Nine

EVERETT

In 2017, the credit bureau Equifax leaked over one hundred forty million Americans’ confidential personal information in the biggest data breach in history. Later that year, Equifax’s CEO stood in front of the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce and claimed a single Equifax employee was responsible for the first misstep in a chain of events that ultimately impacted one hundred forty million people.

That’s it. A single person screwed up, and one hundred forty million people’s lives were changed. To put it in perspective, the population of Russia is one hundred forty million.

But right now, having lied to Cora’s face, I’m fairly certain I’ve screwed up worse than the motherfucker responsible for the Equifax breach.

I told her I didn’t have feelings for her.

I told her I only wanted to fuck her. In a hospital.

I told her I would never lie in front of her—and that, in and of itself, was a lie.

Shit. Shit .

I panicked. She told me she didn’t want me, and I panicked. And in my defense, I rarely panic—if ever. Really, it’s only where Cora or my father are involved. In fact, before tonight, the last time I panicked was the night I met Cora and insulted her.

So actually, it makes sense I wouldn’t know how to react and would resort to convoluted lies that undermine the intense infatuation I’ve felt for this woman since I met her.

Most people would do the same, I bet.

Without a doubt.

Yep. This is a super normal reaction.

And frankly, if I had known Cora wouldn’t want me back, I would have prepared better. It’s not my fault the possibility never occurred to me. After all, the thought of her not wanting me is…outlandish. The last time someone rejected me, I was nineteen and had volunteered to step in as a groomsman at my cousin’s wedding when the best man got food poisoning. The groom—a thirty-year-old man—declined my offer because he thought I was too handsome and would distract people from him on his wedding day.

Clearly, there has to be a mistake. A prank. Mercury in retrograde. Cora has to want me. Sure, we had a rocky start, and yes, I took my vow to keep my distance quite seriously. But our kiss in the elevator fundamentally altered my brain chemistry. There’s no way she could kiss me like that, take a bullet for me, and not want to—I don’t know— let me fawn over her and pay her mortgage.

…Right?

Shit. Shit. Shit .

I fish my phone out of my pocket.

Me

Can I ask you something?

Dalton Cavendish

Yes, you’re a tool.

Me

You don’t even know what I’m going to ask

Dalton Cavendish

Okay, ask it

I start typing: Cora’s obviously attracted to me, but is it possible she wouldn’t want me because I was a jerk the night we met and for seven months I’ve avoided her and said some potentially impolite things to her, and potentially—

Son of a bitch. I’m a massive tool—basically a John Deere tractor.

I delete everything I typed as fast as humanly possible.

Me

Sorry, wrong number

Dalton Cavendish

Clearly.

How is she?

Me

Exceedingly snide, as usual

Dalton Cavendish

Oh good. Really relieved to hear it

I can’t talk right now. Work. I would ask you to hug her for me, but she would absolutely flatten you if you laid a hand on her

So, tell Cora to do us all a favor and to stay out of the bullet’s way next time

I smile. It’s not a big smile—it almost never is with me—but Dalton gets me. He’s always been uniquely gifted at striking the right balance between scorn and sincerity. In fact, the only person better is seated in front of me in a hospital bed.

Cora is texting one-handed, and Beverly, my father’s Chief of Staff, is typing furiously on her laptop. They’ve both been doing this for twenty minutes, ever since Beverly burst back into the room before Cora and I could finish our conversation.

As if she can feel my stare, Cora looks over. Her big brown eyes linger on me, expression stony, until she faces her phone again.

I’d bet my trust fund she’s texting Essie and Valeria right now and telling them I asked her to fuck me. In a hospital.

“So, what do you call yourself?” Beverly asks while she unwraps a piece of mint gum. She makes a show of folding the silver wrapper in half once and then again, flattening a hard crease with the tip of her finger against the rolling tray she’s using as a makeshift desk. “What’s your ‘official title?’”

Cora, to her credit, doesn’t scoff at Beverly’s inane question like I would expect her to. Either the codeine is hitting, or maybe she senses that Beverly Mazetti, despite her public relations bona fides, has never handled a crisis of this magnitude. She stops texting and places her phone on the bed before she says, “I don’t have an official title. I’m a camgirl. It’s an occupation name.”

Yep. I’m a political candidate and she’s a camgirl, and I almost confessed to wanting her, but instead pivoted to—wait for it—asking her to fuck me. In a hospital. Jesus. I may be the most dramatic son of a bitch on Earth, which is saying a hell of a lot because when we were thirteen, Dalton sobbed and ripped his Bruce Springsteen poster off his bedroom wall when Bruce neglected to play “Born In The USA” at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Beverly, still typing, studies Cora over the lid of her laptop. “There’s an active discourse about whether you’re a sex worker or a camgirl.”

“I’m both. No preference.”

“Oh? Because Felix J. Worthington himself is on 24N right now, talking about which term is politically correct.”

24N is a news network with around-the-clock political coverage. It’s a fixture not only in local DC politics, but in national events as well. If Felix J. Worthington, one of 24N’s regular correspondents and an all-around cocky news asshole, is a part of this discussion, the coverage has moved beyond the District.

Cora’s eyes narrow before she says, “The only thing Felix is talking about is terminology?”

Felix —just his first name. My eyes narrow as well.

Felix J. Worthington has been a household name for three years, ever since he embarked on a stratospheric rise to intellectual fame. In three years, he wrote a bestseller about sex workers, published a long-form exposé uncovering a Senate prostitution ring, and began appearing regularly on 24N as an expert on sexuality with his blond-haired, blue-eyed, early thirties all-American persona. To be frank, I—a fellow nepo baby—immediately knew this guy had connections, but most people still love him and affectionately use his full name, Felix J. Worthington.

Cora calls him Felix.

Why the hell does she call him Felix?

Beverly nods again. “He says the preferred term is sex worker.”

“Well, he doesn’t know,” Cora replies, exhaling slowly through her nostrils before she faces me. Her brow knots. “You good?”

I’m still caught up on the name ‘Felix’ passing through Cora’s gorgeous lips, and it takes me a beat to realize I’ve crushed the empty paper coffee cup in my hand. “Yeah, I’m great,” I lie while dropping the mangled remains of the cup into the small trash bin by the bed.

“Alright,” Beverly continues, sparing me a concerned glance before she puts her attention back on Cora.

She’s seated upright now, wearing a pair of sweats underneath her hospital gown, and most of the color has returned to her cheeks. She looks good. Amazing, as always, but good in the most basic sense. Healthy—definitely healthy for a woman who got shot a few hours ago.

The bullet didn’t fully enter her arm, but it passed along the outside and the wound was deep enough to warrant stitches. Cora hasn’t given me the download on her recovery time, but I’ve been researching in between questions from Beverly. It’s unlikely she’ll have long-term mobility issues, but she has to wear a sling for the first twenty-four hours. Her stitches will dissolve in a couple weeks.

“Are we done now?” Cora asks, tilting her head side to side and stretching. My immediate thought: Does she need a massage? I’m amazing at massages.

“Not quite. We still have to discuss the path forward.” Beverly glances over at the clear panel in the hospital room’s wall. My father is there, standing in the hallway and talking on his phone. When she’s positive he isn’t paying attention to us, Beverly leans forward and whispers, “Are you two fucking?”

Neither Cora nor I move a muscle at first.

“We’re not,” I reply, keeping my expression flat—a gargantuan feat because I’m so keen on the idea of fucking Cora, I’d make a deal with the devil at this point. If I could, I would slide right into that bastard’s DMs and preemptively offer him my soul—or a massage.

Again, I cannot overstate how good I am at giving massages.

Beverly scrutinizes me like she’s trying to read my mind. I give her nothing. Any information Beverly learns goes directly to my father, and if my father thought something was going on between Cora and me…

“Never?” she presses.

“Never,” Cora confirms a bit too readily for my ego to escape unscathed.

“Are you friends?”

Cora and I exchange glances before we look back at Beverly. “We’re not,” we say in unison.

“Well, you need to start being friends. Best friends .”

Cora’s brow locks, and I can practically see her mind turning. After a beat, she sighs. “You want to publicize any association between Everett and me because downplaying how we know each other implies we have something to hide.”

Exactly right. That’s my girl—so damn astute.

Beverly nods. “People online are asking questions—and your father is too, Everett. ‘Why was the governor’s son meeting up with a prostitute in a secluded garden? Was he sneaking her in the side door? What were they doing?’”

Before I can protest every syllable of these hypotheticals—starting with Beverly’s use of the word prostitute —Cora laughs. “Seriously? As if I would wear that to blow someone as rich as Everett.”

It’s a really good thing I’ve already murdered my coffee cup, because if I hadn’t, I would have reduced it to pulp in the palm of my hand. What would Cora wear to blow me? Suddenly, it’s the single most important question in the world.

“Regardless, we need to make the message clear: You two are good friends and nothing else ,” Beverly emphasizes, looking between us before parking her gaze on Cora. “In fact, Cora, you should get a boyfriend if you don’t have one already.”

“Unnecessary,” I comment, tempering my facial expression, but barely. In my periphery, Cora whips her head to the side. I don’t look back and instead focus on Beverly, low-key trying to shoot lasers into her brain, but mostly trying to mind-meld and convince her that Cora doesn’t need a fake boyfriend.

“Well, you can’t get a girlfriend,” Beverly comments, rolling her eyes like she knows I asked Cora to fuck me. In a hospital . “It’s too close to the primary, and there’s no time for us to vet someone. We have a narrow window to stop this from becoming a scandal, so she—”

“I’m right here.”

“You need a boyfriend,” Beverly reiterates, facing Cora now, “or a public fling. People need to see you’re not with Everett.”

Cora’s expression is cold. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Beverly parrots. “And don’t talk to anyone.”

“My parents are immigrants,” Cora assures her before ripping open one of the bags of Sour Skittles I bought and popping one into her mouth. “I’m masterful at hiding things that could undermine appearances.”

I don’t mean to smirk, but I do. I just love her mouth.

Naturally, Beverly spots my expression like a sharpshooter. Her eyes narrow, but rather than mention it, she says, “Well, good. You’ll stay quiet in the meantime, and I’ll have an NDA ready for you shortly. Do you have a lawyer?”

“Lander,” Cora replies, which is cute—but I’m her fucking lawyer now.

“I’ll review it with her,” I cut in. “What else do you need from us?”

“One public hangout a week. Wholesome but not obvious. People need to see you out and being platonic.”

“Fine,” I agree before glancing at Cora. “Fine?”

“Fine.”

Beverly is quiet, focusing on Cora’s face. “During these meetups, you should…tone it down.”

“Tone what down?” Cora responds, confused for once.

My fists tighten and tense. I didn’t know Beverly was going to go there, but in retrospect I should have seen it coming.

“You look fine right now,” Beverly goes on, holding out her hand as if she’s giving some grand compliment.

Cora looks at her rumpled gown. “I got shot earlier…”

“Right, but the outfit is demure—”

“It is a hospital gown ,” she emphasizes. “Look, sitting around and drinking coffee for a photographer is one thing, but changing my appearance is another. If we’re just friends, why does it matter?”

“It matters,” Beverly assures her before tossing her long, stick straight blond hair. “Voters are only going to tolerate so much.”

Cora glances at me and I want to say that the thought of her changing how she looks makes me physically sick.

Before I can protest, Beverly lets out a slow breath. “While I understand you have an aesthetic—” She waves her hand over Cora, fingers loose like she’s not willing to exert the energy to actually point. “—I’m asking you to be reasonable.”

Cora blinks, and from one moment to the next, her big eyes and elegant cheekbones lose those glimmers of emotion. I’ve never seen her so stoic before. “And if I don’t?”

“Ask Everett,” Beverly challenges, cocking her head in my direction.

Cora faces me. Her attention goes to my parted lips—parted because I didn’t defend her when I should have. She raises her pierced eyebrow and asks, “Will you lose the election, Everett?”

I don’t answer outright, but still, my silence is an answer.

The sigh Cora releases is languid. “Fine,” she murmurs before she faces Beverly. “Whatever.”

Beverly rises. “Well, this is certainly going to be interesting,” she remarks, layering a pointed stare between the two of us. “Cora, I’ve heard they’re discharging you shortly.”

“Within the hour.”

“How American.” Beverly takes her laptop from the table and snaps it shut before tucking it under her arm. She straightens her blazer. “You’ll both hear from me soon. Remember: Not a word to anyone.”

Almost as soon as Beverly exits, my father sticks his head back in the doorway. He doesn’t spare Cora a glance now that his photographer is gone. “Everett, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“I need to speak with you.” Hurry up. “Come.” Like a dog . “You’re joining me for coffee.” It’s not negotiable.

I gesture at Cora, whose eyes narrow as she takes in my father. “I’m not going to leave her. She’ll need a ride home,” I point out.

Before a classic Logan Standoff can transpire, Essie appears in the doorway behind my father, announcing, “I’m here!” before she waves at Cora and says, “Oh, thank fuck you’re okay.”

My father bobs his chin at me. “Problem solved. Everett, we’re going. Now. Say goodbye to your friend.”

Friend.

I face Cora. “I’m sorry,” I apologize, keeping it simple. “I’m so sorry.”

And I’m sorry for far more than this hasty departure: for entangling her in the undeniable swamp-fuckery of a political campaign, and also bringing her into the undeniable swamp- fuckery of the Logan family. She’ll get a better apology later. Duty calls first.

“I want to stay,” I assure her, saying more than I need to. “I want to talk about…”

Cora raises her shoulder. “I’ll see you at the Halcyon.”

I nod before I rise to my feet.

I’ve already made an ass of myself in front of Cora Flores, but nothing stings quite like going to my father when he calls me.