Well, that and the fact he shot the photograph on the canvas I’m staring at right now. In the past three years Benny has been right there to console me, drink with me, commiserate with me, and even to help me pay my rent upon occasion by giving me work. I only want the best for my friend just like he does for me. I’d made it to Benny’s show tonight because I told him I’d be here and I know how important it is for him. My mother can’t see this right now and that’s a really good thing.

A photograph of my beautiful American girl. My whole world altered because of a photograph. Not after we met that night on the street. I was not the same after I saw it and I couldn’t go back to the man I’d been before seeing it either. Poker players know when to play their hands. I was even prepared to give him a referral to another private security firm as a personal favor when he played his hand. Organizing VIP security for London 2012 at the XXX Olympiad pretty much consumed all my time and I had nothing to spare for the daughter of an acquaintance I’d met at a poker tournament more than six years gone.

I was polite and quite sure I didn’t need to involve myself. He was concerned about her safety and gave some tentative details about why. My past had been a colorful one, including both the good and the bad, and he’d come into my life during one of the good parts.Ī phone call came next where he told me he had a daughter living in London. A voice from my past extending a friendly greeting and an acknowledgement of where we’d both ended up. I received the email from her father first. Scrambling for a replacement, the GOP understandably needed to fill the empty slot on their ticket. Especially when people who want the power will do just about anything to ensure the incumbent never stands a second term. But when said congressman was the probable vice presidential nominee for the challenging party and the election is mere months away then it makes world news in a viral heartbeat. United States congressman goes down in a plane crash. In my business you have to be good because when you’re not good…people die. I deal in security, both private and for the British government. But I am forced to work around the byproducts of political affairs all the time. I’m a British citizen and Parliament is confusing enough. I don’t know shit about American politics.

Naked by Raine Miller