Page 14 of Tips and Trysts

Everett doesn’t answer at first.

“I have to hear it,” I press. “Promise.”

“I promise,” he finally agrees.

It’s settled. “Fine. I’m coming.”

Five

CORA

My Uber turns ontoK Street, bringing us close to the Waterfront where the green expanse of the park and the Potomac River greet me. The sight is a familiar fixture in my DC summers, and while it’s comforting, it’s not enough to make me forget what I did last night—or what I’m doing now.

Do you want me to beg?

I’m going for closure, I tell myself. Maybe seeing Everett with his head in his hands will give me what I need to move on from this unprecedented lapse in judgment.

…Or maybe it won’t, and I can dangle the tie in front of his pretty face and make him pay me five thousand dollars for it (because like I said, I really do want a new laptop).

The driver gets close to 37th Street before we encounter barricades, leaving me to finish the trip on foot. The walk ends up being longer than I budgeted, but I eventually reach Healy Hall where Everett’s father is speaking.

There are hundreds of people here.

Painted card stock flaps in the evening breeze over the disorderly mass, whose chanting sounds like a dull cacophony until I’m close enough to read the signs:

Fund the Future Now

Affordable Childcare for All

Governor Logan, are YOU going to watch my child while I’m at work?

That last one makes me snicker. I mean, considering how Everett turned out, it’s a pretty horrendous idea, but I’m all for freedom of speech.

But then I keep scanning the crowd, and the gravity of the situation dawns on me. By definition, it’s a peaceful protest, but peaceful and angry aren’t mutually exclusive. The faces in the crowd are contorted with fury, reciting chants laced with resentment. The late spring humidity feels thicker near the mass, like the waves of visceral anger are radiating into heat. My dress sticks to my skin, and my ears ring with the trills of a megaphone somewhere in the cluster. I attempt to weave through, but there’s no way I can get closer to the hall.

I text Everett:Here. Stuck in the mob…

My phone rings, and Everett’s name lights up the screen for the second time tonight.

“Around the corner,” he instructs as soon as I answer. “Go to the right when you’re facing the building head-on. There’s a garden there. I’ll meet you.”

The crowd is denser close to the building, but once I break through, I’m on a paved path skirting the eastern side. I’m still in the proximity of the protestors, but the dense shrubs lining the pathway dim the chanting. It’s quieter here.

A cherrywood pergola covered in collegiate ivy vines extends over the garden where Everett is seated on a small stone bench by a fountain. His eyes are on his phone, tight and narrowed,and his leg is shaking restlessly. The realization rises slowly: Everett Logan is panicking.

And the thing is, Everett doesn’t panic. One time, Valeria and Lander hosted a dinner party, and Dalton accidentally swung his arm against an open bottle of red wine while doing an impression of a kelp plant (no, I didn’t ask why). Essie screamed as the projectile flew past her face, and Lander somehow managed to say four entire words (tittyfuckingballsack) in a split second, but Everett reached out and caught the bottle less than an inch from my nose without spilling a drop. He didn’t even look surprised.He just placed the bottle on the table and reclined in his chair, barely sparing me another glance.

“Hey,” I call out.

His gaze rises and locks on me. “Princess.” He practically breathes his derisive nickname for me, rolling the letters off his tongue. He moves forward in this bizarrely relieved way, which can’t be right. Everett has never been relieved to see me. A month ago, we crossed paths in the lobby of the Halcyon, and all I got was a chin tilt. Not even a full nod—atilt.And yet he rushes over to me tonight like he’s been waiting for decades and not a mere twenty minutes.

Everett stands in front of me, tall and statuesque as usual, but he’s not quite…Everett. He’s back in one of his impressively tailored suits, a far cry from the jeans and t-shirt from last night. His hair is styled to perfection, not tousled and easy like yesterday. His big gold watch sits on his wrist as usual. Through and through, he looks like the guy who has avoided me for months, but there’s something different about him—something I can’t place.

I hold out the tie, reminding him—maybe reminding myself—why I’m here.

“My pen broke,” he mumbles while tugging off his old tie, which bears an obvious black stain against the burgundy. Heplaces both ends of the new tie over the planes of his chest, flattening them.

“Couldn’t you have gone tie-less?” I ask, watching the movements of his hands.

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