The Thing About Love by Julie James

Author:Julie James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-04-03T14:58:20+00:00

17

Since one of the upsides of being an FBI agent was that John didn’t have to wait in the notoriously long security lines at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, he found himself quite at his leisure as he made his way to his gate on Tuesday morning.

He and Jessica were catching a ten fifteen A.M. flight, which would give them plenty of time, even with delays—also notorious at O’Hare airport—to check into the hotel and make their seven P.M. meeting with Blair and Morano. Blair had chosen the time, likely tied up for the rest of the day strategizing with his campaign team on how to maximize all the publicity he’d been getting over the last twenty-four hours.

The mayor of Jacksonville was the city’s hero.

Over the weekend, the governor of Florida—from the opposite political party as Blair—had met with a small group of business and state government leaders and had said, per an audiotape that had been leaked to the press, that there wasn’t anything “iconic” about Jacksonville. He’d joked that the most memorable thing about the city was the smell of roasting beans coming from the Maxwell House Coffee factory, and then went on to note that EverBank Field, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars football team, was surrounded by a jail, abandoned buildings, and fifty acres of “polluted, old shipyard.”

Needless to say, the proud citizens of the country’s thirteenth-largest city were not pleased with this characterization.

Naturally, the governor had tried to smooth over the brouhaha caused by his leaked remarks, claiming that he’d been merely attempting to explain his support for a bill that would give tax credits to businesses that relocated to Florida. Nevertheless, on Monday afternoon, when the mayor of Jacksonville stepped up to the podium as the keynote speaker at a community action awards luncheon, the local press waited with collective bated breath.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Blair gave the media exactly what they’d been hoping for.

He took a moment to address the governor’s comments before beginning his speech. Describing Jacksonville as a “big city with small-town charm,” he spoke proudly of the city’s many bragging points, including its 111,000 acres of parks, the largest urban park system in the United States; the miles of sandy beaches that gave the Jacksonville area its nickname, “the First Coast”; the booming restaurant and arts scenes; and its naval base that employed over thirty thousand active-duty military personnel.

“And if all that isn’t impressive enough,” Blair thundered away to a ballroom filled with people who were already on their feet and clapping, “how about the fact that we’re also the hometown of Lynyrd Skynyrd? Perhaps the good governor needs to come over from Tallahassee and join me for a beer at one of our nine craft breweries—we’ll listen to a little ‘Free Bird’ and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and have a talk about what is and is not iconic.”

The crowd had gone wild. As had the rest of the city, after the press reported the mayor’s comments in every local paper and television newscast.

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