Page 152 of The Liar's Reckoning

Three more years in the senate is a very long time, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep living like this.

47

SILAS

It’s eerie—the similarities between Gil’s room in Manhattan and his room in the Hamptons. I almost can’t tell the differences besides the view. The layout is exactly the same. The furnishings—the computer set-up, the paint. As I walk through, waiting for him to wake up from all the Xanax he took, I take in the view from the windows. There’s not another house in sight on the large swath of land. Everything here is green and lush.

“Does he ever go out here?” I ask Lilah as she wanders with me.

“Just to dinner. Never a party or a club.”

“So…this Z guy. How can we get the two of them together?”

“He wants to meet him. Z wants to meet Gil, I mean.”

“And Gil?”

“He says no.”

“Have they exchanged pictures?”

She shrugs. “I doubt it. You know he thinks he’s hideous.”

I shake my head. Gil is gorgeous. Beautiful, really. Pale, yeah, but it works on him. If he were a woman, he could play Snow White and be totally believable as the fairest one of all.

“Does he know what Z looks like?”

“He hasn’t said.”

“Jesus. What do you guys talk about?”

She laughs. “Politics, mostly.”

“Right.” I grimace. “How’d your protest go last weekend?”

“It was brilliant. I think we really rattled the senator. He never came out of the hotel.”

At the mention of a senator, my interest level rises. “Wait—what was the protest about again?”

“This new judge they’re about to confirm to the Southern District is ultra-conservative. He’s upheld discrimination decisions specifically against the queer community, women, people of color. He’s basically a nightmare. And that fucking Senator Lawther is backing him. Along with his family of course. They were all there at a fire department fundraiser.”

We’re in Gil’s bathroom, and I lean back on the counter, folding my arms over my chest. “And you think a protest can change their minds?”

She sighs. “Lawther ran as a moderate, you know?”

I nod, not meeting her eyes.

“But ever since then he’s been as radical as the rest of them.”

“So he lied. So do all politicians, right?”

“I don’t know. Do they? Maybe some of them make promises they can’t keep, but in terms of what they stand for? I don’t think so.”

I shift awkwardly. I hadn’t realized Lilah followed the news so closely. “Do you…um…”

“Know that you were the guy in the video?” she asks gently, since this has never come up before.

I look at her. That’s not what I was about to ask, which tells me she’s known all along.

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