naive!" Eli shot back.

"I will when you stop thinking you're a dictator."

Marissa's eyes darted between Lauren and Eli. "Okay, maybe we can think of another way—"

"Do you not want to win?" Eli asked, arms flailing. "Because if not, I can go spend my energy elsewhere—"

Rafael slammed his policy binder shut and shoved it into his briefcase. "Speaking of wasting energy, I think we're done here," he said in his iciest tone. Then, he strode out of the room, not bothering to look back to see Eli head in the opposite direction. The slam of the doors behind both of them made the women jump.

Marissa rubbed her temples. "I'll get Nora to talk to him. He won't listen to me when he's like this, but she might be able to scare some sense into him. Are you going to talk to your toddler?"

Lauren laughed. "Yeah. But to be clear, I think he's less toddler and more…one half of an old married couple."

"Now you know why my parents got divorced."

As each of them headed in opposite directions, Lauren stopped short and turned around. "Hey, Marissa?"

"Yeah?"

"I just want you to know, I didn't mean to shoot down your idea in front of everyone. I guess I have a hard time remembering that you can be a human at the same time as being a lawyer."

Marissa shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I'm used to my ideas being shot down. It's just usually my dad doing the shooting."

Lauren felt a pang of guilt. She had seen the damage a father could do, with either his absence or his presence. And she had definitely seen the pain Eli could inflict—not least of all on his daughter.

"Even still," she said, "I shouldn't have done that, and I'm sorry."

Marissa brightened. "And this is why those two idiots need us to run their lives."

Lauren raised an inquisitive eyebrow, much like Rafael would have. "And why is that?"

"Because we are clearly the only adults here."

Rafael had hidden himself away in the far corner of his usual haunt near the courthouse, trying to avoid both reporters and his phone. He wasn't in the mood to put on his game face for anyone, although several people—Lauren included—had called and texted. It wasn't that she had done anything wrong, of course. She'd been on his side, talking sense to Eli and Marissa. But at that moment, he associated her with the campaign, and he needed a break from it all.

"Buy you another?" The voice startled him. He whipped around to find the one person he could always count on to track him down by a trail of scotch and sarcasm.

"What are you doing here, Liv?" As soon as he said it, he realized how snippy he sounded. "Sorry. Long day."

She flagged down the bartender and ordered another scotch for him along with her customary glass of cabernet. "Want to talk?" she asked, sitting down on the stool next to him.

"It's not really worth talking about."

"Well, you're drinking alone at three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon, you're avoiding eye contact, and you're not returning messages—"

"How do you know that?"

"Because I tried calling you and it went right to voicemail. Yet, here you are." She smirked, knowing he couldn't argue, and that it was killing him. The drinks arrived, and she pushed his scotch over to him.

"It really isn't a big deal," he said. "It's campaign bullshit, and absolutely unimportant to anyone but Eli."

"So unimportant that you don't even want to talk to Lauren?"

"Why would you think I wouldn't want to talk to her?"

"Why are you constantly answering questions with questions?"

"Why are you here?"

"Because," she said, "Lauren called me when you wouldn't return her calls. She figured that I'd be the only one who could talk some sense into you."

He let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Sometimes it's annoying how well she knows me."

She shrugged. "Love will do that."

"Annoy you?"

She sipped her wine. "Yes, and yet, we want it anyway. Now, are you going to admit that you want to talk, or am I going to have to spend another twenty minutes trying to convince you of something that you already know?"

"Sometimes you know me too well, too," he said. "I guess—I guess it's the entire thing. Campaigning."

"Okay," she said, in her slow, understanding voice. "What set you off specifically?"

His eyes felt like sandpaper, and he rubbed them with the heels of his hands. "Marissa and Eli were cooking up some ridiculous plot to steal the debate, and Eli and I got into it because I told him we aren't going to resort to those kinds of games. I don't need to out-maneuver Buchanan when I can outsmart him."

"Ah," she replied. "And I'm guessing that didn't go over well with Eli?"

"Well, given that he told me he was wasting his time with this campaign because I'm so naive, I would guess the answer is yes." The bitterness mixed with the scotch in his throat.

"Well, what are you going to do about that?" He didn't say anything. "I said, what are you going to do about that?"

He shrugged, defeated. "What is there to do?"

"Well, Rafael, it's all well and good to sit here for an afternoon and drown your sorrows in booze, but that's not your style. What happened to the big brass ego I met seven years ago?"

"God," he said, the realization dawning on him, "it's been that long?"

"Let's put it this way: I have a kindergartner."

"I do, too. His name's Eli."

Olivia laughed, and that made him laugh, too. They were cut from the same cloth in so many ways. Almost everyone they knew had, at some point, asked why they had never dated. The answer they usually gave whoever was asking was that they were both too busy to date—he was practically married to his job, and she was a single mother of a small child with a precinct to run. The longer and truer answer was far more complicated. Although he had admittedly carried a torch (okay, that was a little strong—it was more like a flashlight) for Olivia, he wasn't ready to be a father. He liked Noah and was even comfortable enough to babysit one time for about fifteen minutes while Olivia went to the store. But he couldn't imagine being someone's parent full-time. He could barely take care of his cat, and she had potty trained herself and only needed to be fed twice a day.

"Come on, Rafael," she said. He looked up at her. When Olivia knew a victim was holding back, she would fix them with a penetrating stare. Her brow would furrow, she would squint a little, and she would cock her head to the side. He had seen that look more times than he could count, but until now, he had never been on its receiving end. He didn't like it, because he couldn't hide from it.

"It's not just this," he said. "This is a symptom of a larger disease. Even trying to prepare for the debate today was impossible. Maybe—maybe it's not Eli, though. Maybe it's me. I feel like I don't know what my life has become in the last six months. I think back to September and everything about my life as I knew it is different."

"Is that a bad thing?"

He finished the rest of his scotch. "Sometimes," he said.

"So, that means sometimes, it's a good thing."

"That's an optimist's way of looking at things. You know I'm more glass-half-empty," he replied. "Speaking of empty…" He flagged down the bartender and signaled for a refill.

"There's nothing good about it?"

He knew what she was doing. She knew he already knew the answer, but she was going to make him say it. "You know what the good part is." She fixed her gaze on him, her silence speaking louder than her voice could. "She's the good part."

"Maybe you need to focus on the good for a while to get you to the other side of the bad, then."

He contemplated this for a minute. What she was saying made sense, but he wasn't quite sure what to do about it. The weight of his life buried him in a way it never had before. Stress was nothing new to him, of course. You didn't get through law school—much less Harvard Law School—and the bar exam without enduring a great deal of mental gymnastics. By the time he made it to the prosecutor's office, he was taking Advil hourly but still managed to keep some kind of balance—taking the occasional vacation day, for instance. These days, he would settle for a brief interlude with his bed. Then, it dawned on him.

"Liv?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I need to leave," he said, whipping his coat off the back of the chair.

She smiled. "I think you do, too."

He threw down some money onto the bar and handed her the scotch that had just arrived. "If you ever get tired of being a cop," he said, "you really missed your calling as a shrink."

She laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners, barely betraying her age. He had come into the bar on a mission to escape. Now, he was leaving with the same goal in mind.

"He did what?"

Nora leaned against the doorway in Eli's office, arms crossed. She appeared to him to be painfully unaware of how serious this situation was. "As I said, the candidate has taken a vacation."

"And when did you find out about this?"

"When Marissa told me."

"And I don't suppose you know when she found out?"

"When he called her to ask if she could turn on his out of office reply."

Eli pressed his fingers to his temples, a migraine pulsing behind his eyes. He could hear Marissa's voice in his head, telling him to get his blood pressure checked. "So where have the two lovebirds run off to? It's not Vegas, is it?" Nora laughed, which terrified and annoyed him at the same time. "This isn't funny, Nora!"

"It is kind of funny," she replied. "He was so annoyed with you that he had to leave the state."

"Oh God—is it Vegas?" All manner of nightmare scenarios flashed before him. "I feel like a parent whose kid has run off and married his girlfriend just to spite me."

She plopped down onto one of the chairs in front of his desk. "Eli, calm down. It's not Vegas, okay?"

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, thank God for that."

"You do know," she said, "that people can get married in other cities too, right?"

The color drained from his face, but when he saw the red-lipped smirk on hers, he glared at her. "Damnit, Nora! Where. Did. They. Go?"

"He didn't say," she said. When he started to open his mouth, she cut him off. "No, Eli, I'm serious. He didn't say. All he said was that he wouldn't be taking any calls."

"This is ridiculous," he said, putting his head in his hand. "And irresponsible. And unprofessional. And—"

"And he wouldn't have felt the need for a sudden escape if you hadn't been such an unbelievable ass."

"Excuse me?" he snapped. "Do you ever think about the fact that I'm technically your boss when you talk to me?"

Nora tilted her head and looked toward the ceiling, pausing as if to consider the concept. "Mmm…nope," she said. "You need someone to tell you when you've screwed up, Eli. I didn't come all the way to New York to kiss your ass and make your travel arrangements."

"I fail to see what I did to—"

"Well, aside from being a total pain-in-the-ass dictator for the last few months, you also insulted the man's intelligence." She leaned forward, the overhead lighting glinting against her gold necklace. Before she noticed the direction of his gaze, he looked completely away from her. "I'm serious, Eli. You're lucky we all haven't gone on a permanent vacation from this campaign. You're snapping at me and Marissa, you're treating the candidate like a disobedient child, you've been dismissive of Lauren when she's tried to do the job you hired her for—"

"I have not!" he insisted.

She shook her head. "You have. Since they started dating, you've treated her like a problem you need to solve. You don't respect anyone around you but then you wonder why no one treats you with respect?"

He didn't want to hear any of this, especially because he knew it was true. He hated it, actually, because it meant he'd have to do twice as much work to fix the situation. He could spend that energy elsewhere. "Fine," he sighed. "So now what?"

She sat back and returned his sigh. "Well, look, whenever my sister acted out, it was usually because one of my parents was trying too hard to control her. And then there was really only one option."

"I don't think I can ground him…can I?"

She rolled her eyes. "Let it go. The harder you try to control him, or break them up, the more pissed he's going to get, until he quits altogether."

"So I shouldn't have him tracked down and forcibly returned to the city?"

She stood up and headed for the door. "I would give that a big negative, captain," she said. Then, she paused and half-turned around. "Oh, hey, Eli—"

He was already rifling through paperwork and barely looked up. "Yeah?"

"Apologize."

At that, he did look up. "To?"

"To Lauren," she said. "You owe her an apology for how you've been treating her."

He did the thing with his face that let her know that, although he thought she was wrong, he would do it. She often saw that face where David Lee had been concerned. He didn't respond and went right back to work, but Nora knew she had won at least this battle.

Lauren almost couldn't believe what she was looking at. She knew they were staying in the heart of Boston but hadn't expected this. Rafael hadn't given her much in the way of details when he had called to ask if she wanted to get away for the weekend. But he had insisted on it being his treat, so she didn't feel the need to ask too many questions.

"Are you serious?" she asked him, gaping.

He handed their bags to the bellman who ran off with them to somewhere unknown. "I'm always serious," he replied. Then, he tossed his keys to the valet and took her hand as they entered the lobby of the Ritz Carlton in Boston Common.

The trip was originally intended to escape Eli's grip on his life, but Rafael also recognized this was the first trip he and Lauren were taking as a couple, so he wanted it to be memorable. Actually, it was the first trip he had taken with a partner in almost a decade, the last time being right after law school. He had been seeing a woman from Brooklyn, a waitress who was probably too young for him but who was sweet and didn't want commitment, until suddenly she did, and that was that.

Although the afternoon was gray and cold, the warmth of the lobby was more than enough to make her forget about the dreary end of winter. One would think the snow would be gone by April, but this was Boston. Winter's grasp on the city was tight and unyielding. "You know," she said, "I always wondered how you managed to afford your suspender and tie fixation on a government salary, but now I'm convinced you're selling drugs."

He laughed. "I promise, I'm not dealing. Mostly it's just that I have no life and the only real indulgences I have besides the suspenders are good scotch and coffee." After they checked in, Lauren asked if he wanted to get a drink or wander through the tundra that was the city. "Actually," he said, as they stepped into the elevator, "I think I'd like a shower." When she started to say she'd meet him in the lounge, he gave her a pointed, burning look.

"On second thought," she replied, "a shower sounds good."

They barely made it inside their suite before Rafael began peeling her clothes off of her. It wasn't like they were in a rush—for the first time in years, he had absolutely nowhere to be—but he couldn't help himself. He just loved looking at her body, and it was rare that she allowed him to do it with any significant amount of light. He understood the feeling; it hadn't been easy for him to pass forty and still feel attractive. But as much as he appreciated the feel of her, he wanted the entire sensory experience.

She allowed him to guide her toward the bathroom as he continued kissing her, his hands gliding up under her t-shirt. He played at the edge of her bra, sending goosebumps down her arms. She leaned against the vanity and he kissed the space where her neck and shoulder met. As he continued his quest to remove her shirt before she realized how well-lit the bathroom was, she said, "Raf—I need—"

"I know," he said, smiling against her collarbone. "I'll give you exactly what you need, mi amor."

Her head was swimming and she suddenly felt warm and dizzy, like the time she'd had heatstroke at a summer market. What she needed was to lay down, but she couldn't seem to get the words out. Every time she tried to open her mouth, she felt like she might vomit, and she certainly didn't want to do it on him. "Raf, seriously, I—"

Without warning, she shoved him away so hard that he stumbled backward, catching himself on the towel rack. She flung herself across the room and thanked the god she didn't believe in that they were already in the bathroom. She threw herself onto her knees and hugged the toilet, heaving.

He knew from a very regrettable birthday celebration for Rollins that the best thing he could do was hold her hair back. So, having no other useful ideas, that's what he did. With his left hand, he held her waves in a loose ponytail, and with his right, he massaged her back. Finally, the retching tapered off until silence filled the room and she slumped against the toilet. He let go of her hair, which fell to shield her face, and got off of his knees.

"Stay there," he said softly. Then, he grabbed a small glass from the vanity, filled it with water, and handed it to her.

After washing away the putrid taste in her mouth, she wiped her forehead. "I'm sorry," she said.

He couldn't help it; he laughed. "Why?"

Her skin finally felt like it was a normal temperature, no longer on fire. "I kind of ruined the mood, huh?"

"Oh, well, that," he replied. "I always knew it would happen eventually."

"Huh?"

"It was bound to happen. You're finally sick of kissing me."

Despite herself, she smiled. "Always with the dad jokes."

She still felt unsteady, so he helped her to her feet. "Well, these days I have to control the sarcasm. I may need a remedial lesson at the end of this campaign."

"Oh, I'm willing to bet you won't need much help. All the pent-up sarcasm will explode out of you like a piñata."

"Speaking of bursting," he said, "what was that all about? Have you felt sick all day?"

She shook her head and laid down on the bed. "No, it was really sudden. Maybe it was the eggs this morning."

"Let's hope not! I ate them too!" He gave her his best encouraging smile, although he suspected it didn't conceal the concern on the rest of his face. "Do you want anything? Antacid maybe? You know I come with a steady supply of that."

She turned on her side to face him. "It's okay. I'm feeling okay now."

His cell phone beeped. She glanced at his jacket, tossed on the entryway floor. Following her gaze, he shook his head. "I'm not even looking at that this weekend."

"Really?" She raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Not even for work? Or Liv?"

"This weekend is about getting away from work and getting away with you."

She closed her eyes, wanting to take a moment to grasp the wonder of what he had just said. A minute later, she felt the other side of the bed move and a set of strong arms wrap around her. She could hear the rhythm of his breathing, lulling her to sleep. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know this isn't exactly what you had in mind when we got here."

He smiled and pulled her closer to him, inhaling the scent of her perfume, vanilla and almond. "Actually," he said as they both drifted off, "this is better than what I had in mind."

"It's really good!" Marissa set the laptop back onto the coffee table. "I think maybe the conclusion needs to be cleaned up a bit, but from what I know about speech-giving, you won't say half of what you wrote down anyway."

Carisi came out from the bedroom, where he had spent the past twenty minutes pacing back and forth, waiting for her to finish reading his speech. He was speaking at a bar association event for law enforcement and was panicking a bit. "Yeah, that's what worries me," he said. "I'm not great at the whole public speaking thing."

She grinned at him. "Coulda fooled me." He made a face, so she walked over and put her hands on his shoulders. "Sonny, you'll do great. You don't have to be Atticus Finch."

"Every lawyer wants to be Atticus Finch. It's almost a graduation requirement."

She laughed. "Look, if it makes you feel any better—I will deny ever saying this—Mr. Barba gets nervous before all his closings."

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow. "You'd never know. Has he told you this?"

"No," she admitted. "But I can tell. He gets the same look that Alicia got before her debate. Even though she had given, like, ten million arguments in court, the look was the same: afraid of screwing up."

"So how did Alicia get over it?"

Marissa smiled and walked into the kitchen, returning with a glass of milk. "Here."

"What the hell?"

"Milk is calming," she replied, as though this should have been obvious.

"Did she really drink it?"

She set the glass down. "No, but it always seemed to distract her from the nerves when I pestered her with it."

"Too bad you can't do that with me," he replied, grinning. "I don't pester or distract easily."

"Oh, yeah?" She stood on her tiptoes and leaned in, just shy of his lips. "Pretty sure I can distract you, pal."

"Really?" He put his hands on her hips, long fingers playing at the top of her jeans. "Wanna bet?"

"Sure," she said, calling his bluff. "What do I get if I win?"

"The same thing I get if you win," he said. "What happens when you lose?"

Never good at subtlety, she leaned forward and gave him a quick nip on his earlobe. "You lose, too."

He cleared his throat. "Maybe we should call it a tie."

She laughed. "See? Distracted you."

He bent down to kiss her, giving in to the idea that maybe it would be good to occupy his mind with other things. He and Marissa complimented each other that way—his mind was always going, rapid-firing as quickly as his mouth. He tended to get mired in details and what-ifs. She was laid back, a calming influence, which, he supposed, was why she and Barba also worked well together. But Barba was the last person he wanted to think of as he felt Marissa's tiny frame against him, her curly, unruly hair brushing against his cheeks as he kissed her.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, startling them both so much that they nearly jumped apart, as though someone had just walked in on them. Marissa glanced at him. "Expecting someone?"

"No, and in my experience, unannounced visitors are never anything good," he replied. He went to open the door, cursing the fact that it was harder for a man to hide his arousal than it was for a woman. He was expecting Liv, or maybe even one of his sisters, all of whom shared the same annoying habit of showing up at the least convenient times. That would have been bad enough. But what he found on the other side of the door was downright terrifying.

"Uh, hi," Eli said, clearly as uncomfortable as Carisi was. "Is my daughter—"

Marissa came to the door. "Dad?" She stood just behind Carisi, clearly alarmed. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you. It's about Raf—" He looked at Carisi. "Look, I know it's your apartment, so I technically need to be polite, but is there any way I can talk to my daughter in private?"

Carisi glanced down at Marissa, questioning. She smiled. "It's fine, Sonny."

"All right," he said. "I'm gonna go grab a bagel. You want?"

She nodded. "Everything with cream cheese?"

"You got it," he said. "How about you?"

It took Eli a moment to realize Carisi was talking to him. "Oh, uh, no—but thank you." Carisi leaned down and kissed Marissa on her cheek, grabbed his coat, and squeezed past Eli.

"On the cheek. I like that better, at least," Eli said, once Carisi was gone. "Can I come in?"

She stepped aside. "Sure," she replied. "So, why'd you come all the way over here? Is Mr. Barba all right?"

"Well, I wouldn't really know. You probably know more than I do about how—and where—he is."

"I don't, actually," she said. "He asked me to turn on his auto-reply, but he didn't say where he was going."

He took a seat at the kitchen table. "Do you know when he'll be back?" Suddenly, he realized how small the apartment was, at least in comparison to his own and to Marissa's. "How does he live here?"

"Not everyone needs so much space," she replied, sinking into the chair opposite him. "And I think Mr. Barba is coming back on Tuesday. Why? You want to yell at him again?"

He put his head in his hand and rubbed his forehead. "Marissa, please. Nora already read me the riot act. That's part of why I'm here."

"Well, then, start talking. The bakery isn't that far away, and Sonny walks fast."

He sighed and leaned forward. "I'm here because I want your honest opinion, and I'd prefer not to get it through email," he said. Then, he looked down. "Do you think I've been too hard on them?"

"On who?"

"Them. Lauren and Rafael. Do you think I've been too hard on them?"

"Individually or—"

"I mean...whatever you think I mean." His voice was soft, almost ashamed of himself.

Marissa considered him. The last time she saw him like this was when he and Alicia had their giant argument over his deleting the voicemail from the love of her life saying that he loved her too. She had stopped speaking to him for an entire month. She had tried to talk both of them off the ledge and had been only mildly successful. They eventually reconciled, but she had seen how lost Eli had been without Alicia—she was his best friend, after all. But that had been personal. This was business. It was unlike him to be so hesitant and unsure of himself while managing a campaign. Something else had to be going on. "Dad," she said quietly, "what's this really about?"

"Nora tells me that I should apologize to Lauren. I didn't think I needed to. But then I started thinking about the incident at the debate prep yesterday and...I'm worried that he's going to take this trip, realize he's happier not campaigning, and decide to just—"

"Look, I don't think he's going to suddenly back out of this because you two had a lover's spat," she said. "And as for Lauren, I think Nora's wrong."

His head snapped up at that. "Did you just—"

She rolled her eyes. "Dad, just because she's my best friend doesn't mean I always agree with her."

"No, I'm just surprised you agreed with me," he said. "I might have a heart attack."

"If you keep talking, I might not call the ambulance when you do."

"Sorry."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Now I might have a heart attack."

"Okay, can we move along to why you think Nora's wrong?"

"Lauren is a big girl. You don't really bother her as much as you think you do. She just wants two things—to help Mr. Barba win this election, and, I guess, to be with him when he does. Apologizing to her is just going to make her feel more uncomfortable because it's like you're saying she's a delicate flower who can't take you occasionally being an ass." She grinned. "And you and I both know she's dealt with a lot worse than you."

He stared at her and sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You know, I can run anyone's campaign. I got a governor who had been in prison elected in a state that distrusts politicians by default. I am a successful businessman in an area that routinely deals with worst-case scenarios caused in large part by people who don't think before they act. And yet, I still do not understand anything about human relationships."

"That's not true," she replied. "You did a pretty good job raising me. And I think a parent-child relationship is the hardest one to manage."

He smiled sadly. "Your mother did the hard part. I just wrote the checks."

She stood up and walked to the fridge. "You know what I remember about my childhood?" After pulling out two Frescas, she handed one to him and leaned against the counter as she opened hers.

"Uh, a lot of dinners with your mom?"

She shook her head. "I remember you taking me to your office with you. I remember you teaching me how to tie my shoes. And believe it or not, Mom isn't the one who taught me to be honest with people, even when it might hurt."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, scoffing slightly. "I lie for my job on a routine basis."

"There's a difference between lying and bullshitting," she said. "You bullshit people for your job, to get the right result. But the only time I've ever seen you actually lie to someone was Alicia, and it ate at you for years. So when I think about someone who understands people? I absolutely think of you. If anything, I think you don't understand yourself."

Eli looked at his daughter for a long moment. Although most of her features came from her mother, her eyes were precisely the same as his: dark, round, and framed by full brows and lashes. Hers were decidedly more expressive, though. He'd spent decades training himself to keep people from reading him; Marissa either hadn't learned or didn't care to. Then, something else occurred to him.

"You remember me taking you to work?"

"Of course," she replied. "It was something none of my friends' dads ever did. They all thought you were the coolest dad ever for that."

And just like that, his poker face failed him. His eyes lit up and he broke into a grin. "I didn't know anyone ever thought of me as the cool dad. I don't think I ever expected anyone to."

She shrugged and gave him a smile he hadn't seen since she was, well, the age she was when he had taken her to the office. "I always did, even when you were a giant pain in the ass."