Sustained(5)

After we order, talk turns to our latest cases, the goings-on at the firm. Who’s stepping on whose toes, who has a figurative knife ready to perform a good backstabbing. This isn’t gossip; it’s intel. Ears to the ground to gather the information we need to know to make our next move.

Our food arrives and the conversation shifts to politics. DC may be a large city, but when it comes to strategy and alliances, it resembles an episode of Survivor. And everyone’s salivating to vote someone off the island.

But I’m only listening to them with one ear. My other ear is still ringing with the revelation of my unexpected visitor. Lainey. Not likely to forget her name again. I try to stay calm about it, but my sweaty palms betray me. And unless I’m hitting the bag at the gym or running my seven miles a day, I don’t fucking sweat. I consider the odds that I’m actually infected and what that means for me. I think about how I came to this point—the choices I should have made differently to avoid the sick feeling in my stomach that makes me leave my meal untouched.

Brent’s voice pulls me out of my head. “What’s wrong with you today?”

I meet his inquisitive stare with a bland one. “Why would you think something’s wrong?”

He shrugs. “You’ve gone way beyond the strong silent type and are approaching selective mutism. What gives?”

Brent is a talker. A sharer. He comes from a family of extreme wealth going back several generations. But his parents aren’t the cold, silent aristocrats you’d imagine. Sure, they’re kind of eccentric, which I find entertaining as hell, but they’re also warm, funny, giving people and they passed those qualities on to their son. Because they don’t actually work, Brent’s family members have way too much time on their hands—so they’re also way too involved in each other’s personal lives. There are no secrets in the Mason clan. Last month his cousin Carolyn emailed the family newsletter with her ovulation date attached, so everyone could keep their fingers crossed for her.

And I’m not even kidding. They’d make a fucking hysterical reality show.

When he was a kid Brent was in an accident, hit by a speeding car. He survived, minus the lower half of one leg. But he’s good with it—self-pity is not in his vocabulary. His pretty face probably helps in that regard—and the fact that women practically beg for him to screw them doesn’t hurt, either. He’s also a big believer in therapy. I suspect he’s dished out more cash to therapists over the years than he paid for his house.

I am not a sharer or a talker. But we still get along—a yin-and-yang kind of thing. Brent has a knack for dragging me out of my shell in a way that doesn’t make me want to punch him.

But not today.

“I don’t want talk about it.”

His eyes lock on me like a fighter pilot on a target. Or an annoying younger sibling. “Well, now you have to talk about it.”

“Not really,” I say flatly.

“Come on—spill. Tell us. Tell us. You know you want to. Tell us.”

Stanton chuckles. “You might as well just come out with it, Jake. He’s not gonna stop until you do.”

I offer an alternative. “I could break his jaw. Having it wired shut would stop him.”

Brent strokes his newly grown, manicured beard. “Like you’d do anything to mar this priceless work of art. That would be a crime. Just tell us. Teeeeeell us.”

I open my mouth . . . then pause . . . staring hesitantly at Sofia.

She reads me loud and clear, and rolls her hazel eyes. “I grew up with three older brothers. And I live with him.” She points at Stanton. “There’s literally nothing you could say that I haven’t heard before.”

O-kay. I take a breath and force the words from my lungs. “Turns out a woman I nailed last month has syphilis. I have to get tested.”

Sofia coughs on her drink. “I stand corrected.”

Brent laughs, the bastard. “Man, that’s awful.”

“Thanks, asshole.” I glare at him. “You sound real broken up about it.”

Brent reins in his hilarity. “Don’t get me wrong, it sucks, but syphilis is cured with a shot—it could’ve been worse.” His voice lowers. “You wanna play, sometimes you have to pay. It happens to the best of us. I had a bad case of seafood critters once myself.”

“Seafood?” Sofia asks.

Stanton fills her in. “Crabs, baby.”

Her face scrunches up. “Ewww.”

Stanton wags his finger at me. “I told you one day that revolving pussy door was gonna pinch you.”

“Thanks for not saying I told you so.”