Chapter 11

"Call him."

"I don't want to call him."

"Call him."

"No."

"Ok, you're on your own then."

"No! I need your help!"

"Then call him."

"Fine. I hate you."

"I don't care."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Two hours later, I send Donna home and Toby and I go to meet Jeff and Mark at Mac's. I pick up my cell and talk to Toby while I dial. "What if he tells Donna?"

Toby shrugs. "You're going to have to play off his emotions. Make it sound like a romantic gesture."

"It is a romantic ges…. Yes, I'll hold."

"The big thing is, how's he gonna take the fact that he isn't getting a commission off this?"

"I'll promise to use him if we decide to buy instead of staying in the condo."

"A house?"

"Yeah… yes, I need to place an order for delivery. Yes, I'll hold. What the hell? I just was holding."

"You're gonna buy a house?"

I shrug. "If she wants to. She went gaga over a house in Virginia last weekend. It was cute."

"You're gonna move to Virginia?" Granted, I'm not the suburb type.

"If Donna's there, I'll move to Alaska….I've been holding. Fine." I turn to Toby. "It's 6:00pm on a Wednesday? How busy can they be?"

"Who are you calling?"

"Dom… yes. I need to place an order for delivery… one large thin crust pizza, cheese only… can I pay for that over the phone with my credit card, please?" I give him my credit card number and Donna's address and hang up. Then I look over at Toby and the expression on his face. "What?"

"You ordered Donna a pizza?"

I shrug. "She had a bad day."

"And you have her address memorized?" he asks as though I must've ordered pizza for her before, which I have.

"That's not normal?" I ask in mock confusion. He shakes his head and smiles. Yeah, I'm so far gone.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

We get to Mac's and Jeff and Mark are sitting in a booth near the bar. When I called Jeff and asked him to meet me for a drink, he was obviously surprised and probably a little confused. The speed of how quickly he mentioned bringing Mark along made me think he thought I was hitting on him.

Jeff and Mark are drinking margaritas as Toby and I approach the table and I immediately feel like I'm on a double date. And while I don't have a problem with gay men, I wouldn't want anyone to mistake me for dating Toby. Let's be realistic, I could do much better than him.

"Which one did you think wanted Donna?" Toby asks quietly as we get closer.

I look at them. "Both of them."

"You're a tad on the paranoid side."

"She's a beautiful woman, Toby."

"Yes she is."

"Hey!" I shout loud enough to draw Jeff and Mark's attention. Toby gives me an evil smile and introduces himself to them.

After we sit down, I order a beer and Toby orders a gin and tonic, then silence falls over the table. Finally, Jeff turns to me. "What can I do for you, Josh?"

"Right, I… uh…" I look over at Toby who nods at me to keep going.

"This is about Donna's house search I take it," he says.

"Yeah. I ahh…I need a favor."

"Ok…" he says slowly, still confused. Why can't he just read my mind? Please don't make me say this out loud.

"See… Donna and I… there's only a year left in the term, and….well, if she buys…I…I have a plan…" I trail off and Jeff and Mark look at me like I've lost my mind. Which, let's face it, I have.

"For God sakes," Toby says. "He's in love with Donna." My mouth drops open and I stare dumbfounded at him. I can't believe he'd just throw that out there like that.

"Yeah, we know," says Mark, and I jerk my head around and stare dumbfounded at him.

"What do you mean, you know?" I screech at him.

"You're fairly obvious," Jeff says to me.

"I'm not obvious!" He raises his eyebrows at me. "I mean, yeah, to you. But I was trying to send you a signal, you know, to stay the hell away from her. For the most part, though, I'm not obvious. I've been keeping this a secret for years."

"Not well," says Toby under his breath, which makes Mark laugh.

"Toby!"

"A double desk in the office?" Jeff asks me in an amused voice.

"You heard that?"

He laughs. "I thought she was going to pass out. The look on her face was priceless. I take it you haven't told her."

"No I haven't told her!" I shout. "Why would I do something like that? That's preposterous."

"So, you see why he needs your help," Toby says to them.

"Josh, typically a man tells a woman, or a man, how he feels, and then they go out on a date," says Mark.

"And then they build up to playing catch in the back yard with the kids," Jeff says to me with a smirk.

"I was talking about her forth of July party!" I shout again.

"Sure you were," he says doubtfully.

I'm losing my mind here. I'm with two virtual strangers who know I'm in love with Donna, which by the way, I've never even said out loud. Not even to Toby, he just assumed. I mean, he's right of course, but that's hardly the point.

"So Josh, what exactly do you need from me?"

I try to close my mouth; I must look like a fish. "Well, it'd be helpful if you didn't let her buy a house."

"Don't let her buy a house?"

"See, I have a plan."

"They don't care about the plan," Toby says.

"I want to know the plan," says Mark, sitting up in his seat and looking at me like a kid on his birthday.

"See, Mark wants to know the plan." I turn to Mark. "Donna works for me, and because of that, we can't be together until the administration's over, which is in eleven months and seventeen days. I'm planning on proposing to her at 5:00pm that day in the office to prove to her that I don't want to wait a minute longer than I have to."

He puts his hand over his heart. "Are you gonna get down on one knee?"

"Ahh… yeah, I'd planned to."

"Romantic," he says, squeezing Jeff's arm and getting a girly look on his face.

"Thanks," I say, a little weirded out. "So," I say, turning to Jeff. "It'd be helpful if she wasn't eleven months into a new mortgage a day before she moves in with me and a week before we get married."

"A week before you get married?" Toby asks me quietly with shock in his voice.

I shrug. "I thought we'd go to St. Thomas for a month and get married while we're there."

"How are you this impatient?"

"I've been patiently waiting for eight years, Toby."

"Valid point."

"Eight years?" Mark asks in a wistful voice. "You've loved her for eight years? From afar?" When he asks this, he takes his hand from his heart and puts it over his mouth.

I nod. "About that, yeah."

"So, you want me to show her houses she'd hate for the next year?" Jeff asks in a doubtful voice, breaking the beautiful moment.

I look over at him and his scowl. "I considered that, but I didn't think you'd like that idea."

"You thought right."

Mark hits him on the shoulder. "Jeffrey Richard Roberts! You will help this adorable man win the heart of the woman he loves. Do you understand me?" Ok, so they've definitely got a husband/wife thing going on here. Or a husband/husband thing, whatever. But at least I've got one of them on my side, and I think it's the wife. And that's good, right? I mean, the wives really rule the house.

"Listen. No offence, but Donna's my client, not lover boy over here," he says to Mark. My eyes shoot up and Toby chuckles next to me. Lover boy?

"I know that," I tell him.

He turns to me. "It's my job to look out for her best interest, not yours."

"I am her best interest." That's only partially true. I'm not always her best interest; I can be a real bastard sometimes.

"I wouldn't have guessed that today," he says pointedly. Sure, bring that up.

I nod at him. "Well, that's because I was a jealous ass and she was mad at me."

"How do I even know she wants this plan of yours?"

"She wants it," Toby assures him.

He looks hard at Toby for a minute before turning to me. "Fine, what do you want me to do?"

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I think Josh is losing his mind. He's acting…strange. I guess that's a good way to put it. He goes from nice to frantic to sweet to over protective to political to flirtatious to paranoid to… well, you get the idea. And this has been going on for over a week. Today, he's a cross between sweet, political and frantic.

"Josh?" I ask, walking into his office.

"Yeah," he says, his head buried in the education bill.

"I just got a call from Jeff. He has an inside lead on a townhouse in Georgetown that he said we should check out as soon as possible."

"Georgetown?" he asks, looking up at me.

"Yeah. I'm not sure how it's in my price range, but I should probably go look at it."

He smiles at me. "You want me to come?"

Yes. Of course I do, but that's not really healthy. I tend to get…ideas when Josh comes with me, and it's best to remember that I'm buying, we're not. Not to say that I'm giving up on Josh and me. I'm not. I think once the administration's over, we'll start to move towards a different type of relationship. I really do. But even then, I can't begin to fathom how long it'll be before he's ready to talk cohabitation. I know Amy brought up the move-in more than once, and every time, he was adamantly against it. He once compared moving in with her to signing his own arrest warrant. So I'm just saying, buying my own place is the smart thing to do. Josh and me living together… years down the road.

And it might not sound demanding enough, but I don't have a problem with that. I mean, yeah, I'm ready to marry him today, fly me to Vegas and I'll say 'I do' before the Elvis judge asks the question, but I can wait until he's ready. I've tried other men; they're not so good for me. I'll wait for Josh; he's worth it.

"No, I'll be ok on my own. You have a meeting with Governor Thomas anyway."

He nods. "Right. The joyous republican state of Indiana."

"He's moderate Josh, be nice to him."

"Yes ma'am. You coming back in when you're done?"

"Yeah, I shouldn't be long."

See? Letting me leave work early on a Thursday? I left early yesterday too. Granted, I didn't ask him yesterday, I just went, but still… And last night, he had a pizza delivered to my apartment because he knew yesterday sucked. Why would you search for another man when you've got one who knows when you need thin crust cheese pizza without having to be told?

I meet Jeff at his office and we drive together to Georgetown. Georgetown's not all that big, and I start thinking it might be cool to live near Josh. I mean, not so much right now in the middle of the term where he would have far too much access to me. I can picture it now; 'Hey Donna, let's work until 2am tonight, we'll just ride together to work and I'll make sure you get home ok.' 'Hey Donna, I haven't been to the grocery store this… decade. What are we having for dinner? I'll be there in five minutes.' 'Donna, who was that guy who dropped you off at your place last night, and what were you doing out until one o'clock in the morning?' 'Donna! Open up! I brought a briefing memo. Surprise!'

But… you know. After the administration when surprise visits can include sex... well that's a whole different story.

We pull to a stop and I break out of my little reverie to see that we're on Josh's street. Ok, this might be too close. We get out of the car and start walking, and Jeff starts talking about the place. "It's got two bedrooms and a den. A dining room, a fairly large kitchen with great appliances. Here's the thing though. It's not available for a while."

"That's ok. I'm not in a hurry. I'm on a month to month lease."

"I mean quite a while. The end of January."

"Next January?"

"Yeah."

"That's almost a year away! What's it even doing on the market?"

He shrugs. "It's such a good deal though. Financially, I don't think you can beat it. If you like this place and you can hold out where you are for now, I'd at least consider it."

We keep walking, and we keep getting closer to Josh's place. 'Hey Donna, I spent the night at the office. Can you stop by my place and pick up something for me to wear?' 'Donna, I'm out of beer. Can you bring one over to me?' Yeah, without the sex, I'm not sure this is gonna be worth it.

When we get to Josh's stoop, Jeff starts climbing the stairs. I stop at the bottom and stare up at him. He gets to the top, turns around and looks at me. "What?"

It's possible that I've never been this confused in my life. "Umm… I know this building."

"Seems like a good building," he says casually, turning back towards the door.

"I can't afford the townhouses in this building."

"I told you it was a good deal," he says, unlocking the outside door and walking inside. I'm in the Twilight Zone.

I follow him into the building and I start to realize something's up when he walks to Josh's door. Thank goodness. A joke. I thought I was losing my mind. "Ok, what's going on?"

"Going on?" he asks, unlocking the door.

"Jeff…"

He cuts me off. "Let's go in and take a look." He holds the door open for me and I walk inside to the foyer and take my coat off and hang it up like I have a thousand times before. "Here you have the living room with hardwood floors, a wood burning fireplace and a built in sound system."

"Yes, I know." Who the hell do you think waited here while the sound system was being installed.

He walks into the kitchen. "Right through here is the kitchen. It's well lit with top of the line appliances and tons of cabinet space. All the appliances stay." Hmm… and it's clean. That's not often the case.

"Jeff. What the hell's going on?"

He ignores me and continues on the tour. "Through here is the dining room, which is large enough to hold a pretty big table, as you can see."

"Wow. Lovely," I deadpan. I'm going to kill him. I don't know which him, but someone had better tell me what the hell's going on or someone's going to be killed.

"Now, through here," he says walking back through the kitchen and down a hallway, "is the master bedroom with a full bath and a huge walk-in closet."

"And let me guess. This is the den," I say, pointing to the room Josh uses as an office.

"Hmm," he says, looking into the room. "It appears so. It seems you're right at home here. Now, over here is the second bedroom, and this must be the guest bathroom. Yes. It's a nice sized bathroom, although it does need redecorated."

"I can see that." And yes, it does need redecorated.

He takes me by the arm and pulls me to the window. "That's the courtyard. It's a community yard for the four townhouses in the building. There's patio furniture, a garden, a gas grill, an old-fashioned swing and a hammock. It's the perfect size for things like… oh I don't know… forth of July picnics."

I take a deep breath. "I've been here about a million times, I'm well aware of the courtyard. And I've had about enough of this little game. Is he trying to show me what he can afford that I can't?"

"Let's just see what the seller's asking." He pulls out some more paperwork from his briefcase and reads over a sheet of paper. "The property is unavailable until the evening of January 25th, 2006. All the blinds stay, the appliances stay, the furniture stays, although remodeling and refurnishing can be negotiated. The townhouse also comes with an engagement ring and a life-long tenant."

"What the hell are you talking…" I trail off as the words sink in. "What?" I whisper, tears stinging my eyes.

"I said it also comes with an engagement ring and a life-long tenant," he says quietly, smiling at me.

My hand flies up to my mouth. "Jeff…"

"And according to this, the asking price is an unconditional heart, non-negotiable."

The tears that were seconds ago stinging my eyes are now flowing freely down my cheeks. "A life-long tenant?" I whisper.

"And you get to remodel that hideous bathroom," he says with a smile.

"That's a perk," I say through sobs as he hands me a handkerchief.

"But you have to wait until it's available."

"January 25th."

"Must be a special date." I nod and continue with the sobbing. "So, what do you think? Should we make an offer?"

It takes me a minute to answer him. He probably thinks I'm thinking about it, but the truth is, I can't make the room stop spinning. Finally I just start nodding and a minute later I find the ability to think. "Yeah, I think so."

He sits at the dining room table and takes out a sheet of paper. "What would you like to offer?"

I laugh through my tears and sit next to him. "Maybe I should talk to the seller in person."

He shakes his head. "I don't think that's going to be possible. The seller seems to think he'd cave and let you take immediate possession, which for some reason would have a negative impact on his and his assistant's work."

"I see," I say, laughing again. "Then we better just fill out the paper-work."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I get back from my meeting with Governor Thomas an hour and a half after Donna leaves to meet Jeff. She's back at her desk, but her eyes are puffy, which means she's been crying. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign.

"You're back," I say tentatively, walking up to her desk.

She keeps her eyes on her computer. "Yes. You got a fax. I put it on your desk."

My eyes widen. Ok, that's not quite the response I was looking for. "Ahh…ok." I stare at her for several seconds, but she doesn't make eye contact, so I walk into my office and throw myself into my chair, trying not to panic at the thought that I've just been rebuffed. Finally, Iand pick up the fax.

To: Josh Lyman

From: Jeff Roberts

CC: Property at Prospect Street NW, Washington, DC 20007

Offer:

Buyer agrees to payment of one unconditional heart.

Buyer agrees to keep current furnishings, with the exception of the bed in the master bedroom. Bed must be replaced with king bed upon possession of townhouse.

Buyer agrees to life-long tenant.

Buyer agrees to move-in date: January 25th, 2006

Seller agrees to provide one unconditional heart in return for the one he receives.

Seller agrees to continue with weekly maid service.

Seller agrees that buyer may redecorate guest bathroom.

Seller agrees to future remodeling of guest bedroom into nursery, at a time agreed upon by both the seller and buyer at a later date.

Seller agrees that engagement ring will be platinum, not gold, and that final selection of said ring will be approved by Claudia Jean Cregg.

Seller agrees to provide a double desk for the den.

Signed by buyer: Donnatella Moss

Signed by seller:

I pick up a pen and sign the agreement. "Donna!"

"Yeah?" she asks a minute later, walking into my office.

"I need you to fax this to Jeff Roberts for me," I say with my head buried in a file and the world's goofiest grin on my face.