Page 111 of Legally Ours

"Overall, it's looking good," he said. "They're fuckin' eating it up."

"I'll say. Mary's a genius," Hope said as she looked over his shoulder. "Check that out––'Camelot Returns'!" She slapped her hands together and did a little victory dance. When everyone stared at her like she was crazy, she stopped. "No one else gets that? You two were just compared to the Kennedys. Did I call it, or did I call it? In Massachusetts, you can't do better than that!"

Brandon grinned at the news, and I tried to return his smile. It wasn't too hard––his joy, no matter what, was always contagious. But still, it wasn't something I would normally be that excited about. After all, the Kennedys ended in tragedy, didn't they?

"Well, let's get in there," Cory said. "You've got donors to woo, buddy, and everyone's going to get nice and drunk to help you celebrate the love of the century."

His voice sounded about as sarcastic as it could, but Brandon just took my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles.

"Come on," he said with a look that finally made me smile for real. "Let's go celebrate."

~

Two hours and two glasses of champagne later (Cory was holding us to a strict one-drink-per-hour limit), my cheeks hurt. Brandon and I had completely circled the room and done our best to charm as many of the moneyed residents of New England as possible. It wasn't difficult, for Brandon anyway, since he had already been a part of these circles for a long time. But if I had to hear one more time how "charming" it was that my father was a garbage collector, I was going to scream.

I was able to get a moment alone with the people I actually knew. Bubbe, Dad, Ray and Susan, all entertained by Jane for the first part of the evening, had stayed long enough to give Brandon and me their kisses and congratulations. But once the photographer had started snapping pictures, they made their excuses to get out of dodge––Bubbe, only once I'd promised to let her make dinner for all of us sometime soon.

"We should come together as a family," she said with a kiss to my cheek. "Have a real celebration."

I couldn't agree more.

Now I stood in a room full of strangers, most of whom had finally had enough to drink to stop staring at me like I was a circus animal.

"How're you doing, Cros? You look like you're about to make a break for it."

I turned to find Eric standing next to me with two drinks in his hand. He held out one of the glasses to me.

"Thought you could use this. Looks like they have you on a pretty tight leash."

"Oh, you saint, you," I said as I accepted a whiskey soda and took a hefty drink as I scanned the crowd for Cory. "All I've been allowed are two glasses of champagne. Hope doesn't want my face to turn red from the alcohol."

Eric chuckled and took a sip of his own drink. "You renegade, you. So, I hear conversion classes seem to be going well. It's all over the papers. Your profile in People looked particularly angelic."

I gave him a dirty look, and Eric laughed again.

"How's Jane?" I asked sweetly.

Eric's smirk morphed into a frown of his own as we both found my friend across the room, flirting obviously with one of the wait staff. "Really? You had to go there?"

I shrugged. "Eye for an eye, my friend." I nudged him in the shoulder. "Does it matter? I saw you getting cozy with Ana a little bit ago. Now, I thought you didn't do sloppy seconds, even if they were your own."

"Yeah, well..." Eric trailed off on the pretense of taking another long sip of his drink, his eyes immediately searching out my best friend again. "Things change," he finally said. "It's time to grow up."

"That's all, then? You and Jane are done?"

But he didn't answer. We lapsed into silence, watching the crowd. Brandon was cornered by three donors, all vying for his attention while Cory hovered like a gnat. On the other side of the room I could see the only remaining guests who weren't lawyers or invited by the campaign team hovering together in a semi-circle: the members of Brandon's household staff, David, Ana, and Harvey, his trainer.

Ana caught Eric and me watching them, and gave Eric a coquettish little wave. She looked a far sight from the housekeeper I normally saw in jeans and a T-shirt. Dressed in an almost indecently tight red dress, her wild curly hair piled on top of her head, she was the personification of sex. And if the way Eric was shifting uncomfortably beside me was any indication, he thought so too.

Eric smiled that peculiar grin that transformed his face from average and a little grumpy into something that got him more tail than any guy in Boston. Ana suddenly looked like she'd just witnessed a peep show, and I felt like a very uncomfortable voyeur watching them trading glances. Across the room, Jane clearly noticed them too and stiffened visibly, even with her hand on the waiter's shoulder.

"Excuse me," Eric said as he pushed off the wall. He straightened his tie, and strode back into the party with a clear objective in every step.

"Oh well," I murmured to myself after I downed the rest of my drink. "Better get back to it."

~

Another hour later, I desperately needed to stop smiling. So, after visiting the bathroom, I decided to take a breather on the balcony that jutted out over the restaurant's patio seating and looked out to the Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, I pushed aside the thick curtains dividing the balcony from the event room to find it was already occupied.