Poker Face by Cindy Dees

Author:Cindy Dees [Dees, Cindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64405-237-2
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2020-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

STONE HAD done some crazy shit in his life, but impersonating Jack Lacey was right up there. A crowd of close to a thousand people crammed into the auditorium of a local community college while he stood in the wings at stage right, sweating all over the printed copy of the speech Christian had written for Jack.

“You’ve got this,” Christian muttered encouragingly. “Just remember the Texas accent.”

“Got it. Twang.”

“And flirt.” A pause, and then Christian added hastily, “With the women.”

That drew a bark of laughter from him. “Check. Chicks.”

“This is no laughing matter—”

“Relax, babe. I’ve got this.”

Christian sputtered and turned an interesting shade of crimson as the introduction concluded.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered.

“I believe in you,” Christian whispered.

God bless him. That was probably the one thing Stone could hear right now that calmed him the fuck down enough to follow through with this.

Stone stepped out from behind the curtain and fell into Jack’s I’m-the-Shit swagger. He threw in his best jaunty salute too. And then he reached the podium and turned to face the crowd. And every last one of the people out there was looking back at him.

Mind. Blank.

Cold sweat. Pulse pounding. Hyperventilating.

So, stage fright was a thing.

Surely, they saw him for the fraud he was. Jesus, he felt naked up here. C’mon, man. Pull it together. You’re a highly trained operative and can overcome any challenge. Including a bunch of harmless civilians and reporters.

He stared down at the blurry sheaf of notes, and the words swam into focus. Breathe. Think of Christian. He could do this for Christian.

“Howdy, y’all!”

Bah-dum-bum. No reaction at all from the crowd. Oh, great. A hostile audience. Frowning in determination, he plowed into the speech.

The pauses—applause breaks, Christian had called them—got a tepid response at first. But as the speech progressed and he outlined the new and more lenient immigration policy that Jack was now supporting, the applause grew.

By the end he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. And it was heady as hell. Sheesh. No wonder politicians got addicted to this stuff.

The speech ended to thunderous applause and cheers. The front two rows, mostly reporters, rushed the stage and started shouting questions at him. God bless Christian and his position papers last night. One of the voices rose above the others, and the crowd of journalists quieted to let the most aggressive one have the floor.

“¿Qué piensa usted de que español se convierta en la segunda idioma oficial de los Estados Unidos?”

He actually felt Christian’s gasp offstage. Apparently, Captain America hadn’t anticipated someone throwing a question at him in Spanish. Did Jack speak Spanish or not? Stone did, but he had no idea about the senator.

He dared not glance offstage for support, or Jack would look weak. Unprepared.

What the hell. Jack spoke Spanish now.

He said rapidly, “Creo que es importante que cada persona los Estados Unidos aprenda inglés. Sin embargo, muchas personas los Estados Unidos hablan español como su primera idioma. Si queremos que todo el mundo aquí hable

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.