Nineteen

CORA

I hate how much I miss him.

By the time the world’s largest hibiscus arrangement arrives at the Halcyon on Tuesday afternoon, I know I’m fighting a losing battle.

Rich boys usually buy roses. Hydrangeas. Peonies and stereotypical old money shit. Everett Logan? He chooses a flower native to the Philippines—a flower that straight up dies the minute it enters a climate like the Mid-Atlantic—and somehow sends a pristine arrangement to my door every single day.

The flowers arrive alongside countless messages I’ve left unanswered.

Politics Boy

Just took a long walk. I saw this old couple, and frankly, they looked annoyed with each other. The wife was done with his shit. You would have loved it.

Politics Boy

I’m sorry and I miss you. I just watched a recording of one of your streams where you handcuffed yourself behind your back while blindfolded. Houdini shit. Fucking hell, woman, you’re talented. Wish I could tell you to your face.

Politics Boy

I know if you ever respond, the first thing you’ll probably say is you don’t accept my apology and I should go fuck my own face. Joke’s on you: In high school, I tried to fuck my own face and couldn’t reach, so that’s off the table.

I’m re-reading this and I can’t tell if it’s obvious I’m joking.

Okay, I’m lying: I did once try to fuck my own face.

That’s also a lie, and I would never lie to you again. I’m so sorry.

…fuck, I’m caught in a lie loop, aren’t I? Maybe I am a liar.

Politics Boy

I’m sorry.

Politics Boy

Come to the debate. You don’t have to forgive me yet. I don’t deserve it yet. But I want to know you’re there.

Politics Boy

Please.

Valeria examines one of the hibiscus blooms before she faces me. “You know what I’m going to say.”

I glare over my plate of bulgogi tacos. “And I don’t want to hear it, Miss ‘Have Fun with It.’ That’s what you said when I told you he fingered me. I followed your advice and look where it got me. And why? Do you know what I am? Fun .”

“So fun,” Essie chimes in flatly.

“Yeah, the funnest,” Valeria tacks on.

I narrow my eyes at my two best friends, who are supposed to be helping me demolish the biggest taco order the District has ever seen, not ruthlessly stabbing me in the back. “Yep. I’m already so fun . So, next time your advice is to ‘have fun with it,’ reconsider. I’m all good.”

“Can you please not blame Valeria for your failure to clock a peen piercing?” Essie protests. “Just admit you misread him—which is fine! You’re human, Cora. You can’t know everything.”

My jaw drops. “Can’t know everyth—Do you two hate me? Is this some kind of long con to ruin my life? God, what’s next—that I should forgive him?”

The glance they exchange makes me want to pull my hair out.

“I can’t believe you two,” I snap—and I’m so annoyed that I actually push my tacos away.

“Cora, you obviously like the guy,” Essie offers. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be complicated.”

“Nope. First of all, you,” I begin, pointing at her. “Dalton would whip that big shit out and find a way to make it fit into your teeny pixie pussy in a heartbeat if you asked, but you refuse . And you.” I face Valeria. “Tell me all the shit Lander had to do to get you. Seriously, list it out. I’ve got all day.”

“I’m not suggesting that you forgive Everett,” Valeria clarifies, batting my finger away. “Personally, I wouldn’t forgive easily either. In fact, I would make him prove how sorry he is. But you should at least consider why you’re mad. Are you punishing him for what he did, or for all the things other horrible people did without consequences?”

“She’s right,” Essie chimes in. “Your parents. Felix. You’ve never gotten closure.”

“We’ve been over this hundreds of times: I don’t need revenge to feel whole.”

“But maybe feeling whole isn’t the point,” Valeria replies. “Maybe it’s about feeling free.”

My lips separate, but I don’t speak. And because she’s my best friend, Valeria doesn’t push. She knows she said enough.

But the thing is, I am free— and have been since I was twenty-one. I basically started my life over from scratch. Of course I’m free.

Valeria slides her chair back. “Babe, I’m sorry, but I have to study for my midterms.”

Of course. And if Valeria has a midterm, so does Essie. “Fine. Love you,” I say, accepting her hug when she weaves around the table.

“I love you too.” She kisses my cheek. “Text me.”

Once Valeria leaves, Essie reaches across the table. I take her hand and say, “Essie, you’re the most rational person I know. What would you do?”

“What would I do if a guy avoided me for months while he was secretly laying the groundwork to make me his mistress?”

I nod.

“I’d make him grovel for my pussy,” she replies brightly even though a succinct line of filth just passed over her lips. She tosses her head to the side, flipping her bangs before she picks up her tote bag. “Not beg, grovel . I would make that asshole beg for it on his knees, and I wouldn’t let him stand. I would keep him where he belongs: eye level with my pussy.” She kisses her fingertips and holds her hand out to me once more. “Love you! I’ll text you when my paper is done.”

“Love you too, Ess.”

As soon as she’s gone, I start cleaning. Distracting myself. My bookshelves need rearranging, I decide. Genres? Overrated. The alphabet? Stale. I organize books by horniness with Atlas Shrugged at one end and Pride and Prejudice at the other (yes, even hornier than the monster smut I got into after my ex cheated) because nothing will ever be more erotic than Mr. Darcy bribing Wickham.

It’s past eleven when I’m done, and Everett hasn’t texted me. I know it’s because the debate is tomorrow—the debate he asked me to attend.

My thumb hovers over my phone screen for the hundredth time today, and I imagine what it would be like to cave and accept his apology. It could be simple. After all, I want him. I want to fuck his impeccable body and his flawless face and his evergreen eyes and his clever insults and his brilliant brain and his pierced cock and his freaky libido and his mouth when it enunciates the word whore.

But he lied to me.

A clatter next door interrupts my glowering. A moan follows—and another. Valeria and Lander are clearly going at it, which is no surprise because Lander can’t go more than two hours in the same room as Valeria without trying to seduce her.

After the next moan, I decide I need ice cream.

I grab my keys and earbuds and head out, envisioning a massive, intimidating, and delicious concoction—only to find a massive, intimidating, and delicious man standing a few feet away.

“Dalton?” I pull out my earbuds. “What are you doing here?”

Dalton Cavendish sways in his spot outside Valeria and Lander’s door. “Oh,” he mutters, running his big hand over his hair. When he steps closer to me, I notice the faintest dusting of shadow on his chin. “I was in the neighborhood for happy hour.”

“Don’t most happy hours end at six?”

He nods, not denying it, swaying on his feet once again.

“Well, it’s past eleven,” I comment, meeting him midway. “Have you been drinking all night?”

Dalton looks around the empty hallway. “I’m just here to see Lander.”

“He’s busy. It’s Tuesday, so naturally, he’s worshipping Valeria. Loudly.”

“It’s Monday.”

“It’s very much Tuesday, Dalton.”

Eyebrows high, Dalton lets out a groan. “Shit,” he mutters. “I’ll call Everett.” He turns and begins to walk down the hall.

“Wait,” I call after him. “Hold on.”

Dalton rotates and faces me—bleary eyed, clearly wasted, and clearly not in the best phase of his life.

I know a lot about estrangement. Dalton’s father is an asshole, and we all know he and his mother are better off. But there’s no easy way to deal with a family falling apart.

I cock my head in the direction of my condo. “Do you want to hang out?”

Dalton’s wide shoulders relax. “Depends,” he replies. “Are you going to let me smoke weed in your condo, or are you going to be all uptight about it like Lander, who’s convinced I’m going to hotbox that damn puppy?”

***

“You would have been a great therapist,” Dalton mentions while shoving his hand into the bag of tortilla chips. He puts three in his mouth at once. “Top notch.”

“Hey, thanks,” I say, taking the bag for myself.

“Did you plan on becoming one?” he asks, and I’m not surprised he remembered I was a psych post-grad. Dalton remembers everything he hears, which is why he’s such a good conversationalist.

“A writer, actually. I wanted to turn my research into a book, but therapy was on the table if the book didn’t pan out.”

“That’s bad ass,” Dalton murmurs before he sinks lower in the metal patio chair he’s occupying on my balcony. “Hey.” He looks at me. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How long are you going to torture Everett?”

“I’ll answer if you tell me how long you’re going to torture Essie.” I take another chip. “I don’t understand you two at all. You’re both clearly down to fuck and you spend an inordinate amount of time together alone , but you’re not fucking.”

“How do you know we’re not?”

“She’d tell me. Plus…she’d be walking funny, right?”

Dalton smirks. “Yeah, we’re not.” And then the smirk fades. “I’m not in a good place right now. I don’t want to drag anyone into my mishaps—especially her.”

“I’ll smoke to that,” I reply, motioning for Dalton to pass the blunt we’re sharing. I take another hit, and when I blow the smoke out, it lingers in the air between us, cloying and thick until it fades into the balmy summer night.

“Your turn. When are you going to put Ev out of his misery?”

“Would you?”

“Probably. Nobody has ever wanted me that badly.” When I shoot Dalton a look, he scoffs. “I saw his hand after you got shot. He eviscerated that bitch. Shit, I was ready to say fuck the friendship and make out with him, and I wasn’t even the one he was defending.”

“Fighting doesn’t impress me.”

“It shouldn’t,” Dalton clarifies. “But the most composed guy in DC, quite possibly the entire DMV region, transformed into a werewolf because someone hurt you.”

I raise a shoulder. “He lied. Did you know he had feelings for me for months?”

“Since the first time he saw you? Of course I knew—and you did too, right? You were fully aware he wanted to lay on the floor and, like, let you use him as a prop for hours on end.”

“He never said anything to me.”

“Me neither, but I still knew. I mean, we all knew. Being around you two is like…shit, it’s like the horniness is contagious. I’ve left rooms where you two have been bickering and headed straight home for a cold shower.”

“Well, he has an unhinged way of showing it.” I let out a breath. “Dalton, I don’t like being lied to.”

“Why not?” he asks, canting his head.

The question is inane, frankly, but I answer anyway: “Because it sucks.”

“No, give me the real reason,” he presses. “Why are you so particular about honesty?”

“Because manipulation isn’t a part of a healthy relationship, to start—”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t really know someone who doesn’t think you deserve the truth—”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve met liars,” I insist, getting annoyed. “I’ve known them. I used—”

Dalton’s eyebrows rise. I don’t finish my sentence, but we both knew what I was about to say. I used to be one .

“What the hell was all that? What kind of mind trick did you just play on me?”

“My father was a lawyer,” he reminds me needlessly before he takes another hit. “Do you know why I like you? It’s because you’re doing Cora. You wear what you want. You say what you want. You do what you want. You weren’t always like that though, were you?”

I take another hit instead of looking at Dalton and I remember all those times I snuck out of my bedroom window in high school. Some nights, I felt like I couldn’t breathe until I was jumping onto the soft patch of grass below and running through the backyard to the alley.

When I look in Dalton’s direction, he’s watching me, eyes bloodshot and heavy but fixed on my face. On Thanksgiving last year, I’d only known Dalton for a couple months, but I still spent the holiday with him, his mother, Valeria, and Lander. The night ended a lot like this: with Valeria and Lander off fucking, and Dalton and me getting stoned. He’d mentioned it was the first Thanksgiving without his father. I’d mentioned it was my third.

Of course he remembered.

“Everett isn’t perfect, but he tries to be. He doesn’t have a choice. Warren…” Dalton grimaces. “I’m not going to make excuses for him, but you know how people’s minds work. You know that sometimes, the things we do to survive aren’t true to self.”

I do know. I know better than anyone, maybe.

“It’s just contradictory,” I point out. “He’s fully capable of being charming. Like, a couple weeks ago, this customer was hassling me in a bar. Everett managed to charm the creep into giving him his full name in the span of a sentence. But he’s also—”

“He’s a dick,” Dalton fills in. “He’s sarcastic and he’s cocky and he thinks everyone is annoying except for, like, five people, but that’s you too, Cora. It’s why he called you, not me, when he was panicking about his dad at Georgetown. I had nothing going on that night.”

The revelation is unlike anything I’ve felt before. Everett could have called Dalton, but he chose me. It tingles under my skin like the prickle of the weed we’re smoking.

I sigh heavily. “Will he lie to me again?”

Dalton’s head shake is quick. “Probably not.”

“How do I know?”

“Easy. One day, you decided you didn’t want to be a liar anymore. Have you told a lie since then?”

It’s my turn to shake my head.

“If he ever hurts you, you can hold both him and me personally responsible.” Dalton dips his chin. “But I’m certain he won’t.”

Breathing out, I take my phone out of my pocket. “I think you would have been a good therapist.”

He scoffs. “I don’t know why people underestimate my intelligence. I got my MBA at Harvard, for fuck’s sake. I make more money than any of you.”

“Hypothesizing here, but it’s probably because of the time you thought unicorns were real animals that went extinct.”

Dalton considers it. “Yeah, that was bad,” he admits before chuckling. “Would have been sick though, right?”

“Definitely,” I agree before I type a text to Everett.

Me

If someone betrayed your trust, what would it take for you to forgive them?

Within a minute of me sending the text, my phone buzzes with an email from Everett. Subject line: I looked up the definition of “grovel” tonight .

I open it, expecting to see another apology, but that’s not what I get.

It’s a link.

Tap .

And as the page loads, my eyebrows rise millimeter by millimeter until they can’t go any higher, until all I can do is let out a bewildered chuckle and say, “Oh shit .”