One

CORA

“I didn’t know you lived here.”

I inhale so sharply that it’s a miracle the rest of the bar’s patrons don’t pass out from oxygen deprivation. Seriously. I’m probably hoarding every molecule of oxygen in the dive, and my lungs sting until I exhale over the next few seconds—long enough for a galaxy of goosebumps to shimmer on my skin under the green LED lights.

Once the initial alarm wears off, I’m over this encounter before it starts. I didn’t think it was possible to die from annoyance, but I may make history tonight.

Even though the voice came from behind, I don’t turn around yet. Priming myself, I throw back the shot of reposado I’ve been holding, letting the tequila rest on my tongue before I swallow. The liquor isn’t top shelf, but neither are my tastes.

“I’m your biggest fan,” the stranger continues, closer this time. His voice is low and hollow with a tinge of a wheeze, and I’ve heard it before, I think, but I’m not positive.

Still taking my time, I pick up the lime wedge resting on the napkin next to my empty shot glass. I bite into it, and my tongue prickles around my piercing while my tastebuds acclimate to the hit of acidity. My eyes water, but I enjoy it. Nothing is ever too sour for me.

When I finally turn around, I’ve kept this guy waiting for at least forty-five seconds and I’m not sorry in the slightest. Being approached in public is hit or miss for a camgirl. Making him wait—and gauging his reaction—is an easy way to figure out what I’m working with.

The man in front of me is equal parts sweatshirt and human even though it’s late March, on the muggy side of spring. His frayed cotton hood covers dark hair curling around the edges of the fabric, which has faded to a deep gray brown. The printed design on the front is cracked like a dry lakebed.

Needless to say, it’s not what I wear when I hit a bar to get laid, but different strokes and all.

“Oh, so you did know I was here,” he remarks, canting his head now that we’re facing each other. The motion illuminates his face with a touch of neon green from the sign behind the bar, and he vaguely resembles a drunk koala or a sober sloth. “Did you hear me? I said I was your biggest fan.”

What little patience I had leaves my body faster than a situationship dissolving at the end of a tropical vacation. I typically don’t mind when customers approach me in public, but this night has been a bust. I’m already drinking by myself in Dupont Circle’s only dive bar, dressed like I’m out for girls’ night—except my girls aren’t here.

I’m lonely, bored, and the entitled jackass who approached me is the whipped cream and cherry on this bullshit sundae.

Sighing, I let my shoulders slump and make no effort to hide my reaction to his whole… thing . Responding would be polite, if not borderline expected, but let’s be real: I’m neither polite nor predictable.

I pick up my second shot of reposado and shift the glass from one hand to the other, still keeping my expression flat. Hoodie Man watches my motions too closely, tracking the path of the tequila before vacillating between my tits and my mouth. Eventually, he settles on my tits, and the corners of his lips rise.

Without a word, I throw the tequila back right as he says, “No response? You could at least answer a guy who tips you every week.”

The tequila catches in my throat, and the swell of reactions arising in me is tsunami-level.

The first of my many reactions is irritation. I never choke on shots—ever. Choking on liquor is for bitches, and I (in the negative sense of the term) am not a bitch. Yes, in the fun sense (i.e., Cora Flores is the baddest bitch in the bar tonight ) I am, in fact, a total bitch. But in the way of drinking? Absolutely not.

The second of my many reactions is anger. I don’t tolerate entitlement from men.

But the most notable of my reactions is curiosity. Who is this guy, how much has he tipped me, and where did he find so much audacity under short notice?

“Did you stalk me here?” I ask outright, keeping my tone neutral.

His brows smoosh together when he frowns. “I told you: I didn’t know you lived around here.”

He’s lying.

“I follow you on all your socials,” he goes on, taking a step closer. “Did you get my tip last week?”

“I got a lot of tips last week.”

And when he takes another step, I can only hope whatever comes out of his mouth next isn’t—

“I’m Tyler.”

Motherfucker . He’s one of my regulars.

“Of course you are,” I murmur, exhaling while taking a step back.

Like we’re in a choreographed dance, Tyler advances. “I thought you’d be happy to see me. You’re supposed to—”

“You know what? I’d love to stick around, but I have a private session, so I have to go fuck myself,” I interject, wishing I could tell him to do the same. I gesture to the bar’s exit. “I should head out.”

“But we just started talking,” he half-chuckles, half-protests. Another step forward.

I look him up and down, careful not to be too obvious. I’m no athlete, but he doesn’t look fast. Bet I could outrun him. And while I didn’t envision spending my Saturday night sprinting around Dupont Circle, I’d do it if the alternative were being shoved into the back of this deadbeat’s creeper van.

That is, assuming he has a van. They’re actually pretty expensive and the insurance is no joke. And now that I think about it, Tyler’s actually giving creeper sedan vibes—not van.

“Stay and have a drink with me.”

“Hell no.”

Tyler’s eyebrows shoot up and he pulls his head back. “Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously,” I reply before I pull a twenty out of my purse and place it on the bar.

Next to me, Tyler has progressed to full-on sneering. “Do you know how much—”

“How much you’ve tipped me?” I interrupt, shrugging. “There are, like, nineteen guys named Tyler watching me stream on any given night because Tyler is quite possibly the most common and yet least interesting name on record. And in addition to having the most mind-numbingly generic name ever, you’re all horrendously bad tippers.”

Tyler’s glare darkens. He takes a step forward, hulking in a futile effort to seem bigger, but he ends up looking pillowy. “You b—”

“Bitch?” I question, eyebrow raised. “Even your insults are mind-numbingly generic. I’ve called myself a bitch three times today already.”

Furious, Tyler moves, ready to get in my face and—

“There you are,” a familiar voice cuts in—a grotesquely familiar voice.

Oh, I hate this voice.

I don’t just hate its pompous combination of a faint Mid-Atlantic accent and the clean enunciations of an Ivy League humanities major. I hate how easily I can pick it out of a crowd. I hate how it sparks something inside me—something hot and prickly that I can’t ignore.

My lip curls involuntarily as an arm winds around my waist. Alarmed, I look up—right into Everett Logan’s green eyes.

“You didn’t answer my text,” Everett comments before he tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear.

A few things about this turn of events strike me as odd.

The first: Everett Logan doesn’t look like himself tonight. In lieu of his usual button-down and business slacks, he’s wearing a black t-shirt, thick-rimmed glasses, and a baseball cap. In fact, if I didn’t know his voice—and those unmistakable green eyes—I wouldn’t have recognized him.

The second: Everett Logan didn’t text me. To be clear: Everett Logan doesn’t text me. Ever.

The third thing to strike me as odd: beyond a handshake, Everett Logan has never touched me before tonight.

My expression must match my confusion because Everett lets out a gentle laugh before glancing at Tyler. “Oh no,” he murmurs, sporting a cross between a smile and a smirk. “What trouble has my wife gotten herself into now?”

I freeze. It’s so loud in the bar that I assume I misheard him.

Equally perplexed, Tyler’s eyebrows ascend. “Your wife?”

“My wife,” Everett emphasizes, tightening his grip on my waist.

I didn’t mishear. He called me his wife .

Everett Logan is many things. To name a few: He’s a lawyer at the Environmental Protection Agency, a policy analyst, an aspiring politician, and the lifelong best friend to Lander, my best friend Valeria’s fiancé. He’s also a little ratfucker.

And yes, our lives are forever intertwined because our best friends are in love, not because he’s my husband.

Tyler looks as disoriented as I feel—maybe more—because his brows are pinched so tightly that the separation between the two is basically negligible. “You’re married?” he questions, now an octave higher and raspier at the end.

“Two years now,” Everett says without missing a beat.

He’s using this thick, syrupy tone I’ve never heard before, but it’s effective. Almost at once, Tyler’s brow unfurrows and the lines on his face soften.

Everett extends his hand. “Martin Wells.” The lie slides off his tongue so easily that I nearly miss it.

“Tyler,” he answers while shaking Everett’s hand.

Everett nods. “A great name.” It isn’t . “My father’s name is Tyler.” It’s not . “He goes by his middle name though—James.” Where the hell is he getting this? “What’s your last name?”

“Shepherd,” Tyler responds, but he clips the end of his response like he only just realized he was giving out information he had no intention of sharing.

Everett bobs his chin, and I swear there’s a tinge of smugness behind the subdued smile on his face. He gives my waist another squeeze, pressing the bare skin where my crop top dangles above the waistband of my skirt. “Princess, tell me how you know Tyler,” he goes on, staring at me now.

Like Everett, I too am many things. A princess—least of all, his princess—definitely isn’t one of those things. My lips separate, ready to establish that I’ll never be this guy’s princess, when he boops me on the nose with the tip of his finger.

He fucking boops me.

“I said,” Everett presses, drawing out the words, “tell me how you know Tyler, princess.”

And usually when Everett speaks, his voice is flat. In fact, nearly everything about Everett is flat. His affect. His personality. His textbook smart boy/rich boy button-downs and slacks. From his slow, measured sentences to the way his shoes always match his belt, Everett screams bureaucracy. He practically wafts it like cologne, as if he’s politics made whole.

But tonight, when he calls me his wife— his princess— his voice isn’t flat for once. No, it’s jagged and piercing and a touch of a threat lives in it, buried behind the pretty words.

I don’t care.

I’m so entirely out of fucks to give when it comes to Everett Logan that I bet collectors on eBay are auctioning my rare, out of production fucks for a markup. I refuse to answer him.

He stares at me.

I stare back.

Five entire seconds pass.

…He’s still staring.

And I hate when his stare is drawn out and indecipherable like this. Because like I said, nearly everything about Everett is flat.

The glaring exception is his pretty face.

It’s so indescribably pretty . In the seven months we’ve known each other, we haven’t spent much time together—nearly every moment against our wills—but I’ve witnessed people stopping in their tracks to gawk at him. time, we were out celebrating Valeria’s birthday, and Everett sneezed. I swear, half the people in the bar said bless you like they had been waiting for any opportunity to speak to him.

It’s Tyler who finally breaks the standoff between my new husband and me, saying, “Lilith and I just met.”

Lilith Lace. My camming alias.

“You’re a fan?” Everett asks, facing Tyler once more. “I’m not surprised. She’s amazing, isn’t she? I’m so proud of her.”

It’s the biggest lie he’s told tonight. Everett would never watch me stream. The mere thought of his credit card attached to a camming site would surely keep him awake at night, fretting about his political aspirations.

“You see, Tyler,” Everett goes on, “I know you’re a fan of my wife and I love it—I really do. And since you’re such a big fan, you understand how important it is for her to be safe, right?”

“Sure,” Tyler answers, bobbing his head. “I’d never hurt her, I—”

“But someone else might,” Everett interjects, tightening his grip. “Some other guy—someone without your decency—might hurt her. Since we’re friends now, Tyler Shepherd, let me level with you: If anyone were to hurt my fucking princess, I would be very, very unhappy about it.”

My heart is a traitorous skank for increasing her pace when the words my fucking princess pass over Everett’s lips.

“You weren’t going to hurt my wife, were you, Tyler? You wouldn’t do something so unbelievably reckless—not a smart guy like you. You know if anyone were to come near her without my permission, he would regret it for a long, long time. You know I would make him pay a thousand times over. You know I would viscerally destroy him, right?”

Tyler shakes his head.

Barely moving, Everett digs into his pocket, takes out his phone, and snaps a picture of Tyler. He glances at his screen. “Hey, this is a good picture of you. Super clear and identifiable. Do you want me to text it to you?”

Surprised, Tyler blinks. “No,” he finally stammers. “I’m good.” His eyes drift to me, pleading briefly before he realizes—oh yes—my fucks are still out of stock.

“Great. Well, take it easy.” Everett raises his chin.

I’m dumfounded, but Everett’s expression doesn’t betray his emotions: I can’t read a damn thing on his face.

Without a word, he leads me to the dancefloor with his arm still wrapped around me.

Once we’re in the fray, he keeps one hand on the nape of my neck and the other on the small of my back. We haven’t been this close to each other since the night we met.

That night, like tonight, the club was dark, the music was pounding, and he held my hand far too long for a handshake. Later that night, he insulted me to my core—and I poured a gin and tonic over his head.

After a beat, he nods and says, “He’s gone,” before he separates from me.

Now, I can see Everett more clearly. The green bar lights illuminate the angles of his face, making him look like a neoclassical sculpture of an elemental god. And like a god, he’s handsome—and pissed off. “You’re getting a restraining order.”

“You’re a psychopath,” I snap. “What the hell was all that?”

“ I’m a psychopath? You’re alone on a Saturday night, drinking in what simply has to be the smallest crop top in the District, and you’re goading dangerous men.”

“Leave my crop top out of this,” I warn. “If I have to waste my time being stalked, I may as well look hot while I do it.”

Everett inhales so forcefully through his nostrils that I hear it. “He probably had a knife in his pocket.”

“Spare me the histrionics. He was probably just happy to see me.” I wave my hand. “I’m a woman, Everett. I’m vigilant. I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. I was fine. Irritated, yes, but fine.”

Everett’s shoulders dip minutely. He releases another slow exhale through his nostrils, the kind that would propel smoke if he were a dragon. He steps forward. “How often does this happen? How often do fans approach you like this?”

He’s not going to like my answer, which is precisely why I gleefully respond, “A few times a month.”

Sure enough, Everett’s broad shoulders tighten once again and he straightens his spine, giving himself the height to stare down his nose at me. “For fuck’s sake,” he grits. “ A few times a month ?”

“I know you don’t actually care.”

“I don’t,” he snaps with far too much force for someone who doesn’t care. He notices it too. He raises his hand, hovering it in the air between us and centering himself before he says, “You’re getting a restraining order.”

“You have no say in anything I do.”

Everett’s eyes continue to bore into me. I stare back, waiting for something to dissect—an expression or a shift in his movements—but the guy is good.

If I want to dissect him, I’ll have to rattle him.

I take a step closer, keeping eye contact. “Let me clarify, Everett. I tolerate you. I grin and bear it because I love my best friend. I waited my entire life to find someone like Valeria Fuentes, and if enduring your insufferable presence will allow her to marry your best friend, I’ll do it because I would do anything for someone I love.”

He bows to put himself level with me. “Let me clarify,” he counters, speaking slowly, letting the syllables drag. “The way you love Valeria is child’s play compared to how much I love Lander Dawson. I would raze cities to the ground and salt the earth for him. I would crawl over broken glass for him. I would readily give him any of my organs if he needed one to live.”

“Hopefully he takes your heart,” I cut in, unimpressed.

Everett’s brow lifts. “Clearly, we have one thing in common: We’ll sacrifice for the people we love. So yes, I also tolerate you. I grin and I bear it, and I will continue to grin and bear it—”

“And stalk me on the streets of Dupont, apparently—”

“Tonight was my last night out,” he blurts out, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard Everett raise his voice—albeit barely. “My campaign begins next week, and this was my last chance to go out and drink like a civilian. Lo and behold, there you were, talking to some degenerate.”

His campaign— of course . Everett’s first obstacle in his lifelong goal of becoming the President of the United States (but actually) is getting elected to Congress as DC’s congressional representative. After talking about it for months, he’s finally on the ticket for the primary election in June.

I couldn’t care less if I tried.

“Were you bored?” he goes on. “Do you need danger to feel something?”

“I feel everything—profoundly, I might add. For example, right now, I’m annoyed out of my dewy, flawless skin.”

He lets out a slow exhale. “Tell me what to do next time.”

“You’re welcome to ask questions, but do not— ” I emphasize, “—lie in front of me. I’m not your wife, you’re not proud of my career, and you definitely wouldn’t ruin a man if he hurt me. Don’t pretend any of those things are the case.”

His jaw squares when he clenches his teeth, but he doesn’t challenge me. All I get is a stiff nod.

Over it, I take out my phone and open the app I use to cam. Before I left my condo, I got a request from one of my highest paying regulars—a whale, as we call them—for a private session. I don’t cam on Saturdays, but standing here with Everett and his sanctimonious, beautiful face while I’m annoyed and tipsy—and maybe the tiniest bit tingly from him touching me—I decide to bend the rules. I accept.

“I have a private session,” I announce before I brush past Everett on my way to the exit. I don’t say goodbye.

“I’m walking you home,” he informs me.

I saw this coming, so I don’t fight him. The gesture isn’t chivalrous; it’s inescapable. Yes, Everett Logan is many things—including a temporary dogsitter and next-door neighbor while Valeria and Lander are traveling for spring break. For the last week, the only things separating us have been eight inches of drywall and seven months of pure distaste.

Sharing a common wall with a guy who once refused to associate with me for fear of jeopardizing his shot at becoming the President of the United States of America isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever endured, but it’s up there with mono, curtain bangs, and dropping out of my PhD program three years ago. I’m sick of hearing him—of knowing he’s around.

more week. more week until he’s gone.

We walk. Beyond a glance, he doesn’t acknowledge me, so I don’t bother with small talk. I do watch him though, noting the ease of his posture as he strolls along the rain-wet sidewalk. Springtime in DC always brings bouts of unexpected rainfall, and we had one this afternoon. Our roads are shit, so everything is slick and uneven, but Everett’s stride is still borderline graceful.

He glances at me, catching me off guard for once, and I look away too quickly. He definitely saw me. Annoyed, I keep my gaze forward. Eventually, he looks away.

A few seconds later, he looks at me again and I pretend not to notice, but I do. I notice.

In the Halcyon, the elevator ride to the tenth floor is quiet. We post in opposite corners, and I pretend to look at my phone, but I’m watching him.

He glances at me for the third time tonight. This time, he doesn’t look away. We’re illuminated by the warm yellow lights in the car’s ceiling, and his gaze travels over me, stuttering on spots like my septum piercing, my mouth, my bare stomach—or maybe my bellybutton piercing.

“You’re welcome,” he says, breaking the silence.

Asshole. My eyes narrow of their own volition. I’m about to say I would rather lock myself in the trunk of Tyler’s creeper sedan than thank him—when the elevator comes to an abrupt stop on the eighth floor, and our faces descend into more pronounced frowns by the second.

Watching my best friend fall deeply in love with a guy whose best friend is a pompous snob? Painful.

Sharing a wall with that pompous snob for two weeks? Annoying.

But getting stuck in an elevator with him? Agony.