A Deal with the Devil by Elizabeth O’Roark

30

Five days later, I’m flying business class for the first time in my life. Any awkwardness between us is briefly overcome by the sheer pleasure of it.

“It’s a bed, Hayes,” I whisper. He’s been working steadily since we got on board, while I’ve done nothing but mess with the seat, play with all the buttons to see what each one does, and unwrap all the complimentary goodies they gave us—once again making it amply apparent why one of us is wealthy and one of us is...me. “My God. Why don’t I have this at home?”

He raises a brow. “You don’t have a bed?”

“Of course I do. But I don’t have a seat that transforms into one.” I push the button until I can lie flat. “No wonder so many people try to join the mile-high club. These seats are made for it.”

His eyes flicker over me. I wait for him to make a lewd offer and instead he returns to his laptop. I hate that there’s no sly grin, no innuendo. All signs indicate he got it out of his system last weekend, while for me it’s like a virus that’s replicating in every cell.

I wish I hadn’t run off last weekend. I wish I’d kept him up all night long.

I wish I was brave enough to tell him I want more.

* * *

The conference plannerhas placed us in a two-bedroom suite. It’s a romantic room, with a shared balcony overlooking the Bay of Alcatraz. Hayes appears as surprised as I am by the configuration, so I guess that means he didn’t suggest it.

My phone flashes, a reminder of the voice mail my mother left while we were in the air, which I’m ignoring until Hayes leaves. I confirm that all the handouts made it safely, change clothes, and then the two of us walk back into the elevator—him, pressed and perfect in a designer suit; me, in shorts and an oversized college sweatshirt, looking like someone’s kid.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to do anything today?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “As long as the handouts are here, I’m fine. What do you have planned?” He’s speaking to me like a polite stranger, one who isn’t really interested in the question he’s asked. I catch his eyes flickering down to my sneakers and back in the mirrored door.

I hand him my map, highlighted in advance with everything I want to see.

“I’ll be back in time for dinner,” I tell him, and then silently curse myself. Maybe he doesn’t want to have dinner with me. Maybe he’s eating with colleagues and now will feel compelled to bring his lame, underdressed assistant along. “I mean, unless you have other plans.”

His tongue darts out to tap his lip. “I don’t have plans. But don’t rush back on my account.”

We are being too tentative with each other now, and I miss the old Hayes, the one who would bombastically demand my free time as if it were his due. We should never have slept together, and you’d think with as many times as I’ve had this thought over the past week, I wouldn’t still be letting myself fantasize about him at every turn.

We exit the elevator, and he’s stopped by someone he knows just as my mother calls again.

I turn away from Hayes, walking toward the tall palms that divide the lobby from the downstairs bar. When a parent calls twice in a row, you probably ought to answer...even if it’s my mother in question.

“It’s about time,” she says by way of greeting. “I met with Dr. Shriner this morning, and she told us you’re moving home for good. I can’t believe you’re going along with this nonsense. Shriner has no right to keep Charlotte there. None at all. She’s bluffing.”

I close my eyes, trying to rein in all the other words I want to say: Dad never would have abandoned his duty the way you have. He’d never have put me in this position. “Mom, it’s not about whether or not she can. It’s about the fact that she doesn’t think you’re up to the job.”

“Because I won’t go to AA!” she yells. “Which I don’t need!”

I no longer know what to believe. It’s hard for me to truly imagine my mother is an alcoholic, the way you see them in movies and cop shows. But it’s getting increasingly easy to believe she’s not the best person to care for a fragile child.

A bell rings signaling the start of the keynote session, and suddenly a herd of people is moving behind me toward the ballroom doors. I need to end this call.

“Look, I don’t care if you need it or not,” I snap. “But the fact that you won’t listen to Shriner at all means she’s definitely right about one thing: I have to move home because you are not willing to do what’s best for Charlotte.”

I hang up and turn to look for Hayes...only to find him standing right behind me looking stunned. And stung.

“What the hell is going on?” he asks.

This is not the way I want to be telling him. And not now, when he’s about to go into a conference for an entire day and we can’t really talk.

“I...I’m, uh, going home next month. To Kansas. My sister’s doctor is requiring it.”

He stiffens. “For how long?”

I glance away. “I don’t know. I guess until she graduates. I don’t see my mom stepping up and there’s no other option.” My teeth grind as I say it, making the words sound more defiant than forced.

He pushes a hand through his hair, his jaw clenched tight. “And you never managed to tell me this?” he asks, his voice rough. “I see you every day, and you never managed to tell me you’re moving?”

I want to claim it never came up, but it did. He’s brought it up repeatedly, and I thought I could simply ignore the problem until it solved itself. “It’s not like we were going to be hanging out together in a month anyway.” I sound like a child, trying to defend the indefensible.

His nostrils flare and his eyes are darker than they’ve ever been, all pupil. I’ve never seen him so angry before.

“That,” he says, turning to walk away, “is absolute bullshit.”

* * *

As I walkthe streets of San Francisco, a sick feeling settles in my belly.

Would Fisherman’s Wharf—loud and crowded and slightly tackier than I expected—excite me if the conversation with Hayes didn’t just happen? Perhaps not, but it wouldn’t feel like this, as if I can’t see anything clearly, as if my stomach is folding in on itself and I can’t quite take a full breath. I should have told him. He knows almost everything else about me, and I concealed this from him intentionally, for reasons even I can’t fully acknowledge.

What upsets me most about all this is simply that he knows. Because it means I can’t keep pretending—to him or myself—that I’m able to stay.

My feet are throbbing and my shins ache once I get back to the hotel. I shower and collapse into the soft chair on the balcony in my robe to wait for Hayes. There’s a naïve part of me that hopes he’ll simply be over the whole thing so we don’t have to discuss it.

When I hear him enter the living room, I call out. He comes to the sliding door, eyes flickering over my robe and wet hair.

I don’t know where we stand. My lips open, on the cusp of offering a reluctant apology, when he speaks instead.

“How was it?” he asks.

Relief rushes through me. Maybe we can keep pretending. Maybe we can go to dinner and things will feel normal again. “Good, but I’ve still got a lot more to see. I hope you weren’t planning to make me do any actual work tomorrow morning.”

“I generally try to assume you won’t be doing any work whatsoever,” he replies coolly. “That way, my expectations are met.”

He pulls off his jacket and slumps into the chair beside mine. I pour him a glass of wine, which he accepts but doesn’t drink. Instead, he stares off at the water, his expression pensive. Perhaps we aren’t as good as I thought.

“How was your conference?” I ask. “Are you ready for your big talk?”

He rubs his temples. “I just wish it was over.”

Hayes is so smugly overconfident most of the time. It never occurred to me he wasn’t every bit as blasé about this talk as he is everything else. “You’re nervous?”

“I’m just tense. It’s fine.”

“What helps?” I ask.

His eyes flicker over my face, remain a half second longer on my lips. My nipples tighten under his perusal. “Exhausting myself.”

I can think of so many ways we could accomplish that. But there’s never been a greater distance between us than there is in this moment.

I climb to my feet and stand behind him. Back in New York, I used to give Matt a massage before auditions. I even took a massage class for him, which seemed loving at the time and now seems kind of pathetic.

“Here,” I say, placing my hands on his shoulders, which are...so fucking nice. Broad and rounded muscle, perfect for anatomy drawings and Men’s Health covers. I begin to rub.

“Tali,” he says, a warning in his voice. And then he groans. “My God. How are you so good at this? I’d have had you do this every day if I’d known.”

“It’s not a standard thing I offer employers, oddly enough. But I guess that argument no longer applies given that I don’t usually blow my employers either.”

He lurches forward, out of my grasp, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “You need a warning bell on your mouth sometimes.”

I stand frozen, my hands hanging in midair.

He runs a palm over his face and climbs to his feet. “I’m going to call the concierge about dinner. What would you like?”

Focus, Tali. Be normal. Save this.“I—” My mind is absolutely blank. “I’ve, uh, heard there’s good Italian in North Beach.”

His eyes narrow. “Who told you that? Sam?”

I blink. Yes, of course it was Sam.

He takes one look at my face and sets his drink down on the table so hard the glass splinters. “Fuck,” he hisses. He pushes both hands through his hair and then glares at me. “You know what I’d like to know?” he asks. “How long you’ve been keeping all this to yourself. How fucking long have you known you were leaving and failed to mention it? Did you know when Sam was here? Has that been the plan all along—move home, settle down with your dull old mate?”

I want to be mad at him but feel some inexplicable urge to cry instead. I swallow hard. He has no right to make me feel bad about anything. “How could it possibly matter?”

“Don’t give me that shit,” he says. He takes one long step toward me. I step back to the wall, and he closes the distance. “You know it matters.”

My heart is thumping so loud it’s audible, echoing in my ears. “I—”

His mouth lands on mine, rough and unrestrained, as if he’s been pushed slightly too far. And all the tension I’ve held for the past week—tension I didn’t even know was there—snaps loose and unfurls like a sail in a storm. I’ve dreamed about those minutes on the deck, have woken each day feverish and desperate for more. And I’ve spent a week hating myself for the way I ran, like a coward.

I lean in to him, giving in to all his frustration and my desperation. My fingers grip his hair, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss even more. His jaw scrapes my skin and his lips move over my neck. He slides one hand inside my robe, the heat from his palm gliding along my torso, to the underside of my breast. My nipples tighten so hard they ache.

He started this, but I take over, pulling him through the balcony door, my eyes never leaving his face. He looks as hungry, as desperate for this, as I feel, and I don’t stop until I have him in my room, where I shove the suitcase off the bed with a clatter. I half expect him to laugh at my haste, but instead, he lays me down on the duvet and looks me over like a feast he’s about to devour.

He unbuttons his shirt and wrenches his belt free. There’s no hesitation, no uncertainty. The pants fall, and then he’s standing before me in nothing but boxers, the thick swell of his cock jutting against them.

I’d be a little intimidated now if I didn’t already know how perfectly he’ll fit.

He climbs over me and traces a path—clavicle, sternum, down to the sash which he flicks open with a single finger.

And then his lips find mine. I wrap a leg around his waist, pushing my hands into his hair. When he starts to slide lower, I stop him. “No,” I whisper. “I want you inside me.”

He winces. “I’m not going to last. Let me—”

“Make it last the second time.” My voice is husky, made confident by sheer desire.

I arch upward again, and he inhales sharply. “Fuck,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut. “Wait.” It sounds like he’s speaking to himself, not me. He climbs from the bed and is back seconds later, throwing his travel kit on the nightstand, pulling a condom on.

He lines himself up with my entrance and slides the tip over me once before his hips push forward. He seats himself inside me, all the way in, thick and hard and perfect. His eyes are feverish, at half mast. “I’m going to need more than a second time,” he warns.

Good.

Slowly he pulls out, dragging over nerve endings that have never been as sensitive as they are at this moment. I’m tight as a clenched fist around him.

There’s that ever-present part of me that wants to know what this all means, or how it will end. But then his hips snap forward and I gasp as if I’ve been impaled. It’s too good for me to worry, it’s too good for me to think.

His head lowers, pulling my nipple into his mouth with his tongue, catching it with his teeth, and he pulls out again and again, snapping back hard. I can feel the coming explosion already. A small twinkling star at the base of my stomach, spinning and unfurling. “Faster,” I hiss, and with a groan he complies, moving ruthlessly in and out.

I come so hard that the world goes silent and dark, that it takes me a second to even realize he’s above me, his thrusts jerky and violent. “Fuck,” he hisses. “Fuck. It’s so good with you. I can’t—” he gasps, and then he goes still above me.

He falls down to the mattress and pulls me against him. “Bloody hell, Tali.”

His chest rises and falls, breathing heavy as we both take a moment to recover.

“Should I joke about ordering my own flowers, or do you already expect that?”

His mouth nuzzles my neck, nipping at the skin. “After last weekend, post-coital awkwardness on your part is kind of a given.”

“On my part?” I pull up, elbow in the bed, to look at him. “You’ve been the one with a stick up your ass all week. Today especially.”

“Because I was trying to fucking behave,” he growls. “And then you drove me off the edge, talking about blow jobs whilst rubbing my shoulders.” He pulls the sheets away from my body, rolling me to my back, and begins to slide downward. His lips press to my hipbone. “I never imagined we’d wind up in bed thanks to a fight over Sam.”

“No?” I ask. “What did you imagine?”

“You have three holes. The permutations are infinite.”

I laugh. “Not really, unless you’re imagining Angela and Savannah with us too.”

He looms over me, pinning me to the mattress as his mouth moves to my neck. “As I’ve told you before, I’d never be willing to share you.” He doesn’t look away as he says it, sincerity written all over his face. And some of the barriers I’ve built around my heart crumble, though I wish they hadn’t.

* * *

It’sthe middle of the night and I’m absolutely exhausted but too exhilarated to sleep. He’s been silent long enough that I suspect he’s dozed off when he speaks, suddenly.

“When would you have to leave?” he asks. “To get your sister.”

I’m glad the room is pitch black. It feels safer, somehow, discussing this in the dark. I suspect he’s still mad about the way I handled things…or failed to handle them. I’d be mad too.

I roll toward him and rest my head on his chest. “She’s supposed to come home the third week of August, right before school starts.”

“Surely there’s some other way to handle it,” he says. “Unless you want to go. She can’t just come to LA?”

Beneath my head, his heartbeat is strong and steady. He’s a rock, and I wish with all my might that I could keep leaning on him the way I am now. “It’s her senior year of high school. I can’t uproot her, and she needs someone there who actually cares about her and will listen. If I can’t trust my mother to do it, I’m definitely not trusting a stranger.”

He’s quiet, and I brace myself, wondering if he’ll tell me this can’t go anywhere. And hoping at the same time he’ll tell me it can.

“I felt blindsided today,” he says instead, his voice low and reluctant. “It was like Ella all over again, waiting in the apartment when I got home from Ohio, saying she didn’t want to tell me over the phone.”

I hear the pain there, the wound I reopened with my stupidity. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I intended. I just kept putting it off, I guess. I thought if you knew, it might change things.”

He pulls me beneath him, and his mouth grazes my neck. “It appears to have changed things,” he says, with a quiet laugh.

Yes, I think, but for how long?

* * *

When I wake,it’s light out, and he’s shaking my shoulder.

“Tali,” he says, “our flight leaves in just over an hour. Our car will be here in fifteen minutes. Can you be ready?”

I’m so tired it feels like I’m swimming through water as I try to form words. It was after dawn when we finally fell asleep, and he’s making no sense. “Our flight’s not until two,” I slur.

“It’s twelve forty-five.”

“Oh my God. Your speech!” I bolt upright. Surgeons came from all over the country to hear his talk, and if he slept through it...

“All behind me.” I suddenly realize he’s wearing a suit and appears very relaxed. “But I got stuck down there afterward, and now we’re cutting it close. Can you be ready, or should I change the flight?”

I fling myself out of bed, freaked out enough not to worry that I’m running across the room butt naked. “How did it go?” I shout as I climb into the shower, shuddering at the blast of cold water. “Were you nervous?”

“I was too exhausted to be nervous,” he replies, coming to the bathroom door. “Congratulations on finally making me feel my age.”

“You stay up all night frequently,” I reply, frantically soaping myself. The water still isn’t warm. “Don’t blame that on me.”

He laughs under his breath. “We had sex sixteen times, Tali, and as you love to point out, I’m ancient. I probably won’t be capable of having sex again for a month.”

His words sink in my stomach with an audible plop. A piece of me waited all last night for something to indicate this wasn’t a one-off. Mostly I was too busy enjoying him to think it over, but now that I am, now that I search all the words he did say, I find nothing. Wet, tight, hot, and hard are great in the moment, but they’re not really the stuff of wedding vows.

He was stressed about his talk, and he wanted to exhaust himself. Mission accomplished for one of us. But there were things I wanted, too, things I was stupid to have even hoped for. And I will need to let them go.

I’m ready to leave quickly. Hayes takes both our bags as we go downstairs to checkout. “We hope you’ll join us again,” the clerk says.

“I’ll be back in October, actually,” Hayes replies. He doesn’t say we’ll be back. He’ll be back. My chest aches.

“I’m going to find the car,” I tell him quietly. I reach for my bag.

“I can get that for you,” he says.

“I have it,” I reply.

I spent last night hoping for a happy ending, and now it’s time to pay the price for that. Although I want more, I have to be realistic with my expectations. I’m not some cosseted princess who lays about in a plush bed ordering room service and being pleasured. I’m a desperately poor twenty-five-year-old with a book she can’t finish, a family she can’t fix, and a commitment-phobic boss she might be in love with. And it’s best if I allow reality to intrude right now, because it always intrudes eventually. Hayes might not be capable of giving me more. And maybe, at the moment, I’m not capable of it either.