A Deal with the Devil by Elizabeth O’Roark

16

On Monday afternoon, Hayes asks me to meet him at a bar near his office to go over the schedule. “A bar, rather than your office?” I ask. “How professional.”

“I need a stiff drink to handle the inevitable nagging that seems to accompany any conversation with you,” he replies. I smile to myself. I do actually have some nagging in store, it’s true.

I reach the bar just after five. The place is dark and cozy—chestnut paneled walls and wood floors, charcoal velvet chairs, low lighting. I’d think it was romantic if I was meeting someone else.

He watches me as I approach, eyes brushing over me from head to toe like I’m something to eat.

“I got you a gin and tonic,” he says.

I sling my purse over the back of the chair and take a seat. “I’m driving.”

“You appear to be sitting, actually,” he says, his eyes flickering over me once again, “and I didn’t order you a hundred gin and tonics.”

“Maybe I have a date tonight,” I say, though in truth, all I’ve got scheduled for the whole evening is a bowl of cereal and a phone call to my mom. “I know it’s shocking, but I do have some small life outside of serving your every need.”

His tongue taps his lip. “I wouldn’t say you serve everyone of my needs,” he counters, his voice low and filthy. I squirm in my seat. “And you don’t have a date because you’re still mooning over Farm Boy.”

“I’m not mooning over anyone,” I argue, squeezing the wedge of lime into my drink. “I’m just licking my wounds, and please don’t make some gross joke about letting someone else lick my wounds…I know that’s where you were headed.”

He sets his drink down. “As a doctor, I doubt I’d suggest either option. But it’s time for your self-pity to stop. Let me make you a Tinder profile.”

He snatches up my phone and I snatch it back. “I can make my own profile, thank you very much. Anything you did would probably reference how many working holes I have.”

His teeth sink into his lip as he tries not to laugh. I picture them sinking into my skin instead and feel goose bumps rise along the back of my arms.

“Okay, well, let me help,” he says. “How about ‘Argumentative redhead seeks—'”

“I’m not a redhead.”

He shakes his head. “Brown is too plain and I can’t believe you’re already arguing with me. As I was saying, ‘Argumentative redhead seeks extremely handsome male to nag. I have three working holes.’”

I smile against my will. “Thanks, that’s perfect. I’ll definitely find Mr. Right with that.”

“I can tell you’re going to be tedious about this. Fine.” He looks over one shoulder and then the other, surveying the room. “Then who here do you find attractive? Aside from me, of course. Obviously, in a perfect world, I’d be your first choice.”

“Obviously,” I say, my lips humming along the lip of my glass. “It’s so hard to find a man who will buy me drinks, fuck me and never call again.”

His gaze sharpens, grows feral. “God, what a filthy little mouth you have,” he says. His voice is pure gravel, and I feel a hard kick of want in my stomach. Or maybe that kick was a little lower if I’m going to be honest.

I imagine hearing him say that while braced over me, flushed and desperate. Or pushing me to my knees with his hands in my hair.

Which is not something I should be picturing about my boss.

My voice is embarrassingly breathless as I change the subject to the schedule. “You’re already booking into July,” I tell him. “I thought you might want some time off.”

He raises a brow. “This again?”

I take a very long sip of my gin and tonic. “Yes. This again. Which reminds me...”

I pull my laptop from my bag and open the calendar, which I then turn toward him. The blank spot on Friday is as glaring as a neon sign. It seemed like a good idea at the time and seems like less of one now that I’m telling him about it. My ideas are often like that.

“You sort of agreed to take some time off.” I sound like a child explaining a lie to an unforgiving parent.

“I said I’d think about it, Tali. That doesn’t mean I agreed.” His eyes are stormy. “You should have asked me first.”

“You’d have said no, so that wouldn’t have been effective.” I smile. He does not smile back. “One Friday, Hayes. Just one.”

He takes a heavy sip off his drink, sneering even as he does so. “What the hell am I going to do on a Friday?”

I look at him blankly. Yes, I’d anticipated an argument about taking the day off, but I didn’t think I’d have to explain the concept of leisure time to him. In the four weeks I’ve worked for him, he hasn’t taken a single day off.

I throw my hands up. “Do whatever people normally do when they get a day off.”

His lips press tight. “They normally sit at the DMV for hours getting a license renewed, or grocery shop. I have you for all that.”

I prod the inside of my cheek with my tongue, wondering if he has a point. When I have a day off…I work. But if I didn’t work, I’d be doing laundry or running errands or jogging while thinking about work. Maybe we need to pull an actual fun person into this conversation, one who enjoys her life.

“Then hike. Or surf. Though I can only picture you doing those things in a suit.”

“Well, obviously,” he says. “I’m not a savage. But I’m not interested in hiking or surfing. I’m interested in making money.”

I exhale wearily. “You live in LA, for Christ’s sake. The things you could do are endless. Drive up the coast. Visit a museum.”

He gives a slow, exaggerated blink, as if he’s been roused from deep sleep. “Sorry, I think I dozed off there. You excel at making leisure time sound dull.”

I’ve got to admit—I bored myself there too. I cycle through memories of times when I was still fun, but only childhood comes to mind: hide and seek or ghost in the graveyard on a summer night, playing badminton with my sisters while my dad worked the grill, cheering us on. All of my happy memories involve other people, which is, perhaps, why I haven’t had a lot of good memories over the past year.

“Go to an amusement park,” I offer, more out of desperation than anything else. I picture him standing in a long line, wearing a suit, texting me to demand I explain Dippin’ Dots to him. “Roller coasters, funnel cake, arcade games. Hard to get more exciting than that.” I try to sound enthusiastic but I think I’m failing.

He sips his drink. “I wonder, when I hear you say these things, how limited your life experience must actually be. But fine. We’ll go. You and me. Make the arrangements.”

I stare at him in dismay. Sure, I love amusement parks, but I didn’t intend to go with him. “Why would you take me? You’ve got half the females in this city eating out of your hand.”

“Because amusement parks are filthy, and I don’t want to be lured into having sex at one.” He holds his empty glass up to the waitress. “What’s the problem? You seem like the sort of gal who would appreciate funnel cake and Simpsons-themed paraphernalia.”

“Wow,” I reply. “So, you want me there because I’m tacky and not attractive enough to fuck. You’ve crafted quite the persuasive argument.”

“Are you denying you like funnel cake?” he challenges, folding his arms across his chest.

“You’d have to be born without a soul to dislike funnel cake,” I mutter.

“Then it’s settled,” he says. He’s smiling as if he’s won something.

* * *

On Friday,I arrive at Hayes’s house an hour later than normal. He’s already up and dressed, wearing khaki shorts and a T-shirt from some London pub. I freeze, completely struck by the visual before me.

I’m not used to seeing him in regular clothes, and if I’d thought it would normalize him somehow, I was wrong. Now all I see are gloriously fit legs and surprisingly muscular arms, his shirt clinging just enough to his chest and stomach to assure me they’re as taut and nicely built as the rest of him.

I, on the other hand, am not much to look at right now. Barefaced, sunglasses, shorts, and a tank top. No jewelry or lash extensions anywhere to be seen, as different from the women he dates as I could possibly be. The closest thing to perfume is the tang of my sunscreen.

I hold my arms out. “You’re welcome. I went the extra mile to make sure you wouldn’t be lured into having sex.”

“Is that a high school track team shirt?” he asks, alarmed.

“Not fancy enough for you, milord? My Gucci amusement-park wear is all at the cleaners.”

He blows out a breath. “My problem isn’t your lack of style. My problem is you look sixteen. The kind of sixteen that is the definition of jailbait, and the shirt isn’t helping. I’m worried I’ll get arrested. Those shorts barely cover your ass and that tank isn’t exactly loose.”

I glance down. I guess I’m covering up a lot less than normal. “This is just what I run in.”

His eyes sweep over me. “Clearly I should be spending more time in Santa Monica. But that doesn’t negate the fact that you’re as fresh-faced as a teenage girl and wearing her clothes today too.”

I shrug and start for the door. “Try not to act creepy in public.”

He follows. “I generally try not to act creepy as a rule.”

“I would not have guessed that.”

His mouth twitches, and I feel oddly...victorious spying that unwilling smile of his. I suddenly realize how glad I am he’s spending this rare day off with me. Along with the more troubling realization that I wouldn’t want anyone here in my place.

We leave for Universal—me, eager as a child; Hayes, tolerating me like a weary but amused parent. Once we’ve parked, I jump from the car and breathe deep. The smell of hot tar and sunscreen reminds me of childhood, back in the days when our family trip to Worlds of Fun was the highlight of the summer.

“I suppose you don’t do amusement parks in England,” I tell him, holding out my phone to an attendant, who scans our admission tickets. “A fun day out is probably a trip to Bath, or a day in the countryside playing with a hoop and stick.”

He exhales. “I get the feeling all your knowledge of my homeland comes from reading books about nineteenth century orphans.”

“Well, we’re about to get a big taste of your homeland in a minute,” I say, leading him through the park, my steps quickening. He’s so much taller that even when I break into a near-jog his stride remains leisurely.

“Tada!” I cry, arms wide as we walk beneath the faux-stone entry to Harry Potter World. “We’re here. Doesn’t it remind you of home?”

His teeth sink into his lip as he takes in the rides and shops. “Ah, yes, Ye Olde Butterbeer Kiosk. There was one on every corner growing up.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine. Don’t show your gratitude. And here I was about to selflessly convince you to buy us both a wand and golden snitch. Which would also remind you of home. I know how you Brits love wands and quidditch.”

Something like laughter bubbles in his throat. Possibly a stifled weary sigh. One of many today, I’m certain. “It’s like you were raised there, you know us so well.”

I make him buy me a butterbeer, which is terrible, and go into the wand shop, though I have just enough pride not to let him buy me a wand when he offers.

With our VIP passes, there is little waiting for rides. I figured a man who hasn’t stood in line for anything in years wasn’t going to handle a ninety-minute wait for Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure. But as we are ushered past a long, winding queue of whining children and weary parents, I wince. “Are you feeling bad about this at all?” I ask, nodding toward their sad little faces.

His brow furrows. “Bad about making the wisest decision of my life and avoiding parenthood? No, not at the moment.”

We watch as a kid old enough to know better gets mad at his father and throws a tray of nachos on the ground. “I feel certain you’re missing out on something by not having children,” I reply, “though I can’t quite think what it is right now.”

“You do?” he asks, swallowing as his gaze flickers to me and away. “Want kids, that is.”

I shove my hands in my pockets. “I thought I did,” I admit. I was eight when Charlotte was born, old enough to treat her like a living doll for several years before she objected. Having kids and being an author—those were my two greatest dreams when I was younger.

He glances at me. “But…?”

“But I doubt I’m ever going to be in a relationship again,” I tell him.

“You’re twenty-five, and you’ve only been single a year. How can you possibly claim you’ll never meet someone?”

I frown at him as the turnstile unlocks to allow us onto the ride. “Because I knew Matt backward and forward, and there was never a sign he was so…different…from who I thought he was. I can’t imagine going through that all over again with someone I don’t know as well.”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I understand that better than you can imagine, but not all men are terrible.”

I step into the car, holding the lap bar while he slides in beside me. His thigh is glued to mine and his shoulders are taking up more than his fair share of the seat, but I can’t say I entirely mind the way we are pressed together. “I just don’t trust myself to know the good ones from the bad, and I doubt I ever will. You wouldn’t understand. You only want the bad ones.”

There’s no time for him to respond. The bar locks over our laps and then the roller coaster inches out of the station, climbing up a massive hill at a rickety pace. Fear and anticipation build in my stomach and I let myself lean against his side, just a bit, finding assurance in the solidity of him, though even those muscles of his won’t prevent us from certain death if this thing goes off the rails.

“You’re nervous?” he asks, grinning down at me.

I narrow my eyes. “Not in the least. I’m just trying to figure out how I can sacrifice you to save myself if this goes badly.”

We reach the hill and drop down what appears to be a ninety-degree angle. The lap bar is all that is keeping me in this seat as my intestines seem to lift into my throat and stay there. I’m terrified and thrilled and clinging to the bar while I attempt to press my face into his shoulder, all while we whip around corners at high speed and fly up another impossible hill. I stop screaming just long enough to hear him laughing—not the dry, sardonic chuckle he gives me occasionally, usually at my expense, but a true belly laugh. It makes me smile for half a second, until I start screaming again.

When we reach the ride’s end, coming to a shockingly sudden stop, I climb off on weak legs.

I’ve only been standing for a few seconds when the world turns black. “Whoa.” The blood rushes from my head, and I find a strong arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me tight.

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

My head falls to his chest as little black dots fill my vision, and even as I struggle to regain my balance, I notice how nice and firm he is, how good he smells—soap and skin and fabric softener, how reassuring his arm around me feels, as if nothing truly bad can happen when I’m standing against him like this.

“Just a dizzy spell,” I reply. “I think I need to eat.”

Slowly I regain my vision and step away from him. His eyes narrow. “You’re sure that’s all it is?” he demands. “Does that happen a lot?”

I laugh. “Are you worried?” He didn’t even look worried when a very famous actress told us she was ‘gushing blood’ from her incision.

He forces his face into a less concerned shape. “No, never. I just don’t want to blow forty bucks on funnel cake for you. But come along.”

He leads me down the exit ramp, his hand moving from my shoulder to the small of my back, as if he’s suddenly convinced I’m the kind of girl prone to fainting spells.

He orders a funnel cake and two lemonades. “You were wrong before, you know,” he says to me.

“I do need to eat,” I argue. “My entire caloric intake in the past twenty-four hours has been a sip of butterbeer and a pack of Oreos last night.”

“Not that,” he replies. “What you said. That I’m only interested in the bad girls.”

He carries the funnel cake over to a spot in the shade and pushes me to sit.

“Fine,” I amend. “Not bad girls. Just temporary ones.”

He tears off a piece of funnel cake, examining it as if it’s some bizarre curiosity—a winged pig or a tomato with eyes. “Not even all that temporary,” he says. “I was engaged once upon a time, after all.”

I stop chewing, momentarily…frozen. I can’t explain why, but the fact that he was once engaged—that he wanted to spend forever with another person—makes my stomach sink.

“What happened?” I ask. The funnel cake has turned to mush in my mouth.

He lifts his head. His eyes are dark, unreadable. “I went away for a month as part of my fellowship. While I was gone, she fell in love with my dad.”

The funnel cake in my hand falls to the ground as I stare at him. I wonder if I’ve misunderstood somehow. Because it’s difficult for me to imagine how anyone with Hayes could choose someone else, but it’s impossible to imagine that someone chose his actual birth parent. “Your dad?” I ask. “Your real dad.”

He nods, putting the funnel cake in his mouth at last. “He’s a movie producer, extremely wealthy. And still relatively young, since he was only twenty when I was born. It was everything she wanted.”

He doesn’t sound bothered by any of this. He could be discussing his taxes for all the emotion in his voice.

“But your dad,” I repeat. “I mean, who does that? And what more did she want?”

He shrugs. “She accused me, when she left, of not loving anyone as much as I love myself.”

I hate her, this insane stranger who left the man beside me for his own father and was an asshole about it to boot. I hate her in a way that I never hated the actress Matt cheated with, hate her more than I ever even hated Matt. I don’t understand how he can just accept it all. “That’s a pretty bitter thing to say to someone you’re leaving, especially under those circumstances.”

He swallows. “She wasn’t wrong. I’d lost a patient and I was floundering, not sure if I wanted to stay in medicine at all, more consumed with my own shit than hers. And I was still finishing my fellowship back then, making nothing, so it’s not as if there was any other benefit to sticking around.”

I’m still so dumbfounded I can barely respond. I wonder if it’s why he’s in that ridiculous house—if it’s some Great Gatsby-esque attempt to prove his worth to her.

“It sounds like you actually forgave them,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t see how.”

He wipes his hands on a napkin. Apparently one bite of funnel cake was enough. “I was forced to learn a few hard truths about myself, and I got a little sister out of it, so it’s not all bad.”

My mouth opens, and he holds up a hand. “Before you suggest that I not write off an entire enterprise based on one bad experience, allow me to remind you, you’ve done the same thing.”

He swipes some powdered sugar off my upper lip with his thumb, small laugh lines forming at the corners of his eyes as he does it. There’s so much affection in the look he gives me, so much sweetness, that my heart breaks for him even more. He’s taken that bitter parting shot of hers and made it his motto, embraced the idea that he isn’t loving or loveable, when nothing could be further from the truth.

If he was mine, I’d have held on with everything I had.

* * *

When we’ve hitevery ride and eaten a year’s worth of junk food (which, for the record, Hayes completely enjoyed even if he wouldn’t admit it), we head home. After the heat of the day and all the walking, the passenger seat and air conditioning are all I need to be lulled to sleep. When my eyes open, we’re in front of his house.

“It’s about time you woke up,” he says. “The neighbors are probably calling the cops to report a comatose teenager in my driveway.”

I yawn. “They’d have placed that call years ago if they were going to. So how will you spend the rest of your day off?”

“The sky’s the limit,” he replies. We both climb from the car. I’m strangely reluctant to leave.

He seems reluctant too. He places a hand on the car’s roof, in no rush to get inside. “Enjoy your quiet night in, refusing to get a life. I’ll think of you while I’m out doing the things you won’t.”

My nose wrinkles. “I’d prefer you not think of me during that, if it’s all the same to you.”

He gives me the dirtiest smile imaginable. “A man has limited control over where his mind goes at various points.”

My body sags a little against the car as I release a quiet breath. I know he’s joking, but my stomach is fluttering anyway—like a single baby butterfly trying out its fledgling wings. If I thought he’d ever actually imagined me during sex, I’d probably orgasm right where I stand.

I cross the driveway to my car, which looks especially rusted out and ready for the junkyard this afternoon. After a day in Hayes’s BMW, it will feel like I’m driving home in a car from The Flintstones.

“Hey, Tali,” he says, as I reach for the door. “Thanks. It was the best day I’ve had in a long time.” He’s being earnest for once, and I can tell it’s difficult for him.

Another baby butterfly takes flight. I smile, stifling the impulse to ruin it with a joke. But I can’t bring myself to tell him the truth…it was the best day I’ve had in a long time too.

* * *

At home,before I’ve even kicked off my shoes, I go online to look up Hayes’s dad and wife.

His dad is hot for a guy in his fifties and looks a lot like his son, which really just makes the whole thing creepier.

Ella, his wife, is fine-boned and tremulously beautiful in that way only foreign women are: So fragile you’d think a strong wind might blow her over. The kind of woman other women don’t even try to imitate because you know, looking at her, that imitation is impossible.

It makes my chest ache. It’s not as if I ever thought I would replace her. It just sucks to realize I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.