Twenty

"You're distracted."

I look up from my laptop to find Frank's admonishing glare. When I don't respond immediately, one of his eyebrows lifts in that curious, yet objectively terrifying way of his.

Frank looks good for his age—something Dalton mentions at least once a month as a matter of pride. Even in his fifties, he still bears the trademark statuesque posture of a Hellenistic masterpiece and the lush brown hair of someone who has unironically uttered the sentence Do you know who my father is? at least once in his life.

Good for him, I guess. Every now and then, I find myself studying him too closely, finding my best friend in his features and wondering if Dalton is right—if this is what he'll look like in his fifties. Good for him too, I guess. Typically, this train of thought reminds me how I'll never know what my father would have looked like in his fifties, so it's anyone's guess how I'll turn out.

I mean, if shit keeps up, I'll be devastatingly handsome—but nothing is certain.

A few days ago, I found Valeria's father online. He's handsome too, which doesn't surprise me. He lent twenty-three chromosomes to Valeria, so of course the guy is working with something magical. But more notable than his really good jawline is his job: He's the Mexican Ambassador to the United States.

Yes, as in the singular individual appointed by the literal President of Mexico to maintain diplomatic relations with the teeny, little superpower that is the United States of America. That guy.

Stunned isn't an adequate word to describe my reaction to seeing his face on his Wikipedia article. Flabbergasted is also inadequate. Confused-as-all-fuck is far better.

Valeria's aversion to lawyers clearly runs deeper than I'd imagined, and my ignorant ass has been pursuing her with all the grace of a college freshman stumbling to a keg party during orientation week, gurgling the lyrics to "Africa" by TOTO and thinking he's the king of the world, when in a matter of hours he'll text his best friend's mother and pleadingly ask her why all his socks have turned pink in the laundry.

…Not that I've done that.

After all, the song was "Come On Eileen," not "Africa." Completely different vibes altogether.

"I'm not distracted," I lie.

"You're also a liar," Frank counters before he takes a sip from his bourbon. He inhales through his teeth, the way only rich men do after drinking something lavish, a silent exhale that says: I deserve this. "What's on your mind?"

Long black hair dented from braids. Plump lips wrapped around my cock. Tears welling in big, glossy eyes.

"Stafford," I lie, now making a habit of it. Then again, it's not a lie anymore. Now that I've uttered those eight pivotal letters, I really am thinking about Stafford and making partner. It's a less interesting topic, but when it comes to Frank Cavendish, it's the correct answer.

The smile spreading over Frank's face is slow and ominous like an oil spill, and yet I'm thrilled to see it. "Your father would have been proud," he mentions, nodding approvingly. The surge of thrill in my stomach crests even higher. "He always knew you had it in you."

"He did?"

Frank nods again. "He started saying it when you were seven. We'd be up late at this very table." He raps his knuckles on the varnished surface, a perfect match to the colonial elegance coating every inch of the Cavendish estate. "He'd say, ‘My son is going to be doing this with us one day.'"

I try to imagine my father in his thirties, seated regally in one of these stiff, upholstered dining chairs and sharing a bourbon with Frank while beaming with pride. The image never finds its footing though. My father was a flurry, never quite settling, eating his dinner in record speed and retiring to his office, or waving goodbye before he headed out the door.

"I wish that had happened."

Frank goes quiet, watching me over the rim of his Glencairn. "You know, it was hard for us to take his name off, but…"

"I get it," I fill in. "He wasn't here."

"For what it's worth, I always thought Cavendish, Dawson Waits sounded better." He winks. "Maybe we can get that name back one day."

There's no "maybe" involved though. There's a plan, concrete like the Hoover Dam: Go to Princeton and Harvard Law school, pass the bar in DC, get a job at Cavendish Waits, and fast track to partner—like Dad.

Frank polishes off the last of his drink and raises his Kennedy chin. "Are you boys spending the night?"

"Let me text Dalton. I have no clue where he went."

Me

Hey, let's crash here.

Dalton Cavendish

For sure. Mom has eight pounds of cookie dough in the freezer.

Everett Logan

Bet that's for St. Michaels. She's going to murder you if you eat it all before we make it out there like you did last year.

Dalton Cavendish

Nobody asked you, Ev.

Everett Logan

You two LITERALLY put this in our group text. Text each other directly next time. Fuck.

Me

Ev, get an Uber and come here.

Everett Logan

Hard pass. I'm busy.

Me

Doing what?

Dalton Cavendish

Making out with a tree.

Trudging through the woods with a bag of organic baby carrots, trying to befriend deer.

Going into coffee shops and berating the managers to get rid of their condiment bars.

Everett Logan

I should. Condiment bars are a haven for single-use plastics and corporate treachery.

But if you must know, I'm actually doing you a favor, Lander.

Me

???

Everett Logan

I'm photographing Cora. Naked.

Dalton Cavendish

Oh shit, Lan, did you hear? Everett is photographing a hot naked girl. Fucking martyr. Selfless as fuck.

Me

How is that a favor for me?

Everett Logan

In the immortal words of the Spice Girls, ‘If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends.'

Me

…I'm pretty sure they meant having civil conversations, not naked photoshoots.

Dalton Cavendish

Everett, who taught you about the Spice Girls?!?

Everett Logan

I'm trying to make amends with Valeria's best friend so she'll tell her you keep good company. It's strategic and brilliant. You two are such small thinkers.

Also…tits.

Dalton Cavendish

Ev, did you think the Spice Girls were environmental activists? Sustainably harvesting spices? Is that how you found out about them?

Everett Logan

Laugh all you want, Dalton, but you've done nothing to help Lander.

Me

Can't talk about this now. I'm with Frank.

Everett Logan

Also can't talk about this now. I'm with a naked woman in a strap-on.

Dalton Cavendish

Admit it's kind of doing it for you.

Everett Logan

Not at all.

I snicker. I'm not the only liar around here.

"We'll spend the night," I tell Frank, who grins.

"Thought you'd say that," he replies before he slides over my refilled glass of bourbon. "Now that you're not driving…"

When I finish the drink in four sips, he raises his glass. "You sure drink like a partner, Lander."

It's probably not a good thing, but I take the compliment. Approval feels good, and so does bourbon.

"So," Frank goes on, breathing out after a long drink. I deserve this. "What's her name?"

Blinking, I meet his eyes. Frank and I typically don't talk about women, but I'm tipsy enough to ignore the awkwardness. "It's that obvious?"

He bobs his head.

"Fuck," I mutter.

"I haven't seen you show this much emotion in years," Frank goes on. "I almost forgot you were so…god, what's the word…"

"Passionate," Alyssa, Dalton's mother and Frank's wife declares as she strolls into the dining room, never one to mince words.

I could write a PhD level dissertation on the assertion that Frank Cavendish changed the course of history for the worse when he convinced Alyssa Cavendish to give up her career. She could have done anything with her combination of natural brilliance, deep empathy, and remarkable beauty. It's a crime that Dalton and I (and Everett, honestly) are the only ones with the privilege of her time and attention.

Tonight, her dress looks expensive and uncomfortable, which is precisely why she's wearing it around her palatial, historic mansion. She stops behind Frank and squeezes his shoulder with a delicate hand weighed down by the single largest diamond I've seen outside of the gem collection in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

"I was going to say intense," Frank replies, holding out his empty glass to his wife, who refills it and returns it to him like the exchange is choreographed.

"I'm not intense, am I?" I ask, frowning and glancing between the Cavendishes.

Dalton snorts as he walks into the dining room. "No, mom's right. For someone who morphs into a stone-cold bitch the minute he puts on a suit, you're shockingly passionate." He kisses his mother on the cheek. "Mommy, you're not going to get upset if I ate some of the cookie dough, are you?"

Alyssa darts around her son with impressive agility for a woman in three-inch heels. "Dalton Franklin Richmond Cavendish the Fourth, I swear on my life, if I open the walk-in and you've eaten all the cookie dough, I'll dissolve your trust and donate every dime to the Girl Scouts of America!"

"It was a bite or two," he protests, even though it's certainly more—maybe a bite or two from a megalodon. "I needed a pick-me-up. You know spreadsheets make me hungry."

"You are an investment banker, Dalton. If spreadsheets make you hungry, you should have become a tap dancer or a surgeon—anything that doesn't require a spreadsheet."

Dalton looks horrified. "Dad said surgeons are glorified tradesmen!"

They exit the room as quickly as they both entered, and faintly, I can hear Dalton objecting while Alyssa berates him in the chef's kitchen a room over.

Frank massages the space between his eyebrows with the pad of his thumb. "Those two are going to be the death of me," he mutters, prefacing a long drink before he says, "So what's the name of this girl who pulverized your heart?"

"Valeria."

"Valeria. Pretty," Frank muses. "How long have you been seeing her?"

"Technically, I'm not seeing her." I take the first sip of my third bourbon. "And technically, I've also been seeing her for a year."

Frank's eyebrows skyrocket. "Not going to ask what that even means."

"Probably for the best."

"What's the issue?"

I raise my shoulder. "She's not interested in dating me despite being very interested in me."

The eyebrows go even higher. "This time, I actually am going to ask what that means."

"She wants me but says she doesn't like what I do for a living. She thinks my lifestyle is incompatible with hers. Thinks we're destined to fail."

"What's her lifestyle?"

I draw my mouth to the side. I don't care if Frank knows what Valeria does, but I inherently know she'd hate it if I told my mentor about Aurora Amada. "She freelances," I settle on saying. "She's a content creator."

"Unconventional." Frank taps his fingertips on the dining table. "You know, this reminds me of your father. He wasn't good with girls. School, career, clients—he was unparalleled, but women were always a back burner thing for him."

"He seems like he did fine for himself. He managed to marry my mother."

"And it took him years to overlook his hangups and finally talk to her," Frank counters with a chuckle that lands strangely in my chest, somewhere between defensiveness and confusion. I've never heard of my father having hangups. Usually, everyone talks about him like he was a god among men.

"He did eventually," I point out.

"He broke her heart though, Lander. You know that."

"It's not like my dad tried to have a heart attack at his desk."

Frank lets out a sigh before he places his glass on the table and centers his posture. I recognize the position: a talking-to. Great. "You want my advice?"

I don't."Please."

"Find a good girl who supports your career, stands by while you move up the ranks, and understands how much bigger this job is than either of you." He jolts his head to the side in the general direction of the kitchen, where Dalton and Alyssa have progressed past cookie dough and are now rehashing the time when Dalton drank the top four tiers of a champagne tower at a New Year's Eve party. "Between you and me, I shouldn't have picked Alyssa."

I stay quiet while a frown slowly settles on my face. I've never heard Frank—or anyone—say a single bad thing about Alyssa Cavendish.

"I love Alyssa," he clarifies. "She does a lot of things well. My house is amazing, she always shows up to firm parties looking like a million bucks, and she raised that unhinged investment banker in there for us." He rocks his head side to side. "I get read the riot act when I work late though, and it gets old. She forgets this life she enjoys so much is because of all those late nights."

…Except it's not. Frank, like my father, is old money. He could quit his job right now and he wouldn't lose a thing except for his health insurance.

"Plus," he goes on, "she can be…informal."

She sure can. It's why Dalton, Everett, and I love her so goddamn much.

"My point is: You need to find yourself a girl who sees the big picture. This girl? She's already missing the mark. Cut your losses," Frank finishes.

My gut surges reactively, but I keep my expression flat and illegible, like he taught me. "Thanks, Frank. I'll consider that."

His smile is inkier and thicker than ever and would put the Exxon Valdez to shame. "Good. Now, let's drink some money. Hey, did Dalt tell you what he did when he thought he was going to die?"

"Dalt," I whisper, fumbling in vain for the light switch on his bedroom wall. I swear it was right here. Damn thing must have moved itself. "Dalton."

"The hell?" His voice comes through the darkness.

"You up?" I reply, clearing my throat when everything comes out gravelly.

"I'm asleep," he snaps, but I hear him shifting on his bed.

Without asking, I slide in on the other side like I used to when we were younger. Dalton passes over one of his pillows, punching it up a couple of times before he leaves it with me. The yawn that follows is too loud to be anything but passive aggressive.

"You drunk?"

"I'm a few degrees past drunk and I'm dancing in the general range of a blackout," he answers. "You?"

I run my tongue over my teeth and feel like I just soaked up enough bourbon to prolong—and simultaneously worsen—my inevitable hangover. "Sober as a judge."

"So…you're slightly drunker than I am."

"Undoubtedly."

The silence lingers for a moment, thin but prolific, until Dalton poses a whispered, "Why'd you get so drunk tonight?"

"Not sure. You?"

"Sometimes, it's the only way to get Dad to spend time with me," he answers softly.

There's that silence again.

"Valeria," I confess. "And Stafford. Stafford is going to kill me."

"Then pass on it."

"On Valeria?"

"Stafford."

"You know I can't. I'm so close, I can taste it and it's—"

My legacy.

Dalton lets out a long, unsteady exhale. "You didn't come here to talk about Stafford. What's wrong? Why are you breathalyzing me?"

"Your dad thinks I should move on from Valeria."

Dalton releases another exhale. This one is so laborious, I can practically smell the alcohol in the air. "Yeah, well my dad doesn't know how hot she is," he responds before shifting onto his side, facing away from me. He yawns again. "You'll get her in the morning, tiger."

I jab my finger into the back of his shoulder. "She doesn't want to talk to me anymore."

"She and I have that in common. ‘Night."

"Dalton, come on," I prod, poking him again. "I need help."

He lets out a sigh and lifts his head off the pillow. "You know, I'm understanding firsthand why Valeria keeps turning you down. The persistence? Getting real old, buddy."

"Tell me if you think your dad is right," I push, sitting up now. "Tell me if you think Valeria is right."

The bed creaks as he rolls onto his other side. "You know what I like most about you? I'll give you a hint: It's not how you get talkative when you're drunk."

"Is it my good hair? Because it's genetic. I can't take credit for it."

"You get shit done," Dalton replies, ignoring me. "You wanted to go to Harvard Law, graduate at the top of your class, and get on the partner track at the same firm where your father worked. What did you do?"

"All of those things."

"All of those things," Dalton confirms, pausing after each word, letting them sink in. He pokes my arm when he finishes—hard, obviously a revenge poke. "If you want her so badly, get this shit done like you always do."

"It's not working," I remind him, just short of anguished. "No matter what I do, she won't budge on her rule. She won't explain it to me beyond saying my coworkers will judge us and I'd be throwing away my career—which isn't true. I've tried everything. Literally everything. What the hell is there left to do?"

Dalton sniggers. "You know what I just realized? This might be the first time in your life that you didn't get exactly what you want, when you want it, in precisely the way you want it. Must be a trip, huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Take it from a guy who doesn't always come out on top: Sometimes you're not going to walk between the raindrops. Every now and then, you're going to get wet."

I'm quiet long enough for Dalton to realize I'm confused as shit.

"Lander, listen to me," he says, propping himself up on his elbow. "You've spent the last two weeks trying to convince Valeria you're not like all the shitty lawyers she's encountered before. How have you been doing that?"

"By explaining to her. I've assured her countless times."

"True. You've practically tattooed I'M A NICE LAWYER in all-caps on your forehead, even though she already said your words mean nothing to her."

"But—"

"No, listen. What else have you been doing other than talking at her?"

I falter. I can smell a setup a mile away.

"You've been fucking with her head," Dalton fills in. "Like a lawyer. Like an annoying, over-confident, slick-as-hell lawyer."

My brow tightens so hard, it aches. "I'm not fucking with her head."

"You're not?" he questions. "Wow. You've been in big law for so long, you don't realize how obnoxious all your scheming is. A few weeks ago, you tried to talk to her. Thought you'd grab her during a stream."

"Correct."

"Or did you prevent her from getting tips from dozens of other guys?"

I pause again before grimly admitting, "Hundreds of other guys."

"Hundreds," he emphasizes. "And then Smoke and Shadow—you were trying to get to know her friends."

"Exactly."

"No, you didn't learn a damn thing about either of her friends. You foisted them onto the strategically-selected backup you brought."

"I mean, when you put it that way…"

"I'm not putting it any way. It's how it is," Dalton insists. "And don't get me started on the party, you dickhead."

"You helped me."

"I like a fucking party, Lander. Sue me."

There's a tight knot in my stomach that pulls so hard, it snaps. Then everything is floating around in there, untethered and sickening and undeniable. It nauseates me—and I inherently know it's not the liquor.

"I can hear you having an existential crisis all the way over here," Dalton mentions into the silence. "Truly. Your synapses are firing like pop rocks."

All I can manage is a weak, inebriated grunt.

"Look," Dalton says, reaching out and gripping my shoulder, "Valeria says she doesn't want a lawyer. Why do you think that would be the case? And if you pretend you don't know, I swear…."

"Fine, fine," I reply, sighing. "Lawyers are…shrewd. It's a career based on winning and outsmarting other people."

"Exactly. And how do you outsmart someone?"

"Loopholes. Technicalities. Caveats…" I trail off. "And some light intimidation."

"Alright, good. We're getting somewhere. Now, do you like winning?"

"Love it."

"Trust me: Valeria can tell. You can promise her you're comfortable with what she does, and you can assure her you're not worried about how your colleagues might react, but she won't ever trust your words alone. She knows you'll say anything to win—to win her, in this case."

"I wouldn't, Dalt."

"You wouldn't," he agrees, "but she doesn't know that."

"Then how do I show her?" I question, the exasperation finally bursting out.

Dalton sighs. "Are you seriously this dense? Are you telling me that if I hadn't dropped out, this is the level of intellectual prowess coming out of Harvard Law?"

"Enlighten me," I snap. "And then fuck off."

He clicks his tongue. "If you want to prove something to her, ironically, you need to give her what any good lawyer would."

I'm silent, waiting.

In the darkness, Dalton waves his hand with a flourish, and the next four words out of his mouth come rushing at me with the clarity of a floodlight illuminating the room. "Lander, you need evidence."