Page 104 of Masks and Mishaps

“You didwhatto my daughter?” Porter shouts, finally putting the pieces together. “You filmed her? You’re a—”

“No,” Essie steps between her father and me. “You’re not going to say a damn word about Dalton and you’re not going to kink shame either. Everything Dalton and I have ever done has been consensual.”

I inhale through my teeth. “Well…”

Essie rolls her eyes. “Okay, ninety-nine percent has been consensual. Yes, we’ve been hooking up for the last four weeks, and yes, we film it.”

But even though the words couldn’t be clearer, Porter isn’t getting it. His face has paled, and his expression fluctuates between confusion and disgust. “That’s not you. No, Essie. That’s not—”

“Actually, it is me,” Essie interrupts. She looks back at me. I nod—and she nods too before she faces her father once again. “I’m a camgirl,” she announces.

Thirty-Six

ESSIE

Myfatherblinks.“What’sa camgirl?” he replies, glancing away from me to look at Christian, whose arms have fallen loosely to his sides.

I swallow, steel myself, and say, “I do livestreams of adult content. Pictures and videos too.”

I’m completely fine.

My father frowns deeper, parting his lips for an extended pause before he manages to ask, “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Money,” I answer succinctly. “In addition to enjoying it, I make money. A lot.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Christian mutters, bracing against the wall. He runs his hand through his hair and tugs on a fistful. “A camgirl?”

I nod, staring right into his eyes before I look at Luis and Tommy. Their expressions—as usual—are matching. They’re horrified.

“If you needed more money, you could have told me. You didn’t have to…” My father lets out a gritted sound through his teeth. “I don’t…I don’t even get it. Are you a whore, Essie?”

The cacophony of responses that arise is pure chaos, from Cora leaping out of her chair and Everett catching her in midair, to Alyssa hissing my father’s name, to Valeria and Lander both advancing closer and objecting. But nobody is louder than Dalton who shouts, “Sit the fuck down, Porter.”

The room goes quiet again, and my father tilts his head back in surprise. “What did you say to me?”

“Sit,” Dalton repeats, leveling him with a menacing expression, “the fuck down.”

My father faces Alyssa—a tacit request for her to get her son in line.

Alyssa simply pulls out a chair for him.

Resigned, my father lowers into the chair and looks at Dalton with his eyebrow raised and his mouth flattened into a line.

Dalton shrugs off his dinner jacket and tosses it onto the table before he locks eyes with my father again. “Look. I’ve watched you insert yourself into my life with your smug face and your distressingly low total assets. I’ve watched you win over my mother despite being—obviously—not good enough for her. I’ve heard you insinuate I’m a drunken fool. I’ve watched you put lox on a cinnamon raisin bagel, you sick fuck. I haven’t said a word about any of it, but to be abundantly fucking clear, I’m not going to stay quiet while you criticize Essie. Do you understand?”

My father doesn’t respond, but he swallows hard enough for us all to hear it.

“Tell me you understand,” Dalton orders, leaning closer.

“I get it,” my father snaps before folding his arms over his chest.

“I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen. Thenshe’sgoing to talk, and you’re going to listen. If you have feelings, save them for your journal or wherever you stashed your mediocre pictures of the Montmartre sunset while your daughter raised herself and your sons. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Good. I’ll be quick: You forced Essie to be an adult when she was fourteen. She did it flawlessly, but it was difficult—which shouldn’t surprise you, seeing as you ran from the job. But she did it, and she’s clearly capable of making her own decisions. The decision she made was camming. It wasn’t a last resort. It was just a decision. And if youeverquestion it, if you so much as raise your eyebrow in a way I don’t like, I will sit you down and remind you how little your opinion matters. You’re her father by biology, and you’re frankly not much more than that.”

My father legitimately looks like he’s about to cry, but I don’t pity him.

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