Seven

CORA

“Out,” Everett orders the moment he enters my hospital room.

If I weren’t on codeine, I would probably suppress the surge of thrill rising in my stomach, but as it is, I’m loopy as hell.

I stare. I stare shamelessly.

Everett’s button-down shirt is gone, his white undershirt is untucked, and the look in his bloodshot eyes is that of a man who has drifted out of second-degree murder territory and is fully prepared to commit murder in the first degree.

“Son,” Governor Logan exclaims, beaming at Everett and bearing an uncanny resemblance to my mother passing out copies of my report cards to her friends at church. He holds out both arms. “There you are.”

Governor Warren E. Logan the Third is too handsome to be trustworthy, but not handsome enough to distract from his untrustworthiness. Like Everett, he’s tall with a head of thick, dark hair, bright green eyes, and cheekbones that could make waves on a runway. The similarities stop there though. There’s a poise to Everett—an effortless aura of regality surely honed during countless cotillions or a past life as one of the aristocrats whose bullshit inspired the French Revolution. Conversely, the governor looks solid. He takes up space because he’s big and vivacious, unlike Everett who takes up space purely because he’s attractive. He lacks Everett’s indifference. His aloofness. The ice in his motherfucking veins. The governor’s handsomeness looks manufactured, like someone polished his gilding to its brassy under layers. He’s still charming, nevertheless.

Everett doesn’t even acknowledge his father’s outstretched arms. “Get rid of the photographer,” he directs while scattering a comically large pile of sour candies onto a nearby counter. “You can’t be serious. She’s in recovery.”

“Everett—” the governor objects, clearly alarmed, but Everett isn’t listening.

He takes the camera from the photographer and deftly unclips pieces of it with the familiarity of a mob boss dismantling a gun. He pulls out the memory card, wiggles it in the air, and slides it into his pants pocket.

“This is over—” he begins but stops abruptly in the middle of his sentence while looking between his father, the photographer, and this random blond woman who didn’t bother introducing herself when the trio stampeded into my room five minutes ago.

“Perhaps we owe Maxwell an apology for disassembling his camera.” Governor Logan takes a step forward. “Wouldn’t that be proper, Everett?”

Unblinking, Everett folds his lips over his teeth. He inhales. Exhales. “My apologies, Maxwell,” he finally says, dipping his chin. “You can bill the account for any damages.”

Satisfied, Governor Logan layers a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Good boy,” he says before clapping his hand on Everett’s shoulder and squeezing.

Everett glances at the hand on his shoulder before his eyes rise to meet his father’s. “You shouldn’t be here right now. She needs…” He looks at me. “Tell me what you need. Do you want them gone?”

My jaw slackens. “You’re asking me if you should kick out your father?”

“You need to recover,” he explains, advancing closer to my bed. The closer he gets, the more his expression hardens. His gaze flickers over me, and he starts shaking his head. “If you hadn’t been so—”

My good hand shoots up like it’s trying to break the sound barrier. “You better cut the shit right there. I know you’re about to criticize me for risking my life, and I’m not going to sit through a lecture.”

“But—”

“Was I supposed to let you die ?”

Everett frowns before he looks at his father and his entourage. “I need a minute alone with her.”

Governor Logan’s features stop tensing, but they’re obviously not relaxed. It’s like he knows what a relaxed face looks like and is doing a startlingly convincing impression of one. “Fine,” he murmurs. “We’ll be around the corner. We’ll come back—”

“No pictures,” Everett interjects, but he quickly pauses and clears his throat. “Please.”

“Everett,” the governor says, chuckling lightly. “Be reasonable. Be strategic . Voters are—”

“I don’t care about voters,” Everett grits out.

The silence hangs heavy in the room.

“Then why,” Governor Logan says, enunciating every syllable, “are you running for Congress?”

All of a sudden, I see the governor in Everett. The coldness. The indignation. The bluntness. It all came from this man—and to my surprise, Everett has never looked more uncertain.

He glances at me before he faces his father once more. “Ten minutes. Please.”

Governor Logan tips his head. “I’m feeling generous. Please, take fifteen .” The words are formal, if not polite—but there’s a tinge of something barely detectible—corrosive. Still, he leaves.

Now that it’s just us, Everett falls into the chair by my bed. His exhale is labored and choppy like he hasn’t fully emptied his lungs in weeks. His eyes are weary, and the tinges of red around his irises make the green pop.

He’s seriously the only person on the planet who looks hotter when he’s haggard.

The silence feels cloying even in the already sterile hospital room, and I know Everett won’t be the first to speak. He’s too busy staring at my left arm, which is tucked into a sling, recently stitched, and numb from anesthetics. When he finally looks away, he moves on to the heart monitor and the IV tube embedded in my skin.

“You’re welcome,” I finally say, being as cheeky as I can. The codeine makes it sound sarcastic though.

Everett is back to gawking at my arm, so it takes him a beat to respond with a muttered, “Shit.” He looks up. “I mean, thank you, obviously. I’m grateful. I’m indescribably grateful. I just…” His gaze slips again. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and grips his hair with his left hand—because his right one is wrapped in gauze. He looks up. “Do you have any idea how much seeing you hurt fucks me up?”

Eyebrows high, I blink, not expecting the question in the slightest. “I have no idea, Everett. What are you talking about?”

“If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t recover. I’d be ruined .”

His voice strains on the word ‘ruined’ like the syllables came right from his gut. His good hand is gripping the bed’s railing now, and alongside the penetrating focus in his green eyes, the clues align.

Does Everett… care about me ?

“What is this?” I question softly, brow furrowed. “What’s happening here?”

He straightens his spine. “You’re into me,” he states, and the way he bobs his chin is downright factual.

I have to replay his words in my head three times until I’m positive I heard him correctly and I’m not levitating on painkillers. “I’m into you? This is news to me.”

Everett draws his head back. “What are you talking about? You want me. You said it earlier in the garden.”

“No, you asked me if I wanted you, and then we were interrupted.”

His face is blank—not unreadable, just uncharacteristically blank. The only signs of life are his eyes, which have lowered to the side like he’s parsing the evening’s events.

“We were interrupted,” I repeat. “You know, by the bullet. The one that went in my arm.”

“But last night, you kissed me.”

“I know. I was there.”

“You took a bullet for me,” he states, speaking faster now. “You literally took a bullet for me. Why…”

Why did I do it?

I’ve spent the last three hours processing it, and I still don’t have a clear answer.

It’s a peculiar thing, staring death in the face. Rationality, inhibitions, and logic disappear at the first sign of danger. Sometimes, things… happen. Take Valeria and Lander, for example. Last year, when the Emergency Management System accidentally sent an alert to everyone in the District warning of a (nonexistent) incoming ballistic missile, they spent their last fifteen minutes fucking—and they had barely spoken to each other at that point.

In the face of death, someone —not naming names—may be compelled to sacrifice her life for a guy who once told her he couldn’t be seen with her because he was going to be the President of the United States of America one day.

…Fine. I’m that someone. It was me.

“I don’t know why I did it,” I admit, letting my shoulders drop and regretting it immediately when pain spreads through my left arm.

“Come on,” he presses, releasing a loose chuckle. But the levity on his face fades almost as soon as it arrives when my expression doesn’t budge.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“You’re into me,” he fills in, dipping his chin like he’s willing me to comprehend it. “You like me.”

“On the contrary, I find you very annoying.”

“But you took a bullet for me,” he repeats, tapping the side of his bandaged hand against the palm of the other.

“Why do you keep reminding me as if I don’t have a hole in my arm?”

“People don’t take bullets for—”

“For their best friend’s dickbag friend-in-law or whatever you are? I know . I’m as confused as you are.”

The silence that follows is stark. I can tell Everett’s brain is working on overdrive, replaying conversations and likely trying to figure out when he got it so damn wrong.

Either that, or he’s trying to come up with another way to remind me that I have a bullet wound in my arm, having exhausted nearly all possible options in this short conversation.

Best of luck, baby boy.

“So, you don’t like me,” he finally says. “You don’t want me.” The words are hollow with incredulity and a tinge of foreignness. The sentence doesn’t compute for him.

Everett has clearly never been rejected in his life.

I exhale slowly. “Like and want are vastly different things.”

“How?”

“Liking someone is deeper. Wanting someone is physical. I’ve wanted people who I haven’t liked.”

“Fine. Do you want or like me?”

“It’s complicated,” I admit before slumping backwards onto the pile of pillows propped behind me.

If this conversation had taken place a week ago, it would have been a cut and dry, I don’t like or want you. You’re a sanctimonious nepo baby who wears a Patek Philippe watch like a douche. If this conversation had taken place seven months ago…well, to be clear, it wouldn’t have taken place seven months ago because there was no way I would have taken a bullet for the guy who insulted me.

But this conversation is happening today. It’s happening after he warded off a creep in a dive bar. It’s happening after we made out like the world was ending in an elevator. It’s happening after he called me , of all people, when he was panicking. It’s happening right now when he’s acting like his whole world nearly collapsed.

Like I told him earlier: I don’t know .

I don’t like Everett, but the fact of the matter is, I feel something for him. Maybe it’s a swirling mess of annoyance, attraction, indignation, and curiosity. Whatever it is, it made me save his life. I may not fully understand it yet, but I don’t regret it.

He clears his throat. “Look, I’m trying to be sympathetic because you’re in pain, but I’ve been sitting here for almost two minutes, waiting—”

“Do you want me?” I cut in before snickering. “I can’t believe I just asked that. The codeine is clearly getting the best of me. We both know you would never want a camgirl, especially not me.”

“Who told you that?”

“ You . With your unhinged behavior. If you had any affection for me and you’ve showed it by avoiding me and being a dick for seven damn months, you’re an asshole.”

Everett’s lips separate.

“Wait…do you?”

He doesn’t answer. He just continues staring, expression devoid of anything.

“You couldn’t have feelings for me unless you lied and pretended not to like me,” I go on. “Did you lie to me?”

When he doesn’t respond, I repeat myself.

His gaze drifts. “Not exactly.”

“No,” I warn. “I don’t believe in gray areas when it comes to honesty. Have you been lying to me?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it. Either you have feelings for me or you don’t. Either you lied to me or you didn’t. Which is it?”

Everett lets out a slow sigh. He settles in his chair, adjusting his position until his spine is straight and his posture is impeccable as usual. He nods, and with the same unwavering voice I’ve begrudgingly learned to recognize over the past seven months, Everett Logan looks me dead in the eyes and says, “I want to fuck you.”