The video—shooting it and sending it—was a bad idea. He could admit that. But his father’s reaction was out of whack, as usual. In the package room at The Park View, Ridley asked him why the boy on the other side of the door had punched him.

“Because he found out his girlfriend’s a slut,” said Chad.

“That’s not an answer, Chad. How are you involved?”

“I sent him a video of her sucking me off.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it was funny.”

That wasn’t the reason, of course. It was kind of funny—Claudia Castro getting it from both ends, so out of it she pissed herself in his bed. But really, he did it because he hated her and he wanted her to suffer forever. Before she kissed him that first week at NYU, he thought he’d gotten over her. He’d spent the last two years of high school in Los Angeles with his mom, away from Claudia and away from his father’s insane sex life. How can a kid like you not get laid? his father would ask, sometimes in front of the women he brought home. After the separation, Ridley had a woman in his bed at least three nights a week. In the morning they were always half-dressed and playing wifey, offering to make breakfast in the kitchen his mother had never used. Did they think his dad was going to marry them if they whipped up a Belgian waffle? Ridley loved it, though. He had asked Irina, the housekeeper, to make sure there were always fresh pastries in the morning, and coffee service. Chad’s dad wasn’t the typical fuck-and-run; he liked playing house, too. The sex was better, he once told Chad, if they think they have a chance. A chance for what? Chad had asked. A chance to get all this.

Chad started skipping breakfast but he couldn’t avoid the women entirely, especially once sophomore year was over for the summer and he didn’t have school to go to. They always asked the same question: Do you have a girlfriend? No, he didn’t have a fucking girlfriend

“He hates it when people ask that,” his father said once. “I don’t know why,” Ridley continued. “He’s a good-looking kid.”

“Dad.”

“I’m just saying, you need to get it done. You can’t go to college a virgin, Chad.”

“Dad.”

“He’s hung up on this one girl.”

“Ahh,” said the woman. She was a cliché in every possible way. Blond and skinny, wearing one of his father’s shirts with no bra beneath, bare legs crossed at the breakfast table on the balcony overlooking Central Park. “That’s sweet.”