Page 60 of Tips and Trysts

Dalton smirks. “Yeah, we’re not.” And then the smirk fades. “I’m not in a good place right now. I don’t want to drag anyone into my mishaps—especially her.”

“I’ll smoke to that,” I reply, motioning for Dalton to pass the blunt we’re sharing. I take another hit, and when I blow the smoke out, it lingers in the air between us, cloying and thick until it fades into the balmy summer night.

“Your turn. When are you going to put Ev out of his misery?”

“Would you?”

“Probably. Nobody has ever wanted me that badly.” When I shoot Dalton a look, he scoffs. “I saw his hand after you got shot. He eviscerated that bitch. Shit, I was ready to say fuck thefriendship and make out with him, and I wasn’t even the one he was defending.”

“Fighting doesn’t impress me.”

“It shouldn’t,” Dalton clarifies. “But the most composed guy in DC, quite possibly the entire DMV region, transformed into a werewolf because someone hurt you.”

I raise a shoulder. “He lied. Did you know he had feelings for me for months?”

“Since the first time he saw you? Of course I knew—and you did too, right? You were fully aware he wanted to lay on the floor and, like, let you use him as a prop for hours on end.”

“He never said anything to me.”

“Me neither, but I still knew. I mean, weallknew. Being around you two is like…shit, it’s like the horniness is contagious. I’ve left rooms where you two have been bickering and headed straight home for a cold shower.”

“Well, he has an unhinged way of showing it.” I let out a breath. “Dalton, I don’t like being lied to.”

“Why not?” he asks, canting his head.

The question is inane, frankly, but I answer anyway: “Because it sucks.”

“No, give me the real reason,” he presses. “Why are you so particular about honesty?”

“Because manipulation isn’t a part of a healthy relationship, to start—”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t really know someone who doesn’t think you deserve the truth—”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve met liars,” I insist, getting annoyed. “I’ve known them. I used—”

Dalton’s eyebrows rise. I don’t finish my sentence, but we both knew what I was about to say.I used to be one.

“What the hell was all that? What kind of mind trick did you just play on me?”

“My father was a lawyer,” he reminds me needlessly before he takes another hit. “Do you know why I like you? It’s because you’re doing Cora. You wear what you want. You say what you want. You do what you want. You weren’t always like that though, were you?”

I take another hit instead of looking at Dalton and I remember all those times I snuck out of my bedroom window in high school. Some nights, I felt like I couldn’t breathe until I was jumping onto the soft patch of grass below and running through the backyard to the alley.

When I look in Dalton’s direction, he’s watching me, eyes bloodshot and heavy but fixed on my face. On Thanksgiving last year, I’d only known Dalton for a couple months, but I still spent the holiday with him, his mother, Valeria, and Lander. The night ended a lot like this: with Valeria and Lander off fucking, and Dalton and me getting stoned. He’d mentioned it was the first Thanksgiving without his father. I’d mentioned it was my third.

Of course he remembered.

“Everett isn’t perfect, but he tries to be. He doesn’t have a choice. Warren…” Dalton grimaces. “I’m not going to make excuses for him, but you know how people’s minds work. You know that sometimes, the things we do to survive aren’t true to self.”

I do know. I know better than anyone, maybe.

“It’s just contradictory,” I point out. “He’s fully capable of being charming. Like, a couple weeks ago, this customer was hassling me in a bar. Everett managed to charm the creep into giving him his full name in the span of a sentence. But he’s also—”

“He’s a dick,” Dalton fills in. “He’s sarcastic and he’s cocky and he thinks everyone is annoying except for, like, five people, butthat’s you too, Cora. It’s why he called you, not me, when he was panicking about his dad at Georgetown. I had nothing going on that night.”

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