Fight in Campaign Mode

While he was lost in thought, Ellis hadn't noticed that Dawn had slipped out of the room, and that Mika was still waiting for a response.

"Uh, sure," he stammered, mentally smacking himself on the forehead. "I need to file by the end of the day so is it okay if I..."

"Yeah, definitely, set up right here and let me know if there's anything you need," Mika said on his way of the room, himself.

Ellis steadied his thoughts the only way he knew how--by slamming out paragraph after paragraph and zooming through that day's assignment. You idiot, the occasional stray thought chastised him when he recollected how harshly he'd judged Dawn back then. She was only 24 and that was her first real job. Of course she'd make mistakes trying to get ahead.

But chief of staff to the leader of the opposition party in the biggest province in Canada. After only four years. Ellis shook his head and tried to focus again on his article. Girl's smart for sure.

In the next couple of hours, other journalists started to trickle into the press room, all of whom Ellis knew from one scrum or another. He was e-mailing a potential interview subject an hour later when Mika came through the door.

"We're going for lunch. Wanna join us?" he asked. The thought of watching his One Who Got Away canoodle with her impossibly good-looking boyfriend was deterring. But Ellis found himself getting up from his chair and closing his laptop, his brain screaming at him that no good would come of this.

"So how'd you guys meet?" he asked as the three of them walked to the other end of the plaza. He tried to avoid watching Mika lightly holding Dawn's hand and swinging their arms back and forth, but it was like they were everywhere he looked. God, I'm a masochist, he inwardly scolded himself.

"Right here," Dawn replied, unaware of Ellis's gritted jaw. "He started working for Fred a year ago and..."

"And I instantly had a crush on her," Mika finished.

Jesus fuck, I'm like the third wheel on a unicycle here, Ellis thought.

"You're allowed to date your boss?" he instead asked out loud. Both Mika and Dawn snapped their faces toward him. "I mean, chief of staff means you have hiring and firing power, right, Dawn?"

"Uh, it does, but I would never--"

"What if an employee you were dating was doing something illegal like pulling out lawn signs of an opposing candidate and you knew about it? Could you actually fire your boyfriend?" Ellis willed himself to shut up but the possibilities kept tumbling out of his mouth.

"Wait, scratch that. What if Fred had a reason to fire someone you were dating and asked you to tell him the news?" The ensuing silence was painful.

"You're... you're certainly well-suited to your line of work, I have to say," Mika finally broke the silence.

"You're exactly the same," Dawn muttered under her breath, just a touch too loud. She didn't expect her boyfriend to actually make out her words.

"Do you guys know each other?" Mika asked, surprised.

"Yes," Ellis said.

"No," Dawn replied at the same time.

"Barely," Ellis amended his answer. "From Dawn's time at the Dispatch."

"Did you work together?" Mika asked as they reached the pizza place on the corner. This time, Ellis raised his eyebrows at Dawn, prompting a scowl from her.

"No, but we saw each other around," she tactfully responded before picking out a slice on the display.

"That's the understatement of the year," Ellis whispered by her ear as he bent down to eye the paneer pizza slices on the bottom of the warming tray. Luckily, Mika hadn't heard as he was out in front choosing a calzone.

"Gimme a minute, I wanna hear more about this," he told them after he ordered and headed to the men's room."

"What is your problem?!" Dawn frothed as she and Ellis found a table.

"Dawn, I have no problem at all," Ellis lied through a smile. Her wingtip-style eyeliner crinkled at the outside corners of her eyes as she frowned.

"You want to know if something was going to happen between us that night, right?" she pushed. "That's what your being such an asshole just now was all about?"

"No, I was only curious how dating a subordinate works. I mean, how do promotions happen?" he grinned, clearly enjoying himself now.

"First of all, fuck off," Dawn seethed. "Secondly, the answer is no. I wanted to take you out for dinner but Reed covered that and told me to drop by later and buy you a drink instead."

"That bell pepper tried to set me up with a beautiful girl and he still couldn't remember I don't drink?" Ellis mused aloud. Dawn tried not to dwell on the two words in the middle of that sentence.

"When I messed up that whole situation, the least I could do was offer you a place to spend the night," she recovered. "No, I wasn't going to invite you into my bed, and no, I wasn't going to walk around naked. I don't know what you're so sore about today when you made your stance clear outside my building, remember? The fact I'd had a crush on you was irrelevant."

"Wait, what?" The smile fell off Ellis's face.

"What'd I miss?" Mika asked, about to sit down. Then he caught sight of their orders being placed on the counter and went back to retrieve them.

"You what?" Ellis whispered, now back to mentally slapping himself.

"Had, Vu. The operative word here is had." Dawn turned into a different person as Mika approached again, beaming and thanking him for bringing them their food as Ellis mumbled something out.

"We were just talking about the last time we saw each other," Dawn answered her boyfriend. Ellis looked up in surprise, expecting her to admit she asked him to spend the night before he stupidly rejected her for reasons he could barely remember now.

"Ellis actually rescued me from being attacked by some drunk guys," she said. Mika looked up in astonishment. "There were four of them and they cornered me in a parking lot. I will forever be grateful to him for that."

"Dude, you fought four guys by yourself?" Mika was incredulous.

"Yeah, Ellis, I didn't actually see what happened because I was behind you," Dawn added. "I didn't know up until then you were a fighter." Ellis took his time chewing his first bite of pizza before answering.

"I'm not. Never was. I just saw a tip once on Reddit that if you're in a situation like that, the only thing you really have to do is nail your first shot." He pointed to the heel of his palm. "I aimed to push up and back against the ringleader's nostrils to break his nose, like this," he continued, demonstrating the motion.

"Do it hard enough and you can damage someone's brain, but I don't have that kind of strength," he explained. "Then we used that moment of surprise to get the hell outta there."

"You're surprisingly relaxed about potentially hospitalising a man--or worse," Mika observed.

"Agreed," Ellis immediately responded. "I wouldn't have cared even if I had killed him." Mika's eyebrows shot up. "But I gotta say," he went on as he ripped off another bite, "you're surprisingly concerned about the welfare of a group of guys who were about to gang rape your girlfriend."

"Ellis," Dawn admonished.

"Yes?" Ellis replied with a smile, relishing every time he made either one of them uncomfortable with the truth. When Dawn only scowled at him, he turned back to Mika. "What do you think I should have done?" he asked.

"Talked to them, perhaps?" Mika offered as he sat back with his calzone.

"It was a bit hard to have that conversation, what with all the anti-Asian slurs being hurled at me, not to mention the sexualized anti-Indigenous names directed toward Dawn."

"You could have called for help."

"Meanwhile they toss Dawn into a car and drive off with her, then no one ever sees her again."

"What if--"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Ellis said, his eyes locked on Mika's. "You're giving me all these suggestions with the social capital of a white man." He relished seeing Mika visibly bristle. "Perhaps if you'd told them to leave her alone, they might have listened to you. Perhaps they wouldn't have.

"But they never would have thought they were better than you at first sight, and that you were being insubordinate toward them. What I'm picking up here is that regardless of what might have happened in this hypothetical scenario, you would have shrugged your shoulders and said, 'oh, well, I tried,' if they told you to get lost, and Dawn would have been on her own."

"That's not what I said," Mika argued, his tone rising a touch.

"But you wouldn't have resorted to violence like I did."

"Probably not."

"Then if talking to them wouldn't have worked and there wasn't enough time to call the police, what do you propose as a viable alternative? Sorcery?"

"Ellis, that's enough," Dawn said firmly.

"I'm just trying to follow the logic, Dawn," Ellis coolly retorted. "I thought you of all people would understand I'd have done anything to stop you from being just another red dress hanging on a tree." Dawn's eyes widened but she didn't say anything.

"Maybe we should just cool our jets, here," Mika offered. "You're not planning to host any DnD nights between now and the election, are you?"

"Nope," Ellis replied, noting how smoothly Mika changed the subject. "Probably not for another week after that either. We look at the breakdown of the new legislature, winners, upsets, that kind of autopsy stuff."

"Sounds good because if Fred gets to where we want him to, hopefully we'll be busy as well," Mika smiled at Dawn and she grinned back. Then he quickly finished up his calzone and stood up. "I hate to eat and run but I have to get back in case other reporters need to be set up at the office," he said.

Ellis was sure Dawn would lay into him the minute her boyfriend left, but she was silent over the next 10 minutes they took to finish their lunch.

"Why don't you like him?" she finally broke the hush as they walked back to the campaign office.

"I think the more relevant question is, why do you?"

"Why do you have to be so ornery all the time?" Dawn demanded.

"It's a manufacturing defect." Ellis gave her a lopsided smile as he walked relaxedly with his hands in his pockets. When Dawn threw her hands in the hair, he decided to go easy on her.

"You're asking why I'm not buddy-buddy with a privileged, prep school yuppie who's an armchair moraliser and has probably never stooped so low as to do his own grocery shopping?"

"For your information, there's nothing wrong with meal kits or getting food delivered," Dawn said, realising from Ellis's chortles that her response wasn't the flex she thought it was.

"Look, I understand you want someone who's calm, polite, genteel, whatever," Ellis said as they approached the office door. "But when I decide whether I like someone, I look for their flaws first and figure out from there whether they're authentic. It's suspect when someone's a little too polished."

"And instead, they should be a prick to pass your test of authenticity?" Dawn accused.

"Think whatever you want about me, Dawn," he said before reaching for the door handle. "But I'm just being honest. If you had to choose, isn't that better than being a gentleman?"

Ellis then breezed through the door, his thoughts now turned toward continuing the assignment he had to file by the end of the day. He didn't even notice Dawn stopped in her tracks on the sidewalk outside.

***********

Dawn couldn't decide what was more infuriating over the upcoming week--the fact that Ellis didn't seem affected by their heated exchange, or the fact that it was all she could think about.

She ran Fred's campaign with the ease of a practiced professional, spending the following days taking care of her staff's minor problems and full-on fires. But her job was running in the background on automatic mode while she willed herself not to peek into the press room where Ellis was parked most days.

That is, until she had to stand beside Fred as he addressed the room about how they would soon be going on the road.

"There's plenty of space on the bus for all of you," he said, referring to the repurposed Greyhound they'd painted with their party colours, "but your newsrooms foot the bill for your motel rooms. We're going be travelling for a week so we can hit most major hamlets in northern Ontario."

Dawn tried to discreetly gauge Ellis's reaction but his poker face was beyond reproach. In fact, the only emotion she got from him at all was when he didn't notice her watching him in a heated phone call outside the office later that day.

"Don't worry about him, babe," Mika said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She jumped a bit from the surprise, unaware that she'd been staring out the front picture window. "His reporting on Fred has been pretty fair so far despite his... attitude. I'll try to start fresh with him when we're on the bus."

A sharp pang of guilt hit Dawn where it hurt, and she felt annoyed with herself for wanting any attention from Ellis. Why do I care what that jerk thinks when I have the best guy in the world right beside me? She submitted the staff lists to the motels they'd booked, making sure she and Mika would be sharing a room. Hopefully they'd have some alone time between stops.

"What'd he say?" Dawn asked Mika a few days later when he returned from talking to Ellis at the back of the bus. They'd been on the road with their staff for the better part of a week by then, and were approaching the next town on their list.

"He said he's not allowed to fraternize with campaign staff because it would be a bad look," Mika replied, plopping down in the seat beside her. "I told him going out for one beer wouldn't mean anything, and he said--"

"He doesn't drink." Dawn finished flatly.

"Then he put on his headphones. I just wanted to start over but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong," Mika said, confused. "He barely even looked at me the whole time."

"It's because he's a clod, honey," Dawn said, shaking her head and lacing her fingers in her boyfriend's. "Forget him." She pulled out the campaign itinerary from her inside jacket pocket and opened it up.

"We've already done Kenora and both Thunder Bay ridings in the last four days," she recounted. "and we're almost at Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing. I have something special planned for us before we leave James Bay-Timmins at the end of the junket," she smiled, thinking about the blushing pink teddy she'd packed.

Mika smiled back and gently kissed her, catching a passing glimpse of Ellis watching them.

Days later, the press corps showed signs of wanting to get back to their own homes and own beds instead of living on a bus. Dawn could see the impatience to return to Toronto from her own team shortly before they pulled into the Timmins motel.

"Think I should give everyone a pep talk?" she asked Mika, looking around at her ragged staffers.

"Sorry, babe, I have to take this," he replied, frowning at his phone and scampering toward the back of the bus. Two more minutes and he returned, visibly worried. "It was my mom," he told Dawn. "My dad was having chest pains so she's at North York General with him right now. Sweetie, I'm really sorry but--"

"Don't," Dawn shook her head. "We'll reach the Clover Inn in 10 minutes. I'll have a cab waiting for you there. There's a bus that goes to Toronto via Sudbury."

"Thank you," Mika breathed in relief as he hugged her. "As soon as all this craziness is over, we'll plan a day when they can finally meet you."

Dawn let her staff check in first, partly wanting to avoid the rush at the front desk and partly wanting to stay with Mika until he got in the taxi. When the car pulled away, she twirled around to smash into Ellis.

"He okay?" he asked.

"What's it to you?" Dawn glowered, grabbing her bags off the dusty parking lot tarmac.

"Hey, just because I don't like the guy doesn't mean I don't care about whether he's okay."

"He had an emergency back home and had to leave early," Dawn glossed over the situation as she turned on her heel toward the motel entrance. Ellis nodded and followed her.

"So did I hear right back there?" he asked, his duffel bag slung across his torso. Dawn raised an eyebrow at him. "You've been together for a year, right? And he hasn't taken you to meet his parents yet?"

"That is none of your business," Dawn frowned. Ellis put his hands up in mock defense. "I simply thought someone who's so lovey-dovey with you all the time would be more eager to take the next step."

"We're each busy people," Dawn rationalised. "And it's bizarre that you're somehow more insecure about my relationship status than I am."

"Have you ever considered it's because you're not an uptown girl who's been living in a white-bred world?" Ellis grinned.

"Have I told you to fuck off lately?" Dawn fumed. "You know nothing about Mika or his parents--"

"Evidently, you don't either."

"--and you shut down the chance to do so when you snubbed his attempt to start fresh with you. Do me a favour," she stopped walking and came an inch away from Ellis's chest as she gripped the motel's front door handle. "If you're not going to talk to Mika, don't ask me anything about him. Got it?"

Without waiting for a response, she stomped inside, dropped her bags in front of the check-in desk and faced the clerk, drawing in her breath.

"Has he even told you he loves you yet?" Ellis casually enquired. Dawn glared at him open-mouthed, her composure shot.

"Name?" the clerk asked her.

"Uhhh, L-Littlestone," Dawn stuttered.

"Sorry, not on the list," the clerk replied. Then she turned to Ellis. "Name?" Ellis and Dawn exchanged puzzled looks.

"Vu?" Ellis questioned, wondering if his name would be on the list.

"Yup, room 216," the clerk said, handing him a key.

"There must be some mistake," Dawn said. "Did anyone else in our group have problems checking in?" The clerk shook his head no. "But I submitted the--ohhhh," it hit her just how distracted she'd been in the last week. Stupid me, I got everyone on staff but left my own name off.

"Is there a problem, Dawn?" Fred came up behind them.

"No, Fred, it's fine," she quickly replied. "Can you check under Mika Eckhardt, please?"

"Is that you?" the clerk asked. "Or is that person here?" Dawn replied in the negative to both questions. "Sorry, I can't let you have their room. Timmins is packed to the brim for you, Mr. Okoli. I've been instructed to go by the book because we have absolutely no vacancies."

"But it's a double room!" Dawn exclaimed. Fred put his hand on her shoulder and spoke in a low, fatherly tone.

"It's been a long week for everyone, hon," he said. "It's easier not to argue. Vu, can I ask you a huge favour?" Dawn almost recoiled in horror while Ellis tried his hardest to prevent the corners of his mouth from twitching. "There's another alternative but I don't think Harriet would be too thrilled with Dawn staying with us," he joked, shooting his wife a grin from across the room.

"The Examiner doesn't have to know, Fred," Ellis responded, reaching for Dawn's luggage, which she promptly yanked back. Ellis smirked all the way up to the second floor as he watched Dawn's hips sway while she speedily walked to the room.

"It'll still be there even if we arrive 10 seconds later," he called. But he understood her hurry when she jiggled the door knob, pushed the door open, and closed her eyes in frustration. "Don't worry," he assured her, "you can have the bed."

"And what, you'll sleep in the chair in the corner?" she asked, her anxiety rising.

"It's summer," Ellis reasoned, momentarily putting his hand on her shoulder as he brushed past her and into the room. "I'll sleep on top of the covers and you can sleep underneath." Dawn felt silly at her overreaction while still struggling to figure out why Ellis wound her up so tight.