Page 119 of Masks and Mishaps

“Wait…how many men have you ruined?”

“Not enough,” Essie muses. “But those are random men we’ll never see again. Weston pretended to care. He made me trust him. Worst of all, he threatened you.”

“That’s not the worst part.”

“For me it is,” she replies, locking her eyes on mine, “because I’m many things, but first and foremost, I’m an eldest daughter. ”

I look over at our four best friends. None of them seems surprised. For the past two years, every delicious vengeance scheme they’ve carried out has depended heavily on Essie and her refined mercilessness.

“What’s your plan?”

“I need help,” she admits—possibly for the first time in her life. She looks over her shoulder. “Cora, I take it you’re comfortable if I use your condo.”

“I’d share anything with you except for Everett,” she replies before she faces and appraises him for a beat. “Actually...”

Laughing, Essie faces Valeria. “I’d love it if you could help me plan out a scene.”

Her eyebrow rises. “I’m interested.”

Finally, Essie faces me. “And you’ll help me with the most important part—if you’re in.”

“Every new day is the day I love you most. Ask me to do anything. The answer is always yes.”

Her smile is going to wreck me for the next sixty years—I know it. “Good. Because for this to work, I need you around when I invite Weston over.”

“You’re inviting that jizz depot over? To do what?”

Essie kisses me. When she pulls back, she gazes into my eyes. And in that sweet and melodic voice of hers, she says, “I’m going to invite him over to fuck me.”

Forty-Two

ESSIE

Investorsandareanalystshave always put financial markets into two categories: a bull market or a bear market.

A bull market is one where the value of stocks and securities is rising—or a sound economy. A bear market is the opposite, where stocks and securities decline—a receding economy. Apparently, the names come from animal behavior. A bull attacks upwards by bowing its head and levering its horns. On the flip side, a bear swipes its massive, clawed paws downwards, using height to overpower prey.

It doesn’t take a financial scholar or even a remote understanding of testosterone to recognize why the men who built financial institutions personified power in two enormous, violent animals. Size and viciousness reign in the places where dollars trade hands, and menwouldenvision the game of wealth-making as a bloodbath between bulls and bears.

In the Financial District in New York City, there’s a seven-thousand-pound, sixteen-foot bronze statue of a charging bull. It greets traders and brokers in their stuffy suits every morning, egging them on as they scuff the pavement in expensive shoes, trotting off to desks where they’ll make rich men richer. Some call it art; I call it a circle jerk.

There’s no bronze bear to oppose the bull, however—something about optimism. If there’s no bear, there’s nothing to stop the bull.

But the notion that only a bear could stop a bull is so comically predictable to me.

History has proven time and again that the small things ultimately kill us. The tiniest of organisms can upset an ecosystem, and the most microscopic of toxins have wiped out entire populations.

Bulls and bears are only a threat when they’re around. The small things linger, waiting.

Waiting.

Weston is wearing cologne tonight, which is the sickest thing he could possibly do. His black hair is damp and combed to the side like he showered for me, and I bet he trimmed his pubic hair because he seems like the type who’d be clean and perfect for a woman, like he’d plan everything to a T.

I don’t care about perfection. Yesterday, Dalton and I went to the gym, and halfway through my workout, he pulled me into the locker room and creampied me in one of the shower stalls with my sports bra tugged above my tits and my shorts halfway down my thighs. Messy. Rushed. Unbelievably satisfying.

Weston scans me. “You look pretty,” he comments.

Pretty.

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