A Deal with the Devil by Elizabeth O’Roark

18

Hayes’s smoothie is waiting when he joins me in the kitchen the next morning. He’s slick and pressed and perfect as ever, but his gaze is just a little more piercing than normal. I wonder if I was weird yesterday. Of course I was weird, and I’m still being weird. I can’t seem to shake the desire for more of his attention, for the feeling of his hands on my skin and his eyes on my face the way they were in his office.

I picture him cornering me in the kitchen, his hard body pressing my back to the cabinet, invading my space. His thumb on my mouth before his lips seek mine, his hands falling low, to slide over my hips, to tug up my skirt.

The mere thought makes me feel winded. I can’t imagine what the reality would do.

“I have a party tonight,” he says, shattering the fantasy. “I may need your help.”

I hope he can’t tell that my head was somewhere else entirely. I close my eyes for a moment and calm my breathing. Get it together. This is what he does: he makes women feel like they’re special and then he moves on.

“As far as I can tell, you don’t need any help at parties.” It comes out sounding more bitter than I’d intended.

“It’s an industry thing,” he says with a glib smile, putting his keys in his pocket and grabbing his coffee. “Every actress or female producer I talk to is going to wind up deciding she wants a little touch of something. Besides, you’re clearly good advertising. Everyone who sees you assumes I did your work and wants the exact same thing.”

I have no desire to stand by his side while he flirts with beautiful women all night. If only I actually had plans so I could refuse. “What should I wear?” I ask, my shoulders sagging.

He glances at me, his eyes falling to my mouth, soft as a snowflake, before they jerk away. “Every eye will be on you,” he says, “no matter what you wear.”

He sounds as if he regrets it.

* * *

I choosea dress I bought right after Matt got his first big part—black and silky, draped low in the front, no back whatsoever.

Matt called it my Fuck This Party We’re Staying Home dress. I flinch at the memory as I slide it on. He made me feel so desirable back then, and the thing is, I still believe he meant it. He just didn’t mean it enough, and how do you ever know when someone does?

I pair the dress with sky-high strappy black sandals that will still only bring me to Hayes’s collarbone. My hair is down, curling softly over my shoulders, along with a smoky eye and a hint of nude lipstick to play up the lips he seemed to appreciate yesterday. Some distant part of my brain asks why I’m making the effort and shies away from the answer.

The event is held at Black Swan, a massive new bar in the center of Beverly Hills. By the time I arrive, the place is packed. Everywhere I look, I see beautiful women and vaguely familiar faces. It’s the kind of event Matt would have sold his soul to attend, back when we first got to LA.

I’d forgotten, until now, how much I hated attending these things with him. The way people would treat him as if he was superhuman and would treat me like the lucky but replaceable straggler along for the ride.

And sometimes I got the feeling he agreed with them. That’s what I hated most of all.

I’ve spent so long telling myself Matt and I were perfectly happy, but as I stand here taking in the crowd, it seems I remember more bad memories than good.

I give my name to the doorman inside and text Hayes to say I’m here. Only moments later, I see him moving toward me. He’s in a black shirt, partly unbuttoned, and looking at me in a way I enjoy far too much. Like I’m the only thing in the entire bar, the entire city, he can see.

“Jesus,” he says, blowing out a breath. “Half the men in this room are old, Tali. And now I’m going to have to defibrillate all of them.”

I blush, struggling to remember why I’m here. I’m sure there was something, but all I want is for him to keep saying sweet things and looking at me the way he is.

“So, what is it you need me to do tonight?” I ask, glancing around us.

He hands me a drink. “Relax, first of all. It’s a party. I’m not going to ask you to perform open-heart surgery. Just help me with scheduling and save me if I get trapped by someone.”

I roll my eyes. “How will I know whether you’re trapped or talking her into something she’ll definitely regret?”

His gaze flickers over my dress once more. It feels as if we are the only people in the room. “I assure you, she wouldn’t regret it. But there won’t be any of that tonight.”

In truth, it seems like there hasn’t been any of that for a while. He still occasionally gets texts from women he’s seen in the past, but he ignores them, and there have been no new dates, no naked women in his bed the next day.

As I’m thinking this, though, he turns toward a group of women who immediately start flirting, gripping his biceps, smiling too widely. Maybe he’s just finally learned how to be discreet.

I’m forced to take a step back as the group closes in around him, and those memories of being replaceable seep back in. I lift the glass in my hand and swallow half of it in one go, hoping it will dull my nerves and quiet my thoughts a little.

“You are way too pretty to be standing here alone,” says a voice behind me. I look over my shoulder to find a generically attractive guy not much older than me. His smile is confident, then sheepish in turn. “Sorry, that was cheesy. I was gonna offer to buy you a drink but it’s an open bar.”

“That would weaken the gesture somewhat,” I reply, taking another sip of whatever Hayes got me.

He extends a hand. “I’m Chris.” His handshake is firm—an adult handshake. “And you look so familiar. What have I seen you in?”

I shake my head. “I’m not an actress.”

“Really?” he says, stepping closer. “You just became so much more appealing to me, and you were already appealing.”

Is this how flirting works? I really have no idea, and now it feels like I’m too old to learn. But this is the first attractive, single guy I’ve spoken to in a while. I suppose I should at least try, even if it’s the last thing I feel like doing.

“So you’re an actor?” I ask.

His grin is cocky. “You seriously don’t know who I am?”

I’m about to reply when Hayes suddenly appears at my side with his hand on my elbow, making a polite but clipped excuse to my new friend as he drags me away.

“And here I was worried you wouldn’t have a good time,” he says.

I’m relieved he’s rescued me, but I’m not about to let him know it. “I’d probably be having a better time if you weren’t dragging me away from the first man I’ve spoken to in months.”

“I brought you here to work,” he replies. His voice is clipped, devoid of its normal mischief. “It’s funny how quickly you forget you’re being paid.”

I hold up my phone. “And I’m ready to do so. Or was I supposed to—”

My words fall away entirely, my eyes frozen on the man being whisked past the doorman. My heart flops like a fish out of water, in serious danger of collapse.

Matt is here.

With a date by his side.

It’s hard to imagine a worse scenario than this one. He’s even wealthier and more successful than he was a year ago, whereas most of his dire predictions for me have come true. I’m alone, I haven’t finished the book, I’ve taken a lame Hollywood job to make ends meet. If I pack up and move home, he’ll be four for four.

I can’t stand it.

Sheer panic takes over. I’m trying to think, but I’m a shaky mess, all fluttering hands and weak, skittish pulse. “Shit.”

Hayes raises a brow, glancing from me to Matt. “What?” he asks. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me you have some deep, undying love for Noah Carpenter? I thought you were more interesting than that.”

“No,” I say, biting my lip. He’s moving through the room. He hasn’t seen me yet, but any minute now he will. “No. Can I just—can you just do something for me? Please?”

“Fine, I’ll have sex with you,” he says with a long sigh, “but only the one time, okay? And from behind, so it’s not awkward in the morning.”

He absolutely doesn’t get it. Matt’s going to spy me in a matter of seconds, and when that happens, it will be the most humiliating moment of a life positively strewn with humiliating moments.

“Hayes, this is important.” I clasp my hands together, pleading. “When he gets here, please don’t tell him I work for you, okay?”

Hayes is acting like this is the most amusing situation he’s ever been in, a lazy smile stretched across his face. “What’s in it for me?”

“Jesus Christ, Hayes,” I hiss. “You already have my entire life. What more could you possibly want?”

It’s then that Matt spies me. He looks stricken, as if he’d forgotten I even fucking existed, and the sudden reminder is a shock. And then his face breaks into that smile—the one I used to love. The one that made me feel like I was the most adorable, special thing in the entire world. Now half the planet loves it just as much, and I finally realize it was never really mine at all.

He skirts around a group of men, ditching the actress he brought without a word, and then he’s here, pulling me against him.

I freeze in response. My limbs are stiff, unmoving, unable to behave normally. These are the only arms I had around me from ages fourteen to twenty-four, and being in them again is surreal. I’ve only kissed two other people, and had sex with one other, in my entire life. Standing here is like being reunited with a missing part of myself, one I know is diseased but still feels right.

“God, it’s so good to see you, Tali,” he says, finally pulling away. His hands frame my jaw as he stares at me. It’s too much eye contact. It’s too intense. I feel sweat beading down the center of my chest. “How have you been?”

I’m about to stammer a reply, when Hayes’s arm wraps around my waist, pulling me away from Matt. His lips press to my head in a show of casual possession, and Matt has to look up to meet Hayes’s eye, a fact I enjoy way more than I should. Matt always did wish he was taller. “Uh...Matt, this is Hayes Flynn. Hayes, this is Matt. Better known as Noah, I guess.”

Matt’s smile fades as his gaze flickers back to Hayes’s arm around my waist, but he extends his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he says.

“A pleasure,” replies Hayes in that way only a British male can—he sounds polite and dismissive simultaneously.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Matt says, turning to me, looking…amazed, as if this is some incredible stroke of luck. He seems to have forgotten how ugly it ended. “I texted you so many times and you never replied.”

Ah, yes, all those rambling texts, half of them drunk. Always looking for forgiveness. I will never cheat again, I swear. Can we just talk? You’re still my best friend. It’s weird not speaking to you at all.

I really have no response. I’m not sorry I ignored him. He deserved worse.

“How’s the book coming?” he asks, as if everything that went wrong between us never happened. As if he isn’t the person who tried to squash all my dreams in one fell swoop—not two weeks after my father died. I’m not about to tell him it’s still a disaster. I’ve made some progress, thanks to Sam’s suggestions and the addition of Julian, but I still need to spit out about two hundred pages in two months’ time.

“It’s great,” I lie. “They gave me an extension…because of my dad.” I’m grateful my voice doesn’t sound as shaky as I feel.

His smile flickers out. “I heard about Charlotte,” he says. He appears earnest, but who knows? He’s an actor, after all. “I’m sorry.”

I know I should ask him how he is or mention his movie, but small talk doesn’t interest me. What I really want to say to him right now is how could you? How did I never see it coming?And how much of our relationship was a lie? A part of me still can’t believe it turned out the way it did. This is the boy I attended prom with, graduated college with. I still remember our first apartment, how walking through IKEA with him felt like the start of a grand adventure. I thought I’d gotten so lucky, and I wasn’t lucky at all. I was just fooled. But even looking at him now, I can’t find it, the sign he’d betray me.

Hayes’s arm tightens, pulling me closer. “Sorry, Max,” he says, sounding anything but sorry. “I need to steal her away for a moment. Excuse us.”

He pulls me down the hall, his arm still around me. My body moves on auto pilot, relieved one of us knows what to do right now. I don’t look back at Matt, but I can feel his eyes on me as we walk away.

When we’re finally out of sight, I suck in a few desperately needed breaths as Hayes leans me against the wall, his hand on my hip as if I might not be able to support my weight. I focus on Hayes’s chest, right before me, trying to get my heart rate back under control. When that doesn’t work, I close my eyes, resting my head against the wall behind me.

“I would never have asked you to come if I’d known he’d be here.” His voice is soft and apologetic.

My eyes open to find him standing far closer than I realized. I reply to his chest instead of his face. It’s easier that way.

“I still don’t see it,” I whisper. “I thought maybe, in person, I’d see whatever I missed before, how I could have been so blindsided. But he looks exactly the same.”

He pulls me against him, and he’s so big it feels like I’ve half-crawled inside him when his arms go around me. “He was an idiot. Anyone who’s met the two of you already knows. Jonathan said, and I quote, ‘Matt’s the stupidest SOB who ever lived. He’s never going to do better than Tali.’”

I blink back tears. I wasn’t going to cry over Matt, but Jonathan’s loyalty is worth more than gold to me. “Jonathan’s a good friend.”

“It had nothing to do with being a good friend. It was just common sense. I’d never even met Matt”— he says the name with a sneer—“and I knew he couldn’t do better than you.”

It’s sweet, but I know he’s just saying that to make me feel better.

“Did you see the girl he’s with?” I ask. “I’d say most people think she’s an upgrade.”

His hands cradle my jaw, forcing me to meet his eyes. “You have the purest face I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says quietly. “A face I couldn’t possibly replicate, and if I could, she and every other female here would ask me to.”

I stare at him. He’s so earnest right now I almost think he means it. “She looks like all the women you bring home,” I reply.

“Yes, well, one drinks wine from a box when Chateau Lafitte isn’t available,” he says briskly, releasing me. “As you are clearly in no state to remain—”

“I’m fine,” I cut in. I’ve suffered worse losses than Matt. I’m not letting him run me out of here. “Really.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” he says. “There’s not anyone here I want to talk to anyway.”

He wraps an arm around me, tucking me close to his side as he starts making his way through the crowd. It makes me feel small and safe and cared for, a sensation I like a little too much.

We are halfway to the door when he stops suddenly, pressing me to one side of the circular bar, his hands cradling my face once more.

“Matt’s looking,” he says softly. “Just go with it.”

And then he kisses me.

He has the warmest, softest, most perfect lips I’ve ever felt, and he kisses exactly the way I imagined he would...unhurried but as if he’s already a step ahead, already planning to pull my dress over my head and take me right where I stand.

I taste the scotch on his tongue, my lungs full of the scent of him.

His hands hold my hips tight, and he presses closer, until our bodies are flush. We have more than proved any point we are trying to make, and I know I should stop him or object, but I can’t. There’s some wild impulse running through me, destroying every neuron, killing off every reasonable thought. My fingers slide into his lovely, thick hair; his hand tightens around my hip...and then he inhales, sharp and surprised, and pulls back.

His eyes are nearly black under the bar’s dim light, his lips swollen. “He’s jealous as hell right now.”

It takes me a second to even remember Matt was here.

I press my palm flat to the barstool beside me, trying to get a grip. “You’re not even looking at him, so how could you possibly know that?”

“Simple,” he says, grabbing my hand. He begins fighting the crowd again, pushing toward the exit. “Because I’d be jealous as hell if I were him.”

When we finally get outside, he plucks the valet ticket from my hand while I take one lungful after another of the warm air, wishing I could think clearly. Because the kiss is over, but inside me, it’s still occurring. It feels like he just let something out of a cage, something too dangerous to be set free. We stand in silence, waiting for our cars, my body so taut I’m certain it would snap like kindling with little effort. It’s all I can do not to grab his collar and drag his mouth back to mine.

When my car arrives, he looks at me for one extra moment, and I feel a pulse, low in my abdomen. There’s hesitation in that gaze of his, uncertainty. As inexperienced as I am, I suspect if I asked him to get a drink, he’d say yes.

And if I asked him to go home with me, he’d say yes to that too.

“See you Monday,” I say instead.

It’s the wise thing to do. But it’s one of those nights when it feels like wisdom is really overrated.