Everyone knows the game with politics.

It’s diplomacy and appearance dressed up in Ralph Lauren suits, but strip it down and it’s sex, scandals, and damage control.

Because without that? Politics wouldn’t be politics.

Look at Monica Lewinsky and dear old Bill.

I grew up knowing “Hamilton” wasn’t just a name — it was politics. A synonym for it.

The stories were constant. White House at ten. A president picking me up drunk at seventeen. Half-truths, half-exaggerations — enough that people decided my life before I did.

But it was never what I wanted.

I didn’t care that my father was a Senator in ’88 or that I was expected to inherit the entire machine one day.

I wanted the Marines.

Not boardrooms. Not donor dinners. Not smiling through speeches about “service” while sipping Macallan in some private club that cost more than most people’s rent.

I wanted to actually serve my country. Not perform it.

But apparently father knows best.

And I didn’t get a choice.

Boarding school, then Political Science at Columbia, then the slow pipeline into politics until I was supposed to run for office myself.

That was the plan.

What’s politics without scandal anyway?

Columbia was me, Wilson, and Partridge wasting time while Whitman made sure we didn’t end up doing coke in some dodgy strip club.

Then eventually we grew up.

Or at least we were supposed to.

Some nights I’m not convinced we did.

But that’s how I met her I guess.

Technically it was Adrian’s fault.

We were at his place, pool table, drinks, girlfriends in the background like decoration.

His “just a thing” — who he’s absolutely not just a thing with — showed up with a friend.

And that friend became my problem.

Because I just stared at her.

Jesus Christ.

She looked like she walked out of a Playboy magazine wearing the tiniest black dress and plotting my death.

I spend the entire evening talking to her.

She spent it rolling her eyes at me like I was an inconvenience she hadn’t decided to tolerate yet.

That’s how it started.

Turns out she’s a stripper.

Sex worker, technically — and she corrected me fast the first time I used anything else.

She hates labels.

Doesn’t stop her from being the most interesting thing in my life.

After a day of my father reminding me I’m apparently single-handedly ruining American democracy, I throw off my tie and end up at Alley 57.

Her club.

That’s where I got her nickname — Allie — since she refused to tell me her name for weeks and I got tired of guessing.

She still rolls her eyes every time I use it, but she never actually corrects me anymore.

She always looks unimpressed when I show up, like I’m interrupting something important.

But she dresses like she knows exactly why I come.

Keeps me entertained as long as I’m slipping hundreds into her waistband.

She says she doesn’t care about me.

I don’t believe her.

She moves like she owns gravity.

Confident enough that the room follows.

Then she drags me home like it’s routine.

No expectations. No complications. Just this.

Tonight she knows I’ve had a bad day. She just fixes it.

Devil’s tango, if you will.

Now she’s walking across my kitchen bar in someone else’s bra and underwear, complaining about my “lack of basic decency” while I sit on the couch watching her like this is normal.

I laugh.

“Who’s the sex worker here?”

She grins without even looking at me.

“And who pays me?”

“Touché.”

“But my point still stands. You should put other women’s things away when you’ve got company. It’s basic courtesy.”

“You don’t actually care.”

“Oh, I don’t. This lingerie is expensive. I’m keeping it. But some woman eventually will, and she’ll have opinions.”

“Wow. Such a charitable friend of the male species.”

“You’re lucky to have me.”

“And so modest, Allie.”

She gasps and flips me off.

“I’m not conceited. I just know my worth. And you know my name now, so you don’t have to call me Allie.”

I stand, cross the room, and lift her off the counter.

Tap her nose lightly.

“You’ll always be Allie to me. And you’re the most insufferable person I know. So deal with it”