Chapter 27: A Deal With The Devil: Chapter 27

We leave on Friday for Laguna Beach, about an hour south of LA. As much as I’d like to take in the view—the city giving way to ocean and sand and distant cliffs—I turn toward him instead, my knees pressed to the console.

We’ve barely left the city and already I can see how some of that tension from work is easing away. His shoulders are relaxed, his mouth soft.

He has the most glorious profile—a nose that is somehow endlessly masculine and elegant at the same time. What a shame he has no plans to pass those genes on to another generation. He glances at me, and I wonder if my staring unnerves him—but I don’t care enough to stop doing it.

“You haven’t mentioned your sister in a while,” he says. “Is she doing better?”

My stomach tightens. Right now, I want to imagine what his children would look like and pretend I never have to leave him. I do not want to think about my family. “Yes. She gets out in August.”

“And your mom? She’s not going to be an issue?” he asks.

My mother hasn’t replied to the text I sent a week ago, nor the more demanding ones I’ve sent since. I know what it means, and I know I should tell him the truth. But my friendship with Hayes is like a flower that’s just begun to bloom, and the truth will be a hard freeze, prompting him to cut his losses and back away. And I’m not ready for him to back away yet. “It’ll sort itself out,” I reply.

I glance out the window, at the sun glinting off the Pacific’s endless blue. Yes, it’ll sort itself out, but only with my help. Only with my salary paying the mortgage and me there to take care of Charlotte and some concession made on my end to Liddie, who no longer tells me about pregnancy attempts or anything else. And it would be worth it all if only the four of us were going to come out of this okay. I just feel increasingly certain we won’t. Me, in particular.

“Have you been to Laguna Beach before?” I ask. A subject change is necessary. Otherwise, Hayes will drag the whole gruesome truth out of me.

He shakes his head. “No. You?”

“Matt and I had this goal to visit all of California’s beaches someday. We passed through, but I can’t remember if we stopped.”

His lip curls at the mention of my ex. “You’re telling me, then, that you had sex on most of California’s beaches.”

A shocked laugh burbles from my throat. “God, no.”

“Why not? I’d have tried, were I him.”

Of course you would. I squeeze my thighs together and try not to picture sex on the beach with Hayes. Sex on every single beach in the state with Hayes. “He’d have never…forget it.”

“Oh, no,” he says. “You can’t start a sentence like that and not finish it. He’d have never what?”

“We would never have made sex the focus of a trip. He’d be moody for days after, if we did.” A blush crawls up my neck. “He always…finished quickly and it made things, uh, anticlimactic.”

I stare out the window again, hoping we’re done with this topic. Yes, sex with Matt was anticlimactic more often than it wasn’t, but that didn’t matter so much. We had other things—friendship and history, a common language. If I suspected I was giving a few things up, they didn’t bother me at the time.

“I don’t understand why you stayed with him,” he says, suddenly irritated. “Is he really that attractive?”

“It was more than his looks. He’s a really good guy most of the time, and he’s kind to everyone, no matter where they are on the totem pole. He did a bad thing, but nobody’s perfect.”

Hayes’s lips press together. “You sound like you’ve forgiven him.”

“I’m getting there, or at least I’m trying to. Holding a grudge takes too much energy.”

It’s a very mature response. I’m not sure why Hayes looks so unhappy with it.

It’s just after six, the sky a symphony of muted rose and gold and dusky blue, when we arrive at the bungalow in Laguna.

I’m so smitten from the minute we walk in that I want to spin in place, like I’m some ecstatic Disney princess singing with woodland creatures.

The cathedral ceiling is walnut hardwood crossed with exposed beams. The back wall is glass, with nothing but water as far as the eye can see. It has a darling shiplap white kitchen and a glorious deck with a hot tub. I couldn’t even have dreamed up anything quite so perfect.

His smile is soft. “I’ve never seen you so in awe of a place.”

“Can you imagine living like this? Waking up here every freaking day?” I run a loving hand over the marble countertop. “Forget about your mattress. I’m marrying this house instead.”

There are two nearly identical master bedrooms with wall-to-ceiling windows and bleached hardwood. I take the one on the left and stare at the huge bed, covered with a fluffy duvet and pillows. It’s hard not to picture a romantic trip here with a bed like that one. But not with Matt, or even Sam. Not with someone soft and safe, but with someone whose nostrils will flare when I’m beneath him, like an animal about to devour prey. Someone who would pin me there for hours, days, weeks…

“You’re staring at that bed like it’s done something to you,” Hayes says, behind me.

I glance back at him. He’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded, all square-jawed beauty and bulging biceps, radiating dominance.

His nostrils would flare. I bet he’d use his teeth.

My knees wobble with how much I’d like see that for myself. I have to get him out of this room before I do something insane.

“We need to go to the store.” My voice is breathy and uncertain.

“That does not sound relaxing at all. You’re terrible at this.”

“Come on,” I say, grabbing my purse and charging past him toward the door. “It’ll be fun.”

I say this, knowing there is nothing fun about going to the grocery store. And Hayes bitches most of the way there, driving while I navigate. But when we walk in—hit by a rush of cold air and the smell of baked goods—his face lights up like a child’s and he makes a beeline for the display of pies in front.

“I think we need some, don’t you?” he asks.

“Pie?”

He’s already got two in hand. “It’s a combination of fruit and crust. Quite tasty.”

I struggle not to smile. I’ve seen Hayes’s enthusiasm for triple-cask-matured whiskey. I can’t believe he’s just as excited about shitty store-bought desserts. “I know what pie is, but I’m not sure why you’re getting two. We won’t even be here forty-eight hours.”

He hitches a shoulder. “I can eat a lot of pie in forty-eight hours.”

Within ten minutes, our cart also holds cinnamon-flavored soda, banana-flavored Oreos, truffle potato chips. It feels as if we are an actual couple, albeit one well on the way to insulin resistance. I want to lean into the experience as much as I want to lean away from it.

“I had no idea these even existed,” he says, throwing maple Pop-Tarts in the cart. “Did you?”

“It’s been several years since I carefully scrutinized the Pop-Tart section of a store.”

“And look at these,” he says, holding up something claiming to be a healthy breakfast food that looks a lot like a Snickers bar. “Perhaps normal life isn’t so bad.”

“Normal people probably don’t leave a store with seventeen boxes of Pop-Tarts,” I reply, pushing our cart toward the register.

The checkout girl eyes Hayes, then gives me a look that says don’t let this one go, my friend. It fills me with completely undeserved pride, and I have to check myself.

Remembering it’s not real is vital.

We make dinner together when we get back. I’ve never pictured him as the dad who works the grill and helps with the dishes. It was safer to see him as the kind of guy who’s not going to offer the life I want—and he won’t—but it’s getting harder to remember. Domestic bliss comes naturally to him…and it seems to make him happy.

We eat on the deck in a double chaise lounge, our plates resting in our laps. To my right, a bottle of shiraz sits on a small round table with two glasses. A light breeze blows as the surf pounds the shore and the sky turns from hazy violet to ink blue. Long after dinner is over, the two of us remain right where we are. This is what he should be doing every night. What would his life have been like if Ella hadn’t left? Would he be tucking a child into bed right now? Would it all have gone wrong anyway, or did it really just hinge on that single event, the one that had him questioning his career and pulling away from her?

I bite my lip. “Can I ask you something?” I wait for his wary nod before I proceed. “Ella said something the other day…about how one thing would go wrong and you’d shut me out. What happened? Between you two, I mean?”

He stares off at the ocean, looking so tired and sad I wish I hadn’t asked.

“I had a patient, Dylan. He was thirteen. He had a congenital abnormality that made his lower jaw severely asymmetrical,” he begins.

He reaches for the wine and refills my glass and then his. “He’d spent his entire life being bullied and ridiculed, and this oral surgeon and I thought we were going to sweep in and fix everything.” He flashes me his trademark smirk, only this time, I just see pain in it, and self-hatred.

“I guess…it didn’t work out?” I pick up my glass and take a sip, simply to give him the space to answer. My heart is in my throat as I wait.

He swallows. “No,” he says. “He died. Not on the table, but later that night after I was gone. His airway collapsed.”

My chest tightens as a lump starts to form in my throat. I look away for a moment, blinking back tears. “Was the airway even your part of the surgery?” I ask, my voice muted, slightly hoarse.

“It doesn’t matter. He was my patient, and I told him he’d be fine. I was so fucking sure of myself.” He flinches, as if it’s just happened, the hand closest to me curling into a fist.

Even if he’d never ask for it, he needs something right now. He needs to be reminded he isn’t alone, that not everyone loathes him the way he seems to loathe himself. I scoot closer, until my arm presses to his, and rest my head on his shoulder. His closed fist relaxes. “And you left?”

“I stuck it out a few more months, completed a training at the Cleveland Clinic as planned. Then Ella left and I just…called it. It’s all for the best. I make ten times what I would in pediatrics.”

I hate Ella more than ever now. How could she have done that to him? Did she really not understand how guilty he must have felt? All she had to do was be patient, and she couldn’t even give him that.

It makes sense to me that he’d choose a more painless path. What I don’t understand is why he went so very far in the other direction.

“If you don’t want Ella back, does the money really matter that much?” I ask softly.

He glances at me and away. “I suppose not. But I had a certain future ahead of me, and suddenly it was gone…I needed a new goal.”

Except he chose a goal that will never make him happy. I wonder if he realizes it. I wonder if it’s ever occurred to him that he could have a life like this one with someone: waves crashing in the darkness a few yards away, a woman with whom he can share things, one who wants to give him everything.

Our bare calves brush against each other—smooth to less smooth. I picture sliding my legs over his, glancing up at him to gauge his reaction. Would his hand land on my hip to pull me into his lap? Would he roll me beneath him, his weight pressing me hard to the seat?

Would we ruin everything?

I set my wine on the table and climb to my feet. “I should get to bed. Big day tomorrow.”

His eyes travel over me for one long moment, climbing from hips to breasts and settling, finally, on my mouth. “Ah, yes, the line at Starbucks. I can see where you’d want to rest up for that.”

I scurry back to my room, certain I’ve narrowly avoided making the worst mistake of my life. But then I lie awake, twisting in the sheets, wishing that, just once, I could stop being so fucking responsible.