Forty-Two

EVERETT

The room is so quiet that a toilet flushes audibly in the bathroom down the hall, and I actually think it’s an apt metaphor for this dinner party: a complete shitshow.

A few seats over, Dalton starts clapping, but he’s tipsy and his hands are big, so it sounds slow and sarcastic until Alyssa jabs him in the ribs with her elbow. “ Ow, fuck ,” he hisses.

“Get your shit together, Dalton,” she snaps, shooting him a pointed glare. He rights himself immediately.

Then I look to my side where Cora is sitting with her jaw lowered. When our eyes connect, she presses her lips together, but she’s obviously stunned.

So, I smile at her.

It’s not a big smile. It’s not even a real one. It’s just a small lift at the corner of my mouth before I say the words again: “I’m withdrawing my candidacy for congressional representative.”

And Cora smiles back—a real smile—and I know this is right.

I’m not sure what Sisyphus would have done if he ever reached the top of the mountain, but I’m certain I just did. Now, all I want is to be with Cora.

“So,” I go on, realizing I’ve been standing and gazing at this woman for, like, fifteen seconds too long. “So…” I scan the room and come to an abrupt halt when I lock eyes with my father once more.

I was wrong before. Now , he’s going to murder me.

“So, I guess we’re done here. Drive safe. Parking validation is at the bar,” I finish before chugging my drink.

When nobody moves, I place my glass on the table, take Cora’s hand, and lead us out of the room. It’s the catalyst. As we’re retreating, I hear the hushed whispers, the scratch of chairs against hardwood, and footsteps.

Cora and I barely make it into the paneled hallway when my father says my name: “Everett. Everett . Everett Carlisle Logan, if you don’t stop right now—”

“Jesus Christ, Warren, give it a rest,” Alyssa orders.

When I turn around, she’s emerging from the private room, leading the pack of our friends and glaring at my father.

“Excuse me?” he demands, drawing his head back in surprise. “Alyssa, I’ll talk to my son—”

“He’s my son,” she interrupts, jabbing her slender finger directly into my father’s chest. Her tone makes it sound as if she’s been dying to say those very words for decades.

Behind my father, my mother doesn’t even object. She just stares at Alyssa with her brow knotted as much as her Botox allows.

Unfazed, Alyssa takes a step closer to my father. “You think Everett didn’t talk to me all those times he begged to stay over because he couldn’t stand to be in the same house as you?”

The insinuation makes my father’s eyes narrow to slits. He advances toward her as he says, “Alyssa, I swear to god—”

“Think very hard before you threaten my mother,” Dalton interjects, putting himself between my father and Alyssa—and unlike Alyssa, Dalton could snap my father in half like a strand of uncooked angel hair pasta.

My father’s glare moves to Dalton. “You don’t get to tell me—”

“Go,” I cut in, speaking across the length of the hallway. “I paid for this shitty party, so I can tell you to do anything I want. Go. We’re done here.”

He cranes around Dalton to see me, and his expression is a combination of disdain and desperation. “Are you out of your mind? You don’t have to do this. You can still—”

“I’m done,” I reiterate. “Find a new asset.”

My father falters, gaze furious and eyebrow raised. “What kind of life are you going to have when you’re left with nothing, and the world sees everything ?”

Everything.

He wields the word as a threat, but I gave that word to Cora. He doesn’t get to use it against us.

“I guess we’ll find out,” I answer, shrugging. “Go.”

“Yes, kindly fuck off back to Richmond,” Alyssa chimes in, standing on her toes to see over Dalton’s shoulder and waving her hand at my father as he leads my mother back into the private room.

“Wow,” Cora murmurs. “I might love her more than I love you.”

“Can’t fault you for that. Come on.”

We retreat to the room where Cora and I fooled around earlier. As soon as the door closes, Alyssa sweeps me into her arms for a hug before ruffling my hair and saying, “I’m so sorry, Everett.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine.”

Alyssa lets out a languid exhale and looks around. “Well, I don’t know about all of you, but I need a drink—or three. I’m hitting the bar.” She pats her son’s arm on the way out.

With Alyssa gone, nobody speaks. It’s Cora and me, Lander and Valeria, and Essie and Dalton all standing and exchanging silent glances.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Dalton who breaks the tension, saying, “Lander owes me ten thousand dollars.”

“Jesus,” Valeria mutters, pressing her hand against her forehead before she faces Lander and slaps his arm. “Will you stop making such big bets with him?”

“What?” Lander protests, rubbing his bicep and looking around. “Did anyone really think Everett was going to drop out?”

“I knew,” I mention, raising my shoulder in acceptance. “I think I knew a long time ago.”

“Ev, I thought you wanted this,” Lander responds. “If I had known…”

“I wanted to save the Earth,” I reply—and it’s really as simple as that: a kid who loved the environment and thought he could make a difference. “Running for office seemed like the best way to do it, but now that I’m deep into a campaign, I never get to talk about the issues that matter to me. Politics is all…subterfuge.” I exhale slowly. “This isn’t what I want.”

“What happened tonight though?” Dalton asks from behind the bar on the opposite side of the room where he’s pouring himself a drink.

“The last straw.” I face Cora. “You were right. How did you know my father leaked the story about you and Felix to 24N?”

“Felix made a throwaway comment about wanting to interview you because of the falling out taking place between you and your father,” she explains. “You and Warren are careful. Nobody would know you were having issues unless…”

“Unless my father colluded with Felix to leak the blackmail story. Motherfucker .” I shake my head. “It gets worse. He had us followed and has videos. He threatened to leak one if you and I didn’t join his campaign.”

Cora frowns. “What videos?”

“Like, videos. The alley, at least.”

“The alley,” she murmurs, eyes drifting to the side before her brows rise abruptly.

I nod. “I couldn’t let him do that to you. It was meant to be an attack on my campaign, but I don’t give a shit about the election anymore. That night…” I trail off.

“My first time,” she murmurs, reminding me of the revelation she shared a few weeks ago.

Right then, my love for everyone in the room multiplies tenfold. Nobody mentions how Cora’s livelihood comes from people seeing her naked and coming her brains out. They all get it. Cora cams on her terms, but she didn’t consent to sharing that video of us—and that’s a huge difference.

“Your father would seriously release a video of you fucking?” Essie chimes in from an armchair by the bookshelves. “He wouldn’t be uncomfortable with the idea of someone seeing his son’s…”

“Surprisingly nice dick,” Dalton fills in as he falls into the chair next to Essie.

“Yeah, that,” Essie finishes. “I mean, he’s your dad .”

“Didn’t occur to me.” But then again, he picked a video where I was clothed, but Cora’s tits and ass were out. He picked one where I choked her. Spit on her. Took her asshole. Degraded her.

In a malevolent, vile way, my father picked a video where I met his expectations for a man.

“The thing you have to understand about my family, Essie, is I’m only useful to my father as a political tool. I’m a thoroughbred. And when a thoroughbred can’t run…” I raise my shoulders. “It gets put down. A video of me doing anal in an alley would effectively destroy my political aspirations, but it wouldn’t hurt my father’s career or turn his voter base against him. He planned on releasing it and denouncing me. Hands clean.”

Dalton’s eyebrows are high enough to summit Denali. “Ev, you did anal in an alley?”

“You can do anal anywhere if you put your mind to it,” Lander chimes in, which prompts Valeria to slap him on the arm for a second time tonight, but it’s playful this time. Lander responds by wrapping his arms around her.

Valeria faces me with my best friend dangling over her like the world’s biggest, most classically handsome backpack. “What’s the plan?”

“Well, I was thinking we could box the leftover desserts and go watch David Attenborough,” I reply, gesturing over my shoulder.

The room is silent until Essie clears her throat. “That’s it. You’re just… done .”

“Sure, but I have Cora now. She’s all I need.”

“Are you kidding me?” Valeria blurts out, raising her voice. Her expression looks pained.

Lander’s face pulls into a frown. “Baby—”

“Don’t,” she objects, shaking him off before she faces me. “Everett, you’re going to let your psychopathic father blackmail you into silence? You’re going to let him threaten my best friend’s dignity?”

I glance at Cora before I look back at our friends. “Obviously, I would do anything for her, but it would just be revenge.” I face Cora again. “You were the one who said revenge wasn’t healthy. I assumed we would let it go.”

Dalton lets out a swooping whistle. “Everett Logan taking the high road? Wow, Cora, I want to commend you on undoing two centuries of cutthroat, elitist Ivy League breeding in a matter of weeks.”

“Dalton…” she begins, sighing.

“Seriously,” he continues. “I’ve taken longer solving the Wordle than Everett did getting his dick pierced.”

“Oh my god,” she blurts out. “Can you please stop and let me talk some sense into him?”

Dalton sinks into his chair. “Sorry, sorry.”

Cora faces me again, and this time, her expression is stoic—but there’s a spark of energy in her narrowed eyes. “I want revenge.”

“Since when?”

“Since someone hurt you,” she answers, succinct in her response. “You know how this feels.”

She’s right. If an opportunity to destroy Felix arose, I’d pursue it as aggressively as I’ve pursued Cora. Still, Warren E. Logan is untouchable.

“If it were easy to take my father down, he wouldn’t be who he is today. He’s careful . I don’t even have an irritated text from the man.”

Cora lets out a long exhale before she places both hands on my shoulders. “Everett,” she begins, staring deeply into my eyes, “this is my second sex scandal, and do you know what three things I’ve always regretted about the first one?”

“That it wasn’t with me?”

Her expression is surprisingly cheerful as she says, “The first thing I learned from Valeria, who never takes anything at face value: I regretted not making more evidence. And do I ever make the same mistake twice?”

“Beyond dating multiple Ivy League assholes, no. You don’t,” I confirm.

“I certainly don’t.” Cora heads to the bookshelf. She grabs something and tosses it at me: her phone, which I realize she left behind after my father walked in on us.

“The second thing I regret is that I hadn’t met Essie yet,” she continues. She faces Essie. “Babe, do you have time in your busy schedule to destroy a man?”

“I’ll always make time for that,” Essie replies, and her face actually lights up at the prospect.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” Dalton mutters—drawing every eye in the room. He’s so busy gazing at Essie, whose cheeks are steadily reddening, that he doesn’t notice until Lander clears his throat. Delayed, Dalton’s brown eyes flicker over to Lander. “I said that shit out loud, didn’t I?”

“So clearly,” I confirm.

Sighing, Dalton slumps in his seat. “Well,” he says before raising his glass. “Cheers.”

“The last thing I regret,” Cora finishes as she comes back to me, “is not lying.” Her hands go to my cheeks. “I’ve heard you’re good at lying.”

“Exceptional,” I reply before I turn my face to plant a kiss on the palm of her hand.

“You are,” Cora agrees, smiling. “You’re so, so good at it.”