Page 84 of Midnight Curfew

If I did her, my father would approve.

And he’d be jealous. I don’t think she’s said yes to many—or any—yet, but it certainly looks like she’s warming to the idea.

I already know about Dallas and his friends making the occasional house call, so I know she and her husband are having fun outside of the Wolfe Room.

It should be her. She’s beautiful, young, and probably clean. Whoever I screw in here, I’d prefer it be someone who hasn’t fucked my father, either.

It’s the watching that’s hard.

I swallow, my heart starting to race at even the thought of it. There are no completely private rooms here, and that’s really the point. A true network of bonds, powered by mutual trust.

I’ve seen so many people have sex. High school parties, frat parties. Shit, Milo could get it on at the post office, if he had to.

I’m not sure I can get into it with eyes on me.

Dallas doesn’t need privacy. As he just proved with Mrs. Dupuis.

He’s comfortable everywhere and with anyone, and nothing unnerves him.

Yet.

Sliding into the booth next to Micah Hearst, Jerome pushes a rocks glass at me.

“I hope you gave him some condoms,” he tells me. “I don’t care if he’s a Marymount teacher or not. He’s still fucking Swamp, and I don’t want their offspring popping up in sporadic affluent mansions as if we don’t know where the little bastards came from.”

I grin. “You’re still bitter about losing to Macon Jaeger.”

I don’t know if he’s filled his friend in on how much he wanted Dallas’s sister-in-law, Krisjen, but she’s used goods now. He may as well find another one.

But Jerome retorts, “She’s still hot, and there’s still time.”

I hold up my glass to toast his. “And Clay’s still up for the taking.”

I flit my eyes to the right, to the two-way mirror at the back of the booth, smiling at my reflection. Is he watching?

“So come on, then,” Jerome presses. “What are you going to do about it?”

“About Clay?”

“Friends help friends,” Micah says next to me.

I turn my gaze on him, watching his eyes drop to my mouth. Are we friends? Or are we those kinds of friends? The types who collude over a drink and fuck on the side?

I’m sure he wouldn’t care if I were married. As long as I’m still fun when we’re alone.

His long fingers tap the table, his nails pristine. Clean, filed, buffed, a stark contrast to the perpetual thin layer of dirt under Dallas’s.

But Jerome’s presence looms as he waits for my response. Does he talk to my father? Does he fill him in on what I’m up to?

Tossing back the rest of my gin, I browse the selection of people here tonight, fully aware that my father talks to everyone. I have no friends in here.

Landing on Sarai Duquette, in her red dress with her doe eyes, I remember her from school. She was a year behind me at Marymount. I guess she just eloped with John MacLeod Jr. and is back in town for a couple of nights before they take off on a friend’s yacht for the summer.

Her husband is twenty-nine, is into model shipbuilding, and keeps a room at Palm Bay Resort to meet women.

We’d almost be doing her a favor.

“When I have Clay alone,” I announce to Jerome, “here’s what I’m going to do.”