For a couple of months Mia didn’t complain that he didn’t hold her hand at school or call her his girlfriend, and she seemed happy, or at least available, to have sex whenever he texted. She let him try pretty much anything he wanted if he pushed a little bit, and the stories he told impressed his new friends. Mia went with her family to Hawaii for spring break and back at home one of her friends, Bella, made a big show of flirting with Chad at a party. They made out in the hot tub and had sex two nights later in Bella’s family’s pool house. Bella was a step up and seemed game to continue what they’d started—as long as he wasn’t doing it with Mia, too. When Mia came back and heard, she didn’t make a scene. He ignored her and she him. The next year, as managing editor of the senior yearbook, Mia managed to get “Playing with his small dick” printed between “Varsity Basketball” and “Mock Trial” among Chad Drake’s school activities. Ha ha. Fuck them all. He was going back to New York. And for the summer before he started at NYU Chad and his dad actually got along. Ridley had left his big law firm and gone on his own since the divorce. If you were worth more than twenty million dollars, you probably had him on retainer. If your daughter was caught drunk driving in the Hamptons, Ridley could get the locals to drop the charges; if the towel boy at the club was threatening to tell your wife you let him blow you, Ridley gave him money and made him sign an NDA, then got him fired. Underage girls, rape charges, domestic violence, drugs, tax fraud. The day Trevor ambushed Chad, Ridley had been coming from the courthouse where he’d just gotten a judge to sign off on probation and a fine for a CEO who’d sent a prostitute to the emergency room after a hotel encounter. The hotel had the CEO on surveillance entering the room with the girl, but Ridley got the girl’s roommate to make a statement saying the prostitute had told her she was going to “jam up a suit” and get rich.

“What do you mean it was funny?” demanded Ridley in their building’s package room. “Why are the police here?”

“He’s the one who punched me!”

“Show me this video.”

“Dad…”

“Show me the fucking video, Chad.”

Chad handed over his phone. He watched his father, and when it got to the part where she peed, Chad snickered.

“This is Claudia Castro,” said Ridley.

“Yeah.”

“What is the matter with you?” he hissed.

“What?”

“You showed this to that kid out there?”

“I sent it to him. Him and Claudia and her ex.”