10.0 #2
The lobby swallowed me whole-cool air, quiet marble, a concierge who kept his eyes on a monitor like none of us were real.
The elevator was a mirror box. My reflection stared back in three angles: suit precise, eyes wrong.
I loosened my tie another notch and watched the knot hang there like a bad decision.
When the doors opened, the penthouse hit with its own kind of silence. Big, expensive, sterile. The kind of quiet that makes you aware of your heartbeat. Lights were low. The city spread under the windows like a map I didn't know how to read anymore.
"About time," a voice called from the kitchen.
Sincere leaned against the island, sleeves pushed up, a glass of sparkling water sweating in his hand. He'd let his beard grow in since I'd seen him last-softer around the jaw, same steady eyes. He looked like sleep you could trust.
"You still have a key?" I asked, setting my phone face down on the counter.
"Used it for emergencies only," he said. "You looked like one on TV."
I huffed something close to a laugh and reached for a bottle of water. The cap clicked too loud in the quiet. "How'd you even get past downstairs?"
"Man, they still like me." He took a sip, watched me over the rim. "You good?"
"Define good."
We stared at each other a beat too long. Then I moved first, shrugging out of the jacket, draping it on a chair. The room felt tight and wide at once.
"Congrats, by the way," he said, like he'd remembered his cue and didn't want to step on the landmines yet. "Mr. VP. Historic ticket. Your mom call you 'my baby the vice president' yet?"
"Something like that."
He snorted. "And your pops?"
"Something louder."
Sincere's mouth tilted. "He forget you grown?"
"He remembers when it's convenient."
He let that sit. We didn't have to fill every silence; that was the thing about him. He'd been there before the title, before the mask. He'd seen the blueprint and the wreckage.
"You want to eat?" he asked finally. "I grabbed food. Real food."
I realized my stomach was a knot I'd mistaken for emptiness. "What is it?"
"Chicken. Greens. Mac." He popped a takeout bag open. The smell hit, warm and human.
He slid a plate my way, nothing fancy, just weight. We ate at the island like we were twenty-two again and hadn't learned to perform dinner for donors. Between bites, he filled the space with small talk.
"I saw the clip," he said after a while, quiet. He meant the one the tabloids were tearing apart-me on cable at the exact wrong hour, answers slurred at the edges, eyes glassy. "They're gonna make a meal out of it."
"They always do."
"Sometimes they're right."
I set the fork down, appetite draining. "You here to give me the lecture, too?"
"Nah." He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "I'm here to remind you you're not a robot. But robots don't get hurt by bullets. People do."
I opened my mouth, closed it again. The truth of it was a stone I couldn't swallow.
He drummed his fingers once on the counter, then changed lanes so I could breathe. "You still got that vinyl I gave you? The Marvin record?"
"In a box somewhere."
The front door clicked.
"Here we go," Sincere muttered under his breath, smoothing a hand over his beard.
The door slammed so hard the frames on the wall rattled.
Margot's heels tore across the hardwood, sharp, fast, like gunshots.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" she screamed the second she saw me. Her voice cracked already, high and cutting. "I had to find out from fucking Twitter that you embarrassed yourself on live TV? You think that's funny?"
Sincere looked at me, then at her, then back at his drink. "I should bounce-"
"Yeah, you should," she snapped, spinning on him. "Go play loyal puppy somewhere else."
Sincere's jaw tightened, but he grabbed his jacket. "Hit me later, man."
He left. The click of the door was like a bell starting a round.
Margot turned back to me, eyes blazing. She yanked her phone out, hit play, shoved it in my face. The clip of me slurring, blinking too long, chyron screaming IS HE DRUNK? filled the air.
"You're a fucking joke, Brooks," she said, spitting the words. "A goddamn joke. Do you know how humiliating this is for me? For us?"
I laughed once, dry and ugly. "For you? You married the name, Margot. Don't act surprised it comes with a circus."
She stormed closer, eyes wild. "The name? No, I married a man I thought had a spine. Instead I got a fucking coward who can't stand on his own two feet without a bottle."
My hand tightened around the glass on the counter. "Don't call me a coward."
"Oh, what do you want me to call you? Senator Sloppy? The drunk prince of daddy's empire?" She shoved me in the chest, hard. "You're pathetic."
I shoved her hand off. "Better pathetic than hollow. You're nothing but a dress with teeth, Margot."
Her face twisted. "Fuck you." Her voice cracked on the word, but she was already pushing through it, louder, sharper. "You think you're some tragic hero drowning in whiskey? You're not. You're just a weak little boy crying about his daddy while the rest of us have to clean up your mess."
Something in me snapped. My voice came out raw, loud enough to shake the walls. "At least I'm not a parasite. At least I don't need cameras to feel alive. You suck the air out of every room just so people will call you perfect."
"I am perfect!" she screamed, hair falling into her face, eyes wild. "Perfect enough to cover your ass while you spiral. Perfect enough to smile while you reek of liquor. Perfect enough to pretend this marriage is anything but a fucking cage you keep pissing in."
"You wanted the cage!" I roared back. "You begged for the cage! All you ever wanted was the Whitmore name and the goddamn spotlight. Don't stand there and act like we're in this out of love."
Her voice broke into a shriek. "I don't love you! I can't love you! Nobody can love you, Brooks - you're fucking unlovable."
The words hit like a fist. I slammed my glass into the sink, shards exploding across the counter.
She flinched, then came back sharper, crueler. "You think Amira loved you? She left you. She ran the fuck away because she saw what I see - a man with nothing but a famous last name and a bottle. You couldn't even keep her. That's who you are."
My chest heaved, fury and shame twisting so tight it hurt to breathe. I stepped forward, teeth clenched, voice ripping out of me. "Say her name again and I swear to God-"
She leaned in, eyes wide, smile twisted. "Amira. Amira. Amira. No wonder you drink - she wouldn't even give you a second chance. She saw the real you."
"Shut the fuck up." I roared, slamming my fist down on the counter hard enough the bottles rattled.
She didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just stared at me with that smug, venom-dripping grin. "Do the world a favor, Brooks. Drown in your whiskey. Maybe then people will remember you as tragic instead of pathetic."
The silence after her scream was deafening.
My pulse pounded in my ears, "And another thing", she said, voice lower now, steadier, scarier.
" I've known you since we were kids. I watched you grow up, Brooks. And all that time, I thought-maybe he'll be something. Maybe he'll figure it out. But you never did. You're the same scared little boy hiding behind your father's shadow,
clutching your bottle like it's the only thing keeping you upright."
I stayed silent, jaw tight.