A Deal with the Devil by Elizabeth O’Roark

14

In a baseball cap and sunglasses, Drew Wilson looks like half of LA—blonde, tan, perfect. I’m still not sure how I’ve wound up meeting her for coffee on a sunny patio café on Oak Street. She called once again to set up a consult with Hayes and I once again talked her out of it, and here we are.

“You’re Tali?” she asks, her brown eyes wide as I walk up to the table. “Ugh. You’re so little and cute. Six would just love you.” Six is her sort-of guitarist boyfriend and, from what she’s described, a horrible human being.

“Hard pass,” I reply, dropping into the bright red chair across from hers. “As I’ve told you several times now, that guy is a jackass.”

“Just wait until you hear what he did,” she says, sliding the menu toward me. “But order first. The service here sucks.”

I laugh as I look around, realizing this is a surprisingly dingy café for someone as famous as Drew. “Aren’t you, like, a billionaire?” I counter. “I’d think you’d at least be frequenting places where the service is adequate.”

Her smile is a little weary. “I kind of like that they treat me as poorly as they do everyone else. At least I know they’re being genuine.”

My heart goes out to her, because I’ve had a small taste of what her life must be like, and I absolutely hated it.

During my final year with Matt, I found myself questioning the motives of every single person who was vaguely pleasant to me, wondering if it was authentic or because they wanted access to my newly famous boyfriend.

“The best part of breaking up with Matt was that no one cared who I was anymore,” I admit. “And being able to run the trash out in my pajamas without someone taking our fucking picture.”

She removes her sunglasses and I see a longing in her eyes so strong it’s almost palpable. “You’re lucky you can walk away,” she says. “There are times when I wish I could.”

Because for someone as famous as Drew, there’s almost nowhere in the world she can walk or run to anymore. It would take decades for anyone to let her fade away.

The waitress arrives. She is as surly as Drew hinted she might be, and takes my coffee order with the enthusiasm of a battle-weary soldier, looking at neither of us.

“Wow, you weren’t lying about the service,” I whisper, leaning toward her as the waitress returns to the kitchen. “Okay, now tell me what your asshole non-boyfriend said, so I can hate him more than I already do.”

She leans back in her chair and blows out a breath. “He said I was fleshy. He grabbed my hip and said, ‘getting a little fleshy, babe.’”

I groan and place a palm over my face. I don’t understand how she can be as smart as she is and not see through this guy. “You should have kicked him in the balls.”

“But he was just being honest,” she argues. “And it’s true. I’ve put on weight, so I feel like I can’t hold it against him. I mean, it’s better to know than not know, right?”

I frown. “I think it’s better to be with someone who loves you so much, a little weight on your hips is irrelevant.”

She sighs. “I’m not sure that exists. Ugh. If we keep talking about Six, I’m going to need to add booze to this coffee. Which is an option I’m totally open to, if you are.”

I laugh. “If my pain-in-the-ass boss wasn’t already hoping for a reason to fire me, I totally would.”

As if I’ve summoned him, my cell buzzes with a call from Hayes.

“Jesus, you’re like Voldemort. I say your name and you appear from the ether,” I tell him, mouthing an apology to Drew. “I’m out at coffee with a friend. What’s up?”

“Working hard as always, I see. It’s a good thing I don’t have to pay you much.”

I laugh despite myself. “Consider it comp time for all the hours I’ve spent awake because someone decided to text me in the middle of the night.”

“You love my middle of the night texts,” he replies. “And it’s not like you have anything else to do.”

“I could sleep, Hayes. Text Miss It’s-So-Big if you need to chat at three AM. So did you want something?” His chuckle is barely audible but I hear it. I’m glad my impatience amuses him.

“I was wondering if you could make me a salad today. I have an opening at two.”

My teeth sink into my lip as I try not to grin. In a life with very few accomplishments of late, this feels like a huge win for me, as pathetic as that is.

“What I hear you saying is you now crave my salads.”

“There are things I’d crave from you long before salad,” he replies, and goose bumps crawl over my arms.

When I hang up, I find Drew leaning back in her chair with a knowing smile. “Well, aren’t you two chummy?” she asks. “What else are you assisting him with?”

“Shut up. It’s not like that. He just eats like shit, and I wanted him to get some vegetables.”

“I thought he was a pain in the ass?” she challenges.

I shrug. “Sure, but if he dies of scurvy, I won’t have an income.”

She laughs and then she leans forward, her lashes lowering, smiling like a witch about to cast a spell. “You are so much more interesting than I realized, Tali. So much more. Starting with the fact that at some point over the next few weeks, you are definitely going to fuck your boss. And I want every detail when it happens.”

* * *

What Drew said was laughable.Even if Hayes has managed to go for a week or two without a threesome—he hasn’t brought anyone home in a while, actually—after what I went through with Matt, he’s the last person I’m going to choose. But as I prepare Hayes’s salad, it does give me an idea for the book. What if there was an attraction between Julian and Aisling? It’s worry that keeps you reading a book, a fear that things won’t work out or the heroine will make the wrong choice.

And Julian would be the ultimate wrong choice.

Hayes strides in at that very moment, undoing the first few buttons of his shirt and pushing his hair back off his face. I feel a sudden, sharp jab of desire, watching him. Yes, Julian could make a very compelling case for Aisling if he wanted to.

I push the salad toward him. “Go sit outside.”

He glances at the terrace as if it’s an alien landscape. “Why?”

“Because while I find the idea of vampires exciting, you struggling with a vitamin D deficiency is less so.”

He folds his arms across his chest, frowning. Clearly, I’ve thrown a wrench in his plan to avoid sunlight forever. “Sit with me, then,” he says after a second. “I’ll be bored, and you’re marginally entertaining.”

“I’m extremely entertaining.”

“You could be, certainly,” he purrs, with the dirtiest possible lift to his mouth. It’s as if that smirk of his is directly tied to my nerve endings—that’s how fast my body responds. And why him? Why him instead of Sam or a hundred other men who could potentially make decent boyfriends?

I grab two bottles of sparkling water from the fridge and together we walk outside. He has a lovely backyard, with a long, quiet pool and large grassy area, though in truth, I prefer LA’s wildly flowering trees and vines to his neatly sculpted boxwood hedges. He eats, and I lean my head back against the chair and turn my face toward the sun. The weather, the views...I can hardly imagine a better place to live, yet I suspect Hayes works too hard to appreciate any of it.

“You’re not doing the best job entertaining me,” he says.

“You won’t like what I have to say,” I reply, turning my head toward him. “You need to schedule some downtime for yourself. A weekend, or even a day.”

“Not happening.” He sets the bowl on the table and folds his hands over his exceedingly flat stomach.

“Just think about it, okay?” I plead. “Today you’re going from something called a Botox Baby Shower, which I really hope doesn’t involve Botoxing pregnant women—”

“Just their babies.” He stretches, the seams of his shirt straining at his broad shoulders as he places his hands behind his head.

“To the gym with your buddy Ben, followed by drinks at Lucent. Your life is just too busy.”

“I’ll think about it,” he says, though his tone implies he won’t.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you ever had time to come drink at Topside,” I tell him. “Or why you were there in the first place. You’ve probably never worn a bandanna in your life.”

His gaze meets mine for one long moment before it drifts away. I get the feeling there’s something he hasn’t told me about that night. I want to know why he looked at me the way he did. And I really want to know why he left.

“How else would I fill an hour between the Botox baby shower and drinks with friends?”

“Reading?” I suggest. “Quiet self-reflection?”

“I’m beginning to see why you’re still single.”

I glance away. I don’t know why his comment bothers me. It’s not as if I’m sad that I’m single. I suppose it’s just that—though the biggest mistakes were Matt’s—there’s a part of me that wonders if I should have bended more, or at least faked interest in the Hollywood scene he found so fascinating after we arrived. Matt certainly seemed to think so.

“Jesus,” says Hayes. His face has fallen. “You just broke up with someone, didn’t you?”

“It’s fine.”

He groans, leaning forward to turn toward me. “I’m sorry. You can spit in my coffee tomorrow if it’ll make you feel better.”

I smile. “I spit in your coffee every day. It’s not as exciting as you’d think.”

He continues to look troubled when he really shouldn’t. It’s been a year, almost, and I should be well over this by now.

“Was this recent?” he asks.

“Not really.” I straighten the hem of my skirt, toying with a loose thread. “We were together for ten years and broke up last summer when my dad died.”

“Ten years?” he asks, incredulous. That he finds ten years of monogamy unfathomable is completely unsurprising. “How’s that even possible? You’re in your early twenties. You couldn’t have even been in the same place the whole time.”

I shrug. “Same high school, same college, then he went to New York for work, and I went to grad school there.” And then he begged me to leave New York with him, and I did that too. I put him first, because I thought that’s what you do for someone you love. It’s a mistake I won’t make again. “Matt was on location when my father died, and when I got back from Kansas, he told me he’d cheated on me while I was gone.” My tone is flat, factual. I refuse to let anyone think I’m still upset about what he did, especially when it wasn’t the cheating that ended it—it was what he said when we fought afterward. Just admit the fucking book isn’t going to happen, and find something else to do with your life. You’d never have gotten the deal in the first place if it wasn’t for me. For years, I’d encouraged him, supported his dreams when mine were coming true and his were not. But the moment that flipped, he couldn’t do the same for me.

Hayes’s jaw shifts and his eyes narrow. “He’s a twat then, Tali, and he never deserved you.” For someone with a pretty poor track record of his own, his anger is unexpected. “I could ruin him for you, if you’d like. Give me his name. I know people.”

I’m not entirely sure he’s joking.

“I’m surprised, given the way you live, that you’re not taking his side,” I whisper. So many people told me I should let what Matt did go, and there’s a part of me that wants Hayes to be among them. That wants to continue believing he’s the charming but unrepentant douchebag I could never trust.

He swallows. “Think what you will,” he says, looking away, “but I’ve never cheated on anyone in my life. Nor will I.”

Every bone in my body wants to argue...and yet, I kind of see it. No matter how much I dislike some of Hayes’s behavior, I’ve never seen him break a promise.

But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t. How do you ever know for sure? How do you predict when it will go wrong again? There were no warning signs with Matt. I search our history for them, but there were no lingering glances at other females, no mysterious late-night texts. He didn’t even lock his phone. And the words that would end it, there’s no sign of them either. I really thought he believed in me until I realized with a few sharp words he never had.

If Matt could turn so false, without a single warning sign, anyone could.

* * *

I speakto Liddie that night for the first time since Charlotte’s birthday. We’ve texted, of course, but I guess I’ve been avoiding her otherwise, still irked that she used what should have been a happy occasion to start a fight with my mom. I get that she and Alex aren’t in a position to help with Charlotte’s stay at Fairfield, but she could at least not make things worse.

“Well, I’m not pregnant,” she announces, her voice flat.

“Sorry,” I say, but I don’t sound all that sorry. If I’m being honest, her obsession with having a second child seems self-indulgent to me, given everything else going on. It’s a problem she’s created and yet she seems to think it deserves equal billing. “It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen,” I add.

“That’s such bullshit,” she says. “That’s what someone says when they want you to shut up about it.”

Precisely, I think, though I’ve got just enough restraint not to say it aloud. But it doesn’t even make sense. The first time she got pregnant, she was a senior in college and devastated. She’s spent years lamenting the fact that she didn’t finish her degree, and now that Kaitlin is old enough for preschool and she has time to spare...she’s pining after the opposite.

“Fine, tell me what you want me to say,” I reply. “Since there’s apparently a script.”

“Right,” she says, with a bitter laugh. “Sorry. You’re probably busy with your book deal and your famous boss and your famous ex, and this must all seem so very trivial to you.”

I stare at the blinking fluorescent bulb overhead, at the off-brand crackers I had for dinner and the four walls I can nearly reach while remaining in my bed. “You’ve absolutely nailed it, Liddie,” I reply. “I’m too busy with my glamorous life.”

And then, for the first time since we were teenagers, I slam down the phone.