The State of Us Read online

  Dedication

  For Katie

  Thank you for always having my back.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Dre

  Dean

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  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Shaun David Hutchinson

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Dre

  “NICE SOCKS.”

  Nice socks? Smooth is not a word anyone anywhere would ever use to describe me. In fact, in the dictionary, under a picture of me, Andre Rosario, would be a list of words that are the opposite of smooth. Bumpy, lumpy, knobby, stony, rocky, rugged, rutted, pitted. I could go on, but I probably shouldn’t. You get the point.

  But what else was I supposed to say to Dean Arnault, the son of my father’s sworn enemy, and therefore my sworn enemy? Okay, fine. “Enemy” is probably me being a little extra, but he’s still the son of my dad’s political opponent in the presidential race, and the holder of some highly questionable political opinions, and therefore not someone I should’ve been talking to except that his family and my family were in the same room at the same time and someone thought it would be a great photo op, so they kept shoving us together. I had to say something before things got super uncomfortable.

  Also, they really were nice socks.

  Dean Arnault reached up to brush his hand through his hair, stopped, and dropped his hand to his side like he could hear his mother telling him not to mess up the hard work his stylist had put into making him the perfect picture of a young Republican. Sandy hair with an aggressive side part and not a strand out of place, brown eyes, freckled cheeks, a roman nose, and a chiseled jaw with a tiny dimple in his chin. Not that I thought he was cute. He was wearing loafers, for heaven’s sake. Loafers! Like a forty-year-old man on his way to the country club to shoot eighteen holes and discuss long-term investment options.

  “Thank you,” Dean said after a pause that was too short to be long and too long to be brief. It was like he was on a tape delay so that the censors monitoring him through implants in his brain could bleep out anything scandalous before it had the chance to leave his mouth.

  “Could you squeeze in a little more?” the photographer said. “This one’s for the history books.”

  “Yes,” Janice Arnault said. “The caption underneath will read ‘President Arnault and family with presidential hopeful Tomás Rosario.’”

  Everyone, including my parents, laughed like Governor Arnault had told a stunningly hilarious joke instead of insinuating that she was going to win the election, even though she was trailing my father by three points according to FiveThirtyEight.com.

  “Or,” I said, “it might read—” My mother pinched the back of my arm, and I yelped. She was still smiling, but her eyes told me that this was not the time for my mouth, and that if I didn’t shut it, there would be oh-so-much hell to pay when we got home.

  “It might read something else,” I mumbled, but no one was paying attention to me anymore. Which was probably for the best.

  I tried not to make any inappropriate faces while the photographer was snapping pictures, but it was pretty difficult. I’d already made concessions by putting on that ridiculous tan suit, even if I worked it harder than any tan suit had been worked in its life. What I’d really wanted to wear was some kind of fabulous suit-gown hybrid like I’d seen Billy Porter strut the red carpet in multiple times. I’d even conceded to cleaning the polish off my fingernails for the night, though I’d then painted my toes Tangerine Scream in protest. Plus, I’d allowed my mom’s stylist to cut three inches off my hair even though I’d liked my hair the way it was. All of those concessions had left me with very little patience for putting up with Janice Arnault and the Von Frat family.

  “Dre?” My dad nudged me as the photographer asked for some photos of just the Arnaults. “You’re not still upset with me, are you?”

  I shrugged, refusing to look at my dad. “Upset? Why would I be upset? It’s not like I had plans tonight and that you essentially forced me at gunpoint to abandon my best friend in order to attend this.”

  “I’m sure Mel understands,” Dad said. “And there was no gun.”

  “May as well have been.” I had trouble seeing my dad the way other people did. To one half of the country, he was the passionate, handsome, future leader of the country. To the other half, he was a baby-killing, Satan-worshipping foreigner who had no business running anything other than a convenience store. But to me, he was the guy who sang Beyoncé songs with a whisk while making pancakes, was afraid of lizards, forced me to attend ridiculous political events when I had better things to do, and had gone from Dad of the Year to Dad Who? in the span of an election cycle.

  “This will get easier, Dre.”

  “You mean when you’re president and we have Secret Service agents controlling our every move, and we have to be doubly concerned about the press examining the minute details of our private lives and roasting us for every fumble and fuckup?”

  “Language, Dre,” my mom said from where she was standing with Jose Calderon, my father’s dictatorial campaign manager, pretending not to listen in.

  Dad chuckled. “It won’t be that bad.”

  “It’s already that bad.”

  “Then at least it can’t get much worse.” My dad slung his arm around me and pulled me into a hug. I caught Dean watching us, and he quickly turned away like the affection embarrassed him. I figured his parents probably thought there was something unmanly about a father hugging his son. Dean and his dad probably exchanged firm handshakes and the occasional nod.

  “Besides,” my dad went on. “I might not even win.”

  “What do you think I wish for every night before I go to sleep?”

  “Andre?” Jose was waving for my attention. “The photographer wants a couple with just the children.”

  “I’m seventeen, so, not a child.”

  “Do it for me,” Dad said.

  “Not a chance,” I replied, but my dad was already pushing me toward Dean, who was standing in front of a tall American flag.

  “I know you hate this, Dre, but it’s important to me, okay?”

  I shook my head. “Whatever. But you owe me so big. Like, maybe it’s finally time to buy me a car big.”

  Dad clapped me on the shoulder. “Not a chance. Have fun!”

  Fun. Sure. I couldn’t imagine any world where spending a single second with Dean Arnault would be considered fun, but I trudged toward him a
nyway because that was the sacrifice I was willing to make to help my father become president of the United States.

  Dean

  THE PHOTOGRAPHER WAVED at me. “Move in a little closer. I’m sure he won’t bite.” I threw a glance at my mother, who was clustered off to the side with the Rosarios, laughing at something someone had said, though I couldn’t imagine what anyone could possibly find amusing about this situation.

  “He’s wrong, you know,” Andre said quietly as I scooted closer to him. “I do bite.”

  Andre had huge eyes that were an algae green, framed by long eyelashes. His dark hair was wavy, hung down over his forehead, and it managed to look like he spent a lot of time styling it and also like he rolled out of bed with it looking that way. I admit to being jealous. I’d had the same haircut my entire life, and I doubted Nora, my mom’s campaign manager, would have allowed me to change it without first polling potential voters.

  I threw my arm around Andre’s shoulders and put on my most winning smile to prove to him that he couldn’t get to me.

  “That’s it!” the photographer said, and started snapping away.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d met Andre Rosario. Our parents’ campaigns crossed paths more often than people might expect. I also knew him from Dreadful Dressup, the website where he and his partner, Mel, posted photos and videos of monster makeup tutorials. Before Mr. Rosario had won the Democratic Party’s nomination, more people had recognized Andre’s name than his father’s. But this was the first time we’d said more than five words to one another, and I honestly wasn’t yet sure whether to treat him as friend or foe.

  “I didn’t pick them out,” I said, trying to make conversation while the photographer moved us into different positions.

  “What?”

  “The socks.” I raised my pant leg to reveal one of the socks, which were gray with bright cartoon bumblebees on them. They didn’t really match the suit. “A stylist chose them for me.”

  “That makes me feel better.”

  “How so?”

  Andre mugged for the camera a few more times before the photographer finally declared we were done. My parents had drifted down the hallway, and I was turning to join them when Andre said, “I’d been telling Mel, she’s my best friend, that you usually dress like you’re heading to a funeral, which I guess is appropriate tonight since my dad’s here to bury your mom, but then I saw the socks and thought I’d misjudged you a tiny bit, only I guess I hadn’t.”

  I could have let it go, but Andre’s smug attitude wouldn’t let me. “My mother’s campaign manager believed a whimsical addition to my outfit would help me appeal to average people.”

  Andre cocked his head to the side. “Did you just call me average?”

  “I’m sure I said no such thing.”

  “Whatever. Why don’t you go plug yourself into a wall socket somewhere and recharge?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Ha, ha. Because I’m a robot—”

  “Programmed to do what your mommy tells you.”

  “Funny,” I said. “Except for the part where it wasn’t.”

  Andre stood with his arms folded across his chest. After a moment, he said, “Wait, was that your comeback?” He grimaced. “You obviously got your debating skills from your mom.”

  “I would destroy you in a real debate.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  A loud crash ricocheted from down the hall. Someone screamed. Two agents in black suits materialized as if from the walls themselves and were suddenly herding Andre and me into the greenroom they had assigned my mother.

  One of the agents, a serious woman with finger-length black hair, poked her head in and said, “Do not leave this room under any circumstances.” Her voice was stern and left no room for argument.

  “What’s going on?” Andre called. “Where’re my parents? Is everyone okay—”

  But the agent shut the door without answering either question, and when Andre tried to open it, he found that it was locked. He pounded on the door a few times before leaning with his back to it and sliding to the ground.

  The whole thing had taken fifteen, maybe twenty seconds, and I wasn’t sure what had happened, therefore I had no idea whether this was a false alarm and that everything would be all right or if this was a real emergency and that I should be worried.

  “Do you have your phone?” I asked.

  Before I finished, Andre was digging into his pocket for his cell phone, tapping the screen. I did the same. I tried calling both my parents and Nora, but I couldn’t get a signal.

  “Damn it!” Andre held his phone like he was about to throw it across the room, which likely wouldn’t have helped the situation. “Can’t get through.”

  “Neither can I,” I said.

  “I’m not surprised with that antique.” Andre’s voice was shaky. “Isn’t that model from like five years ago?”

  Heat rose in my cheeks. “I have a tendency to lose things, so my parents see no sense in spending a lot of money on a new phone I’m likely to forget somewhere.”

  Andre was quiet for a moment, probably doing whatever he could to avoid worrying about what might be happening on the other side of those doors. “It’s kind of reassuring to know you’re not perfect.”

  “I never claimed to be perfect, Andre.”

  “The news sure loves playing it like you are.” He looked up at me. “According to them, you’re Captain America, volunteering your time to teach underprivileged kids to read and build houses, while I basically murder puppies.”

  I was scared, which made me want to fire back at Andre, but he was probably scared too. Instead, I grabbed a water from the table and brought it to him. “Here. The first rule of being on the campaign trail is to stay hydrated.”

  “Thanks.” Andre took the water and twisted off the cap but didn’t drink. “And it’s Dre.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My name,” he said. “It’s Dre. Only my dad’s campaign manager calls me Andre. And my mom, but only if she’s really angry, and then she calls me ‘Andre Santiago Rosario,’ and it’s usually followed by some form of ‘What did you do?’ and a bit of mild profanity.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Good to know. And, hey, I’m certain Secret Service has everything under control. More than likely it’s a bomb threat or—”

  Dre’s eyes popped. “You think there’s a bomb?!”

  “I did not say that—”

  “You know what? How about you don’t say anything at all, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Fine by me.”

  Dre

  I STOOD WITH my ear pressed to the door, trying to hear what was going on in the hallway. It was eerily quiet. The kind of quiet that sent my mind spinning off in a thousand directions, imagining all the different potentially dangerous scenarios that could be playing out.

  “Anything?” Dean asked.

  “Nope. Not a sound.”

  “That could be a good sign.”

  “Or it could mean that some politician-hating dudes with guns are holding everyone hostage, including our parents, in some other wing of the school, and that they’re going to start shooting them at any moment.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Your side practically worships guns, so I’m sure your parents aren’t in any real danger.”

  The first debate was being held at the University of Miami, which Jose had protested because he claimed it gave Governor Arnault the advantage, but my dad hadn’t minded, and it had allowed Jose to ensure the second debate would be held in Nevada. Of course, I bet none of this would’ve happened if we’d held the debate somewhere boring like North Dakota.

  Dean was sitting on a couch with one leg crossed over the other like we were about to enjoy brandy and cigars and engage in casual sexism. He’d been trying to get a signal or log onto the building’s Wi-Fi but hadn’t had any luck. “How can you be so calm?” I asked.

  “Because I trust that the Secret Servi
ce details guarding our parents have got everything under control.”

  “Well, I don’t. I haven’t been this freaked out since the last time my school went on lockdown for an active shooter.” In search of something to eat, I crossed the room to the table where Dean had gotten me the water earlier. There were individual containers of Greek yogurt and bowls of fresh fruit and granola. “Where’re the actual snacks?”

  “My mother prefers healthy foods.”

  I ate a handful of granola, but as soon as it hit my stomach, I wished I hadn’t. “This isn’t food.”

  “Then why are you stuffing so much of it in your mouth?”

  Granola crumbs tumbled down the front of my suit as I rounded on Dean. “Because my parents are out there and I don’t know what’s happening to them! They could be in a room with a bomb that someone with no experience is going to have to disarm at the last second by cutting the red wire or the blue wire, or there might be a gun-toting psycho roaming the halls looking for someone to kill, and I want to do something—I have to do something!—but I can’t because I’m locked in this fucking room with you. And the only thing I can do that doesn’t involve digging a tunnel out of here is eating food I don’t even want! All right? Is that okay with you?”

  Ugh. Talking to Dean was like trying to have a meaningful conversation with one of the Secret Service agents.

  “I don’t actually like guns,” Dean said. “My uncle tried to take me hunting when I was eleven, but I couldn’t justify killing something I had no intention of eating. Also, when my uncle took down a deer, I cried until I vomited.”

  “Right, you’re a vegetarian. I remember reading that about you.” I filled a bowl with strawberries, unsure whether I was going to eat them or throw them at Dean, and resumed pacing around the room while trying not to wonder whether my parents were being held in a room like this or if they were squeezed into a closet along with a dozen other people. “How does your mom feel about having a gun-hating animal lover for a son?”

  Dean shrugged. “Just because I don’t like guns doesn’t mean I don’t support the right of others to own them.”

  I rolled my eyes. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere. “Of course you do.”

  “I suppose you believe we should collect all the guns in the world and shoot them into the sun?”