I meet Grant and Nick at Teterboro airport. From there we will fly into Reagan. I have meetings set up with Esmonde Washington management in the morning. Most of them are strictly hotel business, but my first one is to ensure all the details for Oliver’s memorial birthday are taken care of.

Every year since Dair’s younger brother, Oliver, died, we all get together to celebrate his birthday. It’s the sort of affair that has the potential to be maudlin, but it’s the one time in the year where all eight of us are guaranteed to get together. Some years, it’s the only time we’re all in one place. We met at Harvard in first year—we were all on the same dorm floor, moved into a big house off campus second year and styled ourselves as the Geeks on Dover. Instead of spending his first year in the dorms, Oliver moved in with us at the beginning of our third year, and he was dead at the end of January. Dair’s parents blamed him and completely disowned him. We’d been a close knit-bunch from the start, but losing Oliver had taken us from good friends to family.

“Heath, good to see you. How was the wedding?” Grant asks as he pulls me in for a bro-hug.

“The wedding was good.”

“All is not well in parental paradise?”

I shake my head. “Oh, they’re fine. It’s the step-bitch that’s the problem. My mom keeps trying to forge some kind of relationship with her—you know what my mom is like. She’ll keep going until she finds the good in even the most hopeless of cases. Anyway, the step-bitch has no manners. She blew off the wedding and reception. George was pissed as hell, because she’d actually committed to attending. She did show for brunch the next day. Half-lit.” I inwardly cringe at the memory of discovering my new stepsister being the woman I’d fucked nearly to completion the night before.

“Come on, spill.”

“What?”

“We’ve been friends for nearly half our lives, you think I can’t tell when you’re holding something back?”

“It’s nothing worth mentioning.”

He cocks an eyebrow and nails me with that steely-eyed stare of his. The one he no doubt uses on reluctant sources. “Short and sordid version? I fucked her before knowing who she was.”

His eyebrows just about hit his hairline. “Come again?”

“At the reception. Well, between the ceremony and the reception, I popped into the bar for a much-needed drink, and there she was.”

“Wait a second. How the fuck could you not recognize her?”

I huff a sardonic laugh. “Because I’d never met her, and only photo I’ve seen of her is on the mantel above George’s fireplace. One of those official school portraits that had to have been taken when she was about eight and already showing her shitty attitude. And I’d bet my autographed Babe Ruth baseball my mom put it there.”

“What parent doesn’t have current photos of their kid plastered all over the house?”

“One whose kid is a loser asshole, that’s who.”

“Yet you picked her up in a bar and fucked her.”

“Well, she didn’t come off as a loser, then.”

“What did she come off as?”

“Hot. Confident. Sexy as fuck.”

“Who’s hot, confident and sexy as fuck?” Nick asks as he comes through the door of the waiting area.

“Heath’s new stepsister.” Grant says before I can get a word in.

“Is she single?”

“Jesus, Nick. Don’t you already have a woman in every major city in the US?”

“It never hurts to have one on deck, and another in the hole.”

I shake my head. “I sure hope you always suit up and get tested regularly.”

“I might be a big ol’ man-slut, but I always play safely. Hey, speaking of playing, Simon is taking me to Arrogance tonight. Are you guys coming?”

I shake my head. “Not tonight. I’ve got meetings first thing in the morning.”

“And I’ve got a thing other me is working on,” Grant says.

Nick shrugs his shoulders. “Okay.”

We spend the relatively short flight and the ride from Reagan shooting the shit while I work diligently at redirecting more uncomfortable questions about Georgia that I don’t want to know the answers to.

As soon as I close the door to my suite, I breathe easy. Why the fuck did I say anything about Georgia? My mind drifts back to her security nightmare of a building. Maybe her dad is right, and she’s fine. Something in my gut doesn’t agree. But, who am I to interfere? Instead, I focus on preparing for tomorrow’s meetings, because I have a feeling I won’t be up for it after we get back from Duke’s.

To say the evening’s revelations were explosive is a gross understatement.

Duke, a socialite and consummate playboy, hears things. And he’s heard that Fred Sieger is planning to run for president. Grant’s alter-ego, undercover investigative reporter extraordinaire Sebastian Quinn, is convinced Sieger is operating outside the law and has ties to organized crime. He’d already spent the last five months quietly looking into all aspects of Sieger’s life and business dealings. When he heard about Sieger’s political aspirations, Grant felt an urgent need to shift his investigation into high gear, so he contacted Dair.

“Okay, I get why Simon isn’t here,” Kevin says, “As a lobbyist, I can only assume he needs plausible deniability. But I don’t understand why Nick isn’t here. He must have sources who would be useful.”

“He will be brought in, once the investigation is finished. We’ll need him for national TV exposure, but we can’t risk leaks of any kind, and while I totally trust Nick, I don’t know his team. I want to keep this as tight as possible,” Grant says.

“Okay, that makes sense, but why am I here?” Kevin asks. “I’m just the guy who builds things that get sold.”

“You’re an entrepreneur, a business man. You have contacts outside we can’t hope to tap. Sieger is into more than just real estate, which is where Heath comes in.”

“I don’t really do real estate, though. I run a chain of hotels.”

“Yes, and sometimes that involves real estate deals. Which means you have contacts.”

He’s not wrong.

“Matt, what are your thoughts on this? I know you represent the other side in the senate, but do you think Sieger has any chance at the party nomination?”

“Sadly, I think it’s possible. I wish I could say otherwise, but this is DC. Expect the unexpected.

The next hour or so is spent discussing the ways we can all help Grant expose Sieger, preferably before the election in November.

The next morning, I cruise through my meetings on autopilot. My mind keeps wandering to Georgia and that nightmare of a building she lives in. Georgia and how good she felt on her knees, sucking my cock. Georgia and the way I was an asshole to her in that bathroom.

Fuck. While it turns out my anger was directed at exactly the right person, the way I expressed it still crossed the line. I should do something about that.

That evening, I greet my friends as they arrive in the hospitality suite. The music is a playlist of Oliver’s favorites. The buffet, his favorite foods. Most of Oliver’s party is the same year after year. It has to be, since it’s Oliver’s party, and he never got a chance to develop new favorites. The one place I do get some creative license is with the cake. As long as it’s chocolate, I can go to town. Every year, I search for the most creative bakers, and every year, I give Oliver a more spectacular cake than the last. It’s a huge time-suck, but it’s one thing I can do for Dair, and I do it gladly.

This year, it’s the Hogwarts sorting hat on top of a pile of Harry Potter text books. The cake is the one thing we don’t eat. We take a photo of it, and another of the eight of us with it for posterity. Then the next day, the cake is delivered to an after-school program of Dair’s choosing. Once we’ve done the cake photos, we settle in for the annual screening of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The last film we all saw together with Oliver.

“Who has the disk?” I demand, when I notice it’s not where I left it.

“Jesus, Heath, cool your jets, I’ve got it right here,” Kevin says as the disk tray pops open on the DVD player, “What’s with you? You’ve been cranky all evening.”

“He’s got woman trouble…of the sexy stepsister variety.” Nick pipes up.

“What the hell? How are we only hearing about this now?” Duke demands.

“Because this is Oliver’s birthday. It’s not appropriate,” I say.

Dair laughs. “Seriously? There’s nothing Oliver would have loved more than to hear all about your sexy stepsister woes. Fuck the movie, we could all act it out from memory. This will be way more entertaining.”

“But the movie is tradition,” I protest.

Dair’s expression turns serious. “Maybe it’s time to buck tradition.”

“Really, Dair? Because—”

“It’s time to make some changes. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to give up throwing him a birthday party, but switching things up I can handle.”

I’m blown away. To be honest, I thought I was going to be producing the exact same party year after year until we’re all well into our eighties…or older.

“If you’re sure.”

He grins at me. “Absolutely. Now do not disappoint my baby brother. Tell us everything about Georgia.

“If you got married, would it be incest?” Simon asks.

“Your stepdad would also be your father-in-law. Jesus, that’s almost like that Muppet song about being your own Grandpa.” Duke draws a few chuckles with that one.

Eventually, they give up on the teasing, and I cave and tell them a bit about Georgia.

---

The next night, we all go out to Arrogance because Nick raved about it. Turns out we weren’t the only ones he raved to. When he said it never hurts to have one woman on deck and another in the hole, I don’t think he meant both showing up at the same time in the same club.

Arrogance was great, but I spent most of the evening wondering whether it was Georgia’s scene. Does she like to dance? Does she only drink vodka, or does she like to drink fancy cocktails? Clearly I need to get laid, and there’s no shortage of prospects, but none of them are doing it for me. Apparently, not for Grant either. I wonder if it’s the Sieger thing or a woman that’s got him so wrapped up in his own thoughts he’s oblivious to all the women trying to catch his eye.

I tap his leg. “What do you say we get a cab back to the hotel?”

“Yeah. I’m just not feeling it tonight.”

“You and me, both. Nick’s flying back to Seattle with Kevin, so it’s just us on the flight home. What do you think about heading out in the morning instead of afternoon?”

“Can’t wait to get back to Georgia, huh?”

My first reaction is to be snarky, but I don’t want to banter about Georgia. It was bad enough getting grilled by the guys last night. Grant and I are closer, and he’ll ask more probing questions. The kind that make a guy look inward and examine his feelings. The only feelings I’m interested in examining are the ones my cock feels when it’s inside Georgia’s body.

And that can’t happen again.

“I don’t want to talk about her. Okay?”

He studies my face for a moment. Then he gives a short nod. “Okay. Let’s go home in the morning.”