Page 85 of Small Sacrifices

"I'm sorry," Reid says.

It's not enough. But it's the only thing he can do right now. Except maybe not, because Everett is shuffling over to lean against him. There's a vulnerable gleam in his eyes when he looks up at Reid. And when Reid carefully loops his arms around Everett's shoulders, he gets a wan smile for his efforts.

They sit in silence for a bit. Reid absent-mindedly strokes circles into Everett's shoulder and thinks. The mood changed so quickly. Mere minutes ago, they were making out against a door, and now he's trying to cuddle the sad out of Everett. Or—well. Does this count as cuddling? It does in Reid's book.

In the silence, his thoughts stray back to the moment Everett greeted him at the door. And that brings up an interesting question. "Wait, why did you think that I'd been fired?"

Maybe it's the words that startle Everett, or maybe it's just the interruption of the silence. He sits upright again to look at Reid. "What? Oh, Beth told me."

Officer McNaulty. He can't even remember seeing her on his way out, much less talking to her.

"We really need to talk to Marisol about this," Reid says. "She's much better at strategizing than I am."

Everett groans like a petulant child. "Do we have to?"

Even his big puppy dog eyes are of no use to him. Reid has made up his mind. As tempting as he finds the idea of spending more time alone with Everett, that's going to have to wait until they have a solution to this problem.

Chapter 29: Preparations

"Well, journalists protect their sources," Marisol says when they've explained the problem they've encountered. "Maybe we can go through a journalist."

"Absolutely not." Everett shakes his head vigorously. "Even if that journalist gave us their word and showed us what they'd written, journalists have editors. Someone could change something before it goes to print. And then, if we want to complain, we'll have to go public, anyway.Andwe don't know that this person wouldn't run directly to my father. I can't risk him cutting off contact between me and Max."

"Maxdoescomplicate things." Marisol's tone of voice is so nonchalant that Reid wants to kick her. But they're all sitting at his kitchen table, and his kitchen table is tiny. He'd just end up kicking Everett instead.

Everett narrows his eyes as if considering a more physical solution, but he stays silent. Desperate not to overstep, Reid asks, "Can you think of any way around that?"

Marisol grimaces. "The only immediate solution would be evidence of physical abuse. Even then, there's a risk he could talk his way out of it."

"And if I can get him on tape confessing to it?" Everett interjects.

Reid's blood runs cold. Marisol, previously so blasé, looks taken aback. "I'm sorry?"

Everett shrugs. "He likes to brag, especially to me, to show how much power he has over me."

Reid is deeply unsettled. Everett is so cavalier about it. God, he already feels sick. He tries to make eye contact with Everett, but his face is unreadable.

Marisol speaks carefully now. "It would need to be definitive. He'd need to explicitly say what he's done. And you couldn't be too aggressive; otherwise, he might claim you were threatening him, and he was just playing along."

Reid senses a gap in this plan. What if Everett confronts his father and gets hurt again? It feels wrong to gloss over the fact that Everett has already been hurt. Reid notices the tight clench of Everett's jaw and the way his lips twitch with disgust. Clearly, this is a painful topic for him.

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Everett says, his voice cold. "It never takes much."

Reid's stomach sinks. If it's that bad, why is Everett risking that kind of confrontation over him? He's not worth getting hit. And he's especially not worth Everett losing his sibling.

Across the table, Reid sees Marisol's nostrils flare. "Can I just—" she interrupts herself, hesitating. Whatever she wants to ask about, she looks conflicted. "If this is too much, you can tellme to fuck off. But does this have anything to do with your sexuality?"

"What else would it be about?" Everett asks.

Somewhere in there is a point about there never being a good reason for abuse. But that's not what Everett is saying, Reid thinks. It's an alarming sign that he’s so used to the thought of his father hating him for being queer that he seems to have temporarily forgotten that the man has been championing anti-discrimination legislation for years. Reid wonders how the governor makes those two things fit together in his head.

"Well," Marisol says delicately, "I'm not a lawyer. But..."

"Just spit it out." Everett's voice is sharp, and his shoulders heave with a deep breath. An alarm goes off somewhere in Reid's head. They should stop talking about this sometime soon. If Everett is getting angry, then it's probably too much for him.

"Couldn't it be a hate crime? If he hurts you and explicitly says that's the reason?"

The words make an ice-cold wave descend over Reid.Hate crime.That hadn't even occurred to him. He'd been so preoccupied with the fact that someone was hurting Everett at all that he'd missed the bigger picture.

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