Page 13 of Tips and Trysts

Next time you tell me to fuck my own face, I’ll know you would have let me fuck yours.

I thought you were smart, but you keep falling for these egotistical rich boys. Is that what you like? Guys who think they’re better than you?

I delete Everett’s messages without reading them and wish everything were so simple. I want to delete the memory of his lips against mine. The slide of his tongue in my mouth, brushing over my piercing. Even the scratch of denim against lace where the hardness of his erection met the apex of my pussy.

I thought purging the red notification dot would help, but nothing has changed.

I’ll block him.

And I’m a swipe away from cutting off all contact when my phone lights up.Incoming call from EVERETT LOGAN.

It must be a mistake. Nobody calls anyone—and Everett definitely doesn’t call me. He’s probably trying to send another text or an ancient curse and accidentally dialed me.

I send it to voicemail, but within a minute, he calls again. My eyes trace the twelve letters of his name, and I seriously consider ignoring him, but I’m Cora fucking Flores and I don’t hide.

“Yeah?” My greeting is so sharp that it borders on hostile.

The silence feels like minutes until Everett’s voice breaks through, saying, “You answered.” His tone carries a raspiness I’ve never heard before, but the exhale on the end sounds remarkably like relief.

“I did.”

“I didn’t think you would… Are you at the Halcyon?”

“Yeah.”

He clears his throat. “Did you get my texts?”

“I deleted them.”

“Oh…Look, at the risk of coming off as a complete piece of shit—”

“The risk hasn’t held you back in the past.”

“—Yeah. Shit.Shit. I need a favor. I wanted to talk first, but—”

“We’re not going to talk about it,” I interject. “So ask your favor, Everett.”

He’s quiet at first. “Can you please go to Lander’s place, find a tie that works with a navy-blue suit, and bring it to Georgetown as fast as humanly possible? I know it’s weird after last night…” He trails off. “Please.”

“You’re calling me of all people? Surely centuries of Logan money and Virginia tax dollars can pay for someone else to fetch you a tie.”

“You,” Everett repeats. “I need you. I’ll owe you. Anything you want. My cameras. My trust fund.Please. I need you right now.”

Normally, I’d find this level of desperation amusing, but as far as I know, the concept of desperation and Everett Logan are strangers. Right now, he sounds…different. Unnerved—like last night.

I check the time. My takeout is en route, and I only have a couple hours to get ready for my stream.

“Please,” Everett murmurs into the silence. “Do you want me to beg?”

He’ll beg.

I may not know Everett well, but the strain in his vowels and reticence in his pauses tell me he’s not a man who begs.

And I wonder what that looks like. What it feels like. I wonder if begging would be as disorienting for him as it was for me to kiss a man who I wished I’d never met.

I want to know.

I exhale. “If I do this,” I say, “you have to promise me we’ll never speak about last night.”

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