Forty-Six

CORA

“Wait,” a voice calls as Everett and I exit the mansion through the front doors, emerging to a full blast of mid-afternoon Richmond sun. “Hold on.”

I know nearly every version of Felix’s voice: cocky and charming, groggy against his pillow, authoritative in a classroom—even wilty when he used to cry. This version is new: a thin weave of excitement and shock tangled together in a breathless shout as he jogs after us, waving.

“Jesus,” Everett murmurs. “This guy is beyond thirsty for a scoop.”

“Parched,” I agree as Felix comes to an abrupt stop in front of Everett and me in the narrow shadow of the mansion’s fa?ade. I hold my hand over my eyes, shading them so I can look at Felix. “What do you want?”

“That was insane,” he blurts out, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. The expression on his face is pure delight—the kind that would have me going full claws-in-eyes if Everett hadn’t enthusiastically consented to showing that video to literally everyone with internet access. “I’ve already messaged a producer at 24N. Your father is fucked, Everett.”

“Is there a point to this conversation?” Everett replies. “Because I’m not looking to shoot the shit right now. Multiple careers just imploded.”

Felix shakes his head. “This is salvageable for you.”

“My father played a video of me getting pegged for like, a hundred people. It’s on his website too. You’d have better luck salvaging the Titanic.”

“Everett quite literally got more fucked than his father,” I chime in.

“Did he?” Felix asks, eyebrow canted as he glances between us. “The average American voter might fall for it, but I don’t buy it. Warren Logan isn’t a man who engages in mutually assured destruction—not when he’s on a Senate campaign. You set him up.”

“Felix,” Everett murmurs, motioning for him to lean in with a tick of his fingers. “Look at me. Are you looking? Look at my face.”

He nods, focusing on Everett.

“Why,” he enunciates, “would I leak my own pegging video?”

“Same reason why Cora sent her own sex tape to the entire psychology department at Harvard,” Felix replies, talking to Everett like I’m not even here. “Because you don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, so long as you take someone else down.”

He’s not wrong—but Everett and I won’t tell him.

“Give me an interview,” Felix requests, filling the silence. “I can spin this for you. I can make it the best thing to ever happen to you.”

Everett shrugs, no longer playing his role now that Felix clocked the setup. “The pegging was already the best thing to happen to me, so I’m good.” He faces me and grabs my hand. “Let’s go, gorgeous.”

“Everett,” Felix pushes, latching his hand onto his shoulder, “this could make or break—”

“You,” Everett fills in while shrugging Felix’s hand away, “and that 24N anchor role. I get jack shit out of this.”

“You’re joking. This level of infamy is priceless. You could do paid speeches. You could write a bestseller if you met the right people. You could—”

“Everett, listen to him,” I interject. “I think you should hear him out.”

Felix’s eyebrows shoot up right as Everett’s eyes narrow.

“You can’t be serious. This guy is a grifter,” he protests, waving his hand in Felix’s direction.

“Or,” I offer, “he’s done the things he’s promising you. He obviously isn’t all talk.”

Felix beams. “You’re still as good as ever, Cora,” he murmurs, eyes raking over me, oblivious to Everett watching him and looking for a reason. “So good.”

“Fine,” Everett relents before cocking his head in the direction of the parking lot. “Come with us, Felix.”

***

Felix’s immaculate eyebrows are high as he watches the edited video of Governor Logan threatening Everett at the Cunningham. Stunned, he removes the white earbud and places it on the table next to a ceramic sugar packet holder. “This is the most incriminating evidence I’ve ever seen.”

Bored, Everett sighs. “Yep.”

“I knew there was shit brewing in the Logan camp, but I didn’t realize it was this bad.” Felix slides my phone back to me. “Are you going to press charges? Revenge porn is a misdemeanor.”

“Felony in Virginia, actually,” Everett replies, sighing again. “And no. No charges.”

“Why the hell not?” Felix demands.

Everett’s motions are slow and elegant as usual. He raises his shoulder. “Seems like overkill.”

“The right person could win a Pulitzer with this,” Felix murmurs, and it’s not clear if he’s speaking to us or to himself. “Bet we could even get it dubbed in the media. Peg-gate.”

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Everett finally says, “I have about sixty thousand emails and messages right now, and as fun as it is to sit in an old-time chain restaurant with my girlfriend and her ex, I should probably start collecting the shambles of my life. Can we speed this shit up?”

“Hey, why don’t you look around?” I offer, rubbing Everett’s arm. “Maybe check out the gift shop.”

Everett glances to the side where the restaurant’s shop teems with antique style rocking chairs, printed shirts, pancake mix—anything fitting the bill of nostalgic country Americana. It was the first restaurant we spotted on I-95 once we drove out of Richmond proper, and we figured nobody would recognize us here.

“Fine,” Everett agrees before sliding out of the booth. He stands next to the table and buttons his expensive suit jacket. “But don’t call it peg-gate. That’s pathetic.” He brushes his hair back with a practiced flick of his fingers and departs while saying, “Strap-gate is less clunky.”

“He gets antsy,” I tell Felix once Everett disappears into the aisles. “He doesn’t like to sit still.”

Felix nods. “I get it.”

We stare at each other across the table, and for a moment, I’m twenty-one again and back in Cambridge on my first date with a guy I’d had my eye on for weeks.

“Who approached who?” I finally ask. “Did you go to Warren with the blackmail story, or did he seek you out?”

Felix is quiet for a moment, blue eyes ticking over my face until they land on mine. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

I place my phone on the table as proof I’m not recording. “I won’t.”

“It was the night of the party at his house,” Felix explains as he reclines and exhales. “He asked what it would take to get dirt on you.”

“What did it take?”

Felix is too pleased with himself when he raises a shoulder. “Access. How do you think I got invited to the luncheon today? Secrets are a currency, Cora. They’re better than money sometimes.”

The subsequent silence feels arid, like something sucked the life out of the space between Felix and me. There was a time when I envisioned a future with this man. We would graduate together and take pictures in our matching caps and gowns. We could write books together. Travel the world together. Have all of it together . And one day…

“Why did you do it?” I finally ask, nearly regretting the question once it’s out there.

“I told you. Access.”

“No, why did you take credit for the preliminary findings report?”

He shakes his head immediately. “I didn’t—”

“I loved you,” I interject, and the word feels misplaced on my tongue. Loving Felix was never like loving Everett, but at the time, it was real. Perfect until it wasn’t. “I poured my heart into our research. I took on the parts you hated—the write ups, the verifications, the audits—all because I loved you. But you lied, Felix.”

His expression lingers on the stony side of neutral and his gaze drifts to the tabletop between us. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do. I’ve wanted to know for three years.”

He glances to the side where Everett is now examining a rack of assorted bandanas. When he’s sure Everett is occupied, he faces me. “It got old, Cora. All the fuss about you. It got…old.”

I blink. “The fuss.”

“It was bad enough that everyone thought you were some wunderkind. Going to Harvard at seventeen. Getting into a PhD program at twenty-one. Even before you started the program, people talked about you constantly .”

“You were jealous of me.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he protests. “I just got tired of hearing about how you were a prodigy in the field, and frankly, you didn’t make things easy for me. Lying in bed at night, rambling about how Carlin invited you to tea and loaned you books. How do you think that made me feel?”

“I thought you’d be happy for me.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “I built that research for a year before you showed up. You waltzed in right as we got funding, and suddenly you were leading it—but what about me? So what if I put my name on it? It was mine first. I didn’t know you would flip out.” He rolls his eyes. “You could have ruined my life, by the way. If I hadn’t worked my ass off, I doubt I’d have a career.”

One glance at the tight expression on his face is all I need to know he genuinely believes what he’s saying.

I used to think he was so magnetic. Now, he’s just… there .

I shut my eyes for a beat. When I open them, Felix is still watching me. “I know what it’s like to be in your partner’s shadow,” I begin, forcing myself to say the words. “And it sounds like you and I could help each other.”

“Name your terms.”

“I’ll give you the video of Warren Logan and get you an exclusive interview with Everett, but I want you to open doors for me. A connection with a producer. An interview. I need something . I can’t cam forever.”

Felix nods. “You shouldn’t even be camming now. Never made sense to me.”

There are a thousand insults brewing on my tongue, but instead of unleashing them like a swarm of locusts, I pull up a file on my phone and hand it to him. “The video is there, plus some other evidence.”

Felix’s brow knots as he swipes. His eyes flick up to mine. “There’s dirt on Everett.”

“Discretion,” I warn, glancing at Everett, who is now standing in front of an antique mirror and tying a bandana around his neck. “Like I said…I know what it’s like to be in your partner’s shadow.”

Understanding passes over his face in the form of a devious grin. He dips his chin. “You’ve got a deal, Cora.”

“But remember, Everett has these files too. If you want to break news, you need to get them fact-checked and verified really fucking soon. I saw Everett’s phone earlier. Regina Rutherson was calling.”

Felix’s eyes narrow. “Email everything to me. I’ll forward it to the producers now.”

We both get to work. After some quick swiping on both our parts, it’s done. The files are sailing over the fiberoptic cables of the internet to producers at 24N, and Felix is practically brimming with excitement.

He chuckles. “What a day. Do you think Everett would be my first interview?”

“Depends. Are you going to call your show something inane like ‘Facts with Felix?’”

He clears his throat too quickly. “Would that—Would that be a bad idea?”

I settle back in my seat and take one last look at Felix J. Worthington’s handsome, smug face before I say, “It would be a worse idea than disseminating evidence of your own lies, but I’m no PhD,” I reply before pinning him with a smirk. “Oh wait— neither are you, motherfucker .”

The furrow on Felix’s brow appears out of nowhere like a fissure on a fault line, marring his otherwise flawless, angelic features.

I snort. “You’re easy to play. You were lazy when we were at Harvard and you’re lazy now. Did you even look at what you just sent to 24N?”

“I sent the evidence—”

“You sent your own kompromat.”

“Kompro—What the hell are you talking about?” Panicky, Felix grabs his phone. “It’s the same damn file. Same file names—”

“And it’s almost like…it’s not difficult to rename and doctor documents, is it? It’s what you did at Harvard, you lying piece of shit.”

His eyes widen. “Cora, what the hell did you do?”

“What did I do?” I question before letting out a laugh. “You sent a producer at the country’s preeminent news network copies of written testimonies from all eight women who participated in the study and gave interviews for your book. In those testimonies, they confirm you stole my work. And if the vein throbbing in your forehead is about to remind me that they signed an NDA, get over yourself. Everett already agreed to pay the breach penalties and any future legal costs.”

Felix starts shaking his head and he doesn’t stop. “You’re bluffing. That would be tens of millions of dollars in legal expenses.”

I nod emphatically. “Oh, we know. You see, secrets may be better than money sometimes…but usually they’re not. ”

“Why would he do that?” Felix demands, slamming his hand on the table. “Why—”

“I would do anything for her,” Everett chimes in from directly behind Felix, startling him and making him jump. He’s wearing a brand-new green bandana around his neck and holding up his phone—and has been for a few minutes now. “I’d do anything for her, including another livestream. Say hey to my hundreds of thousands of followers, Felix. I got most of them after my first livestream—you know: after you and my father forced my hand and made me reveal my secret relationship.”

Felix grabs for Everett’s phone and misses. “Turn it off.”

“Fuck no.”

“I said, turn that shit off,” Felix blurts out, before he faces me. “Cora, why—”

“It’s because I hate you,” I respond outright, shrugging. “That’s it. It’s not poetic. It may not even be rational. I just hate you . In fact, there’s nobody I hate more than you. Well, correction: I hate your mother for not swallowing you the night you were conceived, but that’s neither here nor there.”

The insult makes Felix’s jaw drop.

“Shit,” Everett murmurs. “Felix, she’s said thousands of cruel things to me, but she put you in the ground with that one.”

“Fuck both of you,” Felix finally spits, glaring at us with watery eyes. “If you think—” He stops and looks down at his phone, which is glowing with the name DAD on the caller ID. “Oh fuck .”

“You should take that,” I advise. “Your daddy will have to pull more strings if you want to weasel your way out of this. Or, you know, you could work your ass off again.”

With that, I don’t wait for Felix’s response. I slide out of the booth and take the hand Everett offers, and as we’re leaving, I can’t stop smiling.

I just destroyed a man whose spun-glass ego once altered the course of my career.

And I destroyed him in a Cracker Barrel.

***

DC’s monuments loom in the distance as we cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac, finally reentering the District as the sun sets over another long summer day. The trip home has been quiet. Soft music plays from the car speakers as the sky shifts from blue to marigold, and although the daylight hours haven’t ended, lights already skirt the cluster of landmarks near the Tidal Basin. Crisp yellow illuminates the shadowy columns of the Lincoln Memorial, and glimmers of water and light play at the World War II Memorial fountains. There’s a combination of new and old, and even the bifurcation of the Washington Monument—a clear division between older marble and new—adds charm to a city entrenched in the swampiness of politics.

Everett’s hand rests on mine over the center console, inches away from our phones. Neither of us has looked at them, but they’re side by side in the cup holders, both vibrating nonstop with flickers of messages and calls and news alerts.

“Mine is going to die soon,” I mention, glancing at the red battery icon. “Yours too.”

“I have a charger in the glove compartment.” When I don’t move, he glances in my direction. “Everything okay?”

“We don’t have to go back yet,” I offer. “I bought those tickets to Manila for the holidays. We can move up the flight. We can get away where nobody—”

“I want them to see us,” Everett interjects before he turns off Constitution Avenue onto Eighteenth Street.

I don’t respond at first. I study his profile illuminated by the golden waves of sunset and trace the flawless line of his jaw. His expression is easy and the sigh he releases is deep, like it’s the first full breath he’s taken in a long, long time.

We come to a stop at a red light and Everett faces me. “I’ve had my moments—far more than I deserve. People are going to want to talk to both of us, yes, but the real story here is you.”

“But—”

“And you deserve it,” he continues as he eases onto the gas when the light turns green. “Every astounding thing that’s about to happen to you, you’ve earned.”

“I couldn’t have carried out the plan without you.”

He shrugs. “I took a dick and wrote a check. I’ve done far worse to get much less. Today was all you.”

Now, I think about Felix’s confession: that my star burned too brightly for him to bear.

Everett Logan would never.

“So, what should we do now?”

He bobs his chin at the windshield. “Do you know where we are?”

I look outside the car window. “Eighteenth Street, which means we’re one over from Seventeenth, so…we’re running parallel to the White House, but we won’t actually see it… Oh no, is this a metaphor?”

Everett throws his head back and laughs. “We’re almost at the Halcyon. Let’s go home, put some more piercings in you, and get a drink. I’m buying. We can sit and decide who gets the first interview with Cora Flores.”

“Your big plan is to get a drink?”

“A drink in public where anyone can see us.” He grins. “I was thinking Smoke and Shadow.”

Smoke and Shadow. The bar where we met.

“Gin and tonics?” I ask.

“Always.”

“Will you insult my career?”

“Never again.”

“Will you berate the bartender if they put plastic cocktail straws in our drinks?”

“No shit.”

“Then we have a deal,” I decide. “But I’m buying this time.”

“Anything and everything you want,” Everett agrees before he pulls my hand to his mouth and presses his lips against my fingertips. “For the rest of our lives, anything and everything.”