Fourteen

EVERETT

Cora Flores is going to eat me alive. Any day now, she’s going to unhinge her jaw and make a meal out of me, and I’m never going to see it coming.

I can’t wait.

This is so fucking exciting. She is so fucking exciting. My heartbeat is a telegraph key, and my dick is half-hard the entire time I’m biking home from Tryst until I nearly get sideswiped by an MPD car on Connecticut Avenue.

Then, in this maniacal way, I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t get hit because I could have been cool about it and clinched the police and first responders’ votes.

Then, in this unsettling way, I remember I’m running for office. I’m running for office and I just fingerbanged a camgirl in a bathroom. In a bathroom.

I realize I should be smarter about this shit, but at the same time…

Worth it. So fucking worth it. Decades from now, my future presidential memoir is going to have enough shockers to power a small country.

When I get to the tenth floor of the Halcyon, I head straight to her place to pick up where we left off—until my phone begins vibrating.

Incoming call from GOVERNOR LOGAN.

Almost a week ago, when he basically abducted me from the hospital, my father and I had a miserable talk about stakes while his driver circled the District. I’d wondered if the car ride itself was a message: We could have gone anywhere to talk, but he wanted me to feel it. The emissions. The wasted fuel. Don’t screw this up, son.

Deep breath. “Dad.”

“Everett.” My father’s cheerful, rosy tone comes through the phone. He’s alone, I know, because he isn’t using the fake Virginian accent he adopted when he ran for his first term. “How are you?”

Horny and annoyed, thanks for asking . “Fine.”

“Well, I’m calling to commend you and your friend on a successful outing. I saw the pictures.”

“It was pleasant.” I fingered her in the bathroom . “Cora is good at keeping up with appearances.” Her pussy piercings are glorious . “You don’t have to worry about her.” She’s so fucking tight.

“And she’ll continue to follow the guidance on campaign attire, I take it.”

“She did today.” There was nothing but arousal under her little skirt when I put her in an Uber back to the Halcyon.

“Great. You’re such a good boy, Everett. I knew I could count on you.”

“My pleasure.” Speaking of pleasure…

But in the millisecond interlude between me ending the call and raising my hand to knock, someone calls my name from the other end of the hallway.

Lander.

My best friend, back a day early from spring break, is striding in my direction with two rolling suitcases. He’s sort of looking at me and smiling, but he’s mostly focusing on his fiancée’s ass because Lander Dawson is legitimately obsessed with Valeria.

Valeria Fuentes is small and pretty, and she gives off a softness I can’t pinpoint. It could be her gentle voice accented with her native Spanish. It could be her cartoon-style doe eyes. I really don’t know. But talking to my best friend’s fiancée is like talking to an angel—one who makes a living orgasming online. She’s also so talented at Muay Thai that I swear she once gave me a concussion just by glaring at me when I delivered a particularly abrasive quip to Cora.

And speak of the devil, the door in front of me flies open and Cora—who would eviscerate me with insults if I ever called her soft—lets out a delighted squeal I didn’t know she was even capable of making.

“You’re early,” she exclaims before breezing past me to throw her good arm around Valeria. They hug so tightly that I genuinely worry they might crush each other into a fine powder.

Then a pair of arms wraps around me. Lander hugs me like he has hundreds of times in the twenty-eight years we’ve been best friends—quite literally our entire lives.

When he pulls back, he puts his hands on my cheeks and stares into my eyes. The guy has good eyes. Always has. They’re bright blue and precisely the shade one would only expect to see on a mythical Pegasus. It’s no wonder Valeria gave in and went out with him after he spent weeks devising elaborate schemes of seduction. My best friend’s eyes are so dazzling, in fact, that I almost forget to lie when he says, “You been good, Ev?”

His question holds a thousand pounds and layers of innuendoes and insinuations that I uniquely understand because I know this guy so well. Almost nothing gets by Lander Dawson—precisely why I asked him to help me with my campaign.

I wonder if he knows I have Cora’s underwear in my pocket.

But still, I lie and respond with, “Yeah, Lan. I’ve been good.”

He’s not convinced, but he nods anyway and goes to greet Cora.

While she’s hugging Lander, Cora looks over his arm at me and parts her lips; she doesn’t speak though. We both know what’s happening.

When I leave today, we won’t see each other. Hear each other. Spend time together. The casual moments afforded by our forced proximity are about to be severed—reduced to mandated outings unless we lay our intentions bare and ask for each other.

But I don’t say anything. Neither does she.

Shit .

…I think I need a new strategy.