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An Innocent Kiss 3/6 by Jo March Disclaimers, etc., in part one.
Sometimes there's just no reasoning with Josh. When he found out that CJ was there because she'd offered to give me a ride to the airport, he decided that I was somehow to blame. "Me? You were the kisser; I was just the kissee." "Oh yeah?" There was that snappy Ivy League patter again. You have to wonder if his parents ever felt the tuition money had been wasted. "Yeah." I prefer to think of my own reply as succinct. "Would you two listen to yourselves?" CJ said. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you could be in? Do you know how lucky you are that I was the one who saw you? There are press at that party. Press, Joshua! The deputy chief of staff consorting with his assistant behind closed doors-my god, do you have any idea how big a Christmas present that would be to most reporters?" "I wouldn't call it consorting," I said. Josh was too busy sputtering to say anything coherent. He sat down behind his desk, where he seemed to be trying to tear his hair out. "Donna," CJ continued, "do you have any idea what the two of you looked like? There are people out there with cameras!" "It was just a little kiss, CJ," I pointed out. "There's mistletoe, see? It was perfectly innocent." "What I saw sure didn't look innocent," CJ replied. "It looked like full-blown tongue hockey." Josh looked up, with that malicious gleam in his eye-the one he usually reserves for Republican members of Congress. "And the pot calls the kettle black," he said. "What?" CJ and I asked in unison. "So I kissed Donna. Under the mistletoe. On Christmas Eve. Big deal. It didn't mean anything." "What do you mean it didn't mean anything?" I asked. I don't think Josh heard me. He was in full attack mode and too focused on CJ. "And, yes, we're co-workers," he continued. "You're her boss," CJ said. "Yes. We work together. It's not like there's a conflict of interest involved. It's not like she's a reporter and I'm, you know, the press secretary." "This is about you and Donna, not me and Danny." "But it could be." "Are you trying to blackmail me, Josh?" "No," I said. "No, he's not. No one is blackmailing anyone. It was just an innocent kiss." I turned from CJ to Josh. "And apparently it was completely meaningless." I looked back at CJ. "And nobody knows about it except the three of us. Disaster averted. Now if you two will stop arguing about it, CJ can drive me to the airport." "Donna--" "Trust me, Josh. You really don't want to say anything else right now." And with that, I left his office. * * * The cost of parking a car at Reagan for ten days is more than I could afford even if I got a raise. And the price of a cab from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is even worse. So when CJ originally offered to drive me to the airport, it had seemed like a really good idea. Now, of course, I was wishing I'd called the cab. After all, I know Josh's credit card numbers, and I figured he owed me. Christmas Eve traffic in DC was like, well, Christmas Eve traffic in DC. We were inching along, as CJ divided her attention between the road and her anger over the public relations disaster she'd decided Josh and I were trying to create. "Josh Lyman, besides being a royal pain in the ass, is a high profile member of this administration," she said. "And he has more than his share of enemies. Do you have any idea how many people on Capitol Hill would love to cause him embarrassment?" "Forty-seven." CJ looked rather astounded. "You're making that up." "No, I keep count." "You keep count? What do you have-a list? An enemies list? Like Nixon? Please, Donna, tell me you don't have a list!" "Just in my head. Not written down or anything. What kind of assistant would I be if I didn't know who was out to get my boss?" "Don't write that list down. Ever. Anywhere." "I won't." "Writing that down would be worse than-than--" "Worse than kissing Josh under the mistletoe?" "Don't mock me, Donna. You know that Josh has been hanging on by a thread ever since the Mary Marsh thing. The least appearance of impropriety could be disastrous for him. And it doesn't matter how you feel about him--" "I am not in love with Josh." "Whatever. Those forty-seven people-whose names I do not want to know-are only going to see the fact that he's your boss. They're going to scream sexual harassment. If we're lucky, they'll only suggest that the Deputy Chief of Staff is sleeping with his assistant in the White House. And nothing that gets said about you will be even remotely civilized. If you're lucky, the worst thing you'll get called will be bimbo." "CJ, you are worrying for nothing. Josh and I are not lovers. We have never been lovers; we never will be lovers." "Whatever. And then there's Leo's situation. Lillienfield is going to drop that bombshell as soon as the holidays are over. We can't possibly salvage Leo's career if we have to deal with charges against Josh as well." "There's also Sam and the call girl," I suggested. Look, I like Sam; but I really needed CJ to get irate over something else. "Dear god, is there anything the assistants don't know?" "Nuclear missle codes. Although there's always a possibility that Mrs. Landingham has those." "Look, Donna, all I'm saying is--" "Don't kiss Josh. Believe me, CJ, I don't even want to look at him right now." "That bad, huh?" "Josh doesn't think about me that way. I don't think about him." "Right. You're both completely thoughtless." This time when I looked at CJ, she was grinning. "You know the irony here?" CJ asked. "I have always thought that you and Josh would be perfect together. God knows you're the only woman who can put up with him and keep his ego in check." "But I thought you just said that my getting involved with Josh-which I have no intention of doing anyway-is a bad idea?" "It is. For now. All I'm saying is that once we're out of the White House you might want to rethink your relationship." "We're in our second year." "I know." "Then there's re-election. That's another four years." "I know that too." "You know, if I did have any desire to date Josh, that would seem like a ridiculously long time to wait." "Tell me about it." "Yeah. So how * is * Danny?" * * *
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