Page 32 of Devil

“A deal, Birdie Cooper.”

A deal for what? He doesn’t want to date me. He made that much clear. He laughed when I said it. Once, that might have raked me open and dumped coals inside, but after the last seven years, it only registers as a dull ache. Of course he doesn’t want to date me; of course that’s ridiculous. No one has wanted to date me for thirty-six years. Why would the first person be Ryan Bell, handsome and friendly and bright?

No. Think.

He’s been searching for me since that evening at Evelyn, and it was very clear what he wanted then: sex. Sex with me, although I don’t understandwhy. It can’t be hard for him to find prettier women, younger women, women who don’t smell like sawdust and the shampoo from the bottom shelf.

I used to be so good at praying in these kinds of moments, at offering up my fear or misery, but the place where I used to keep my prayers—nestled against my soul, warm and ready—is vacant now. Voided space. Iwantto pray, but there’s nothing there.

“Is it…that you want to have sex with me? Is that what the deal is for?”

Bell beams at me. “Correct, Ms. Cooper. That’s exactly what I want.”

“Then no. No, thank you.” I suck in a breath, having rushed the words past my lips. “You can go now.”

His smile falls into a perfect, magazine-worthy pout, his hair a gold spill of silk over his forehead when he looks down at the ground. All of him like the living definition ofcrestfallen. Then he looks back up through his lashes, a sly glint to his gaze. “You haven’t even heard the terms of my deal yet. I promise it’s more than fair.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Because you care about sex before marriage?”

I give a quiet huff. As if that matters when no one aside from Bell has ever even wanted to kiss me. “No one is going to marry me.”

He tosses his head to flick his hair to the side. I love his curls, but his hair is beautiful like this too. I can see how long it is, how close to white, like he’s been spending hours in the sun. “Then what can it be? You don’t think you’d like having sex?”

I do think I’d like sex. I dream about it often, and sometimes when I’m awake, my mind drifts back to my old studio, to Bell’s fingers in my mouth, to being shoved against the chalkboard. I’ll feel that wet, wretched ache between my thighs, the symptom of a perverse and forlorn craving for something more than sex, something worse maybe. I try not to let myself think about it too much.

“I don’t want to have sex withyou,” I explain, the certain words made uncertain by the quaking in my voice. “The last time you touched me, I lost my job, my life’s work, my only friend. I was left with nothing, and I don’t blame you for going on to have everything, but you can’t blame me for trying to keep what little I’ve scraped together since then.”

“And what have you scraped together, Birdie?” he asks with tender concern. “The house at the bottom of the hill is a ruin, and the one at the top isn’t much better. Your car is a rust-eaten quilt, and you’re wearing the same pair of tennis shoes you were seven years ago when I first met you. You’re making dressers and kitchen chairs instead of saints.You’rethe statue now, darling. You’ve exchanged the living heart in your chest for one of wood.”

I dip my chin to my chest so he can’t see the reflexive tremble there. I don’t want him to see that his words hurt because they shouldn’t hurt—they’re only the truth. They’re only objective facts…even the part about the wooden heart in my chest.

“I’m getting by,” I say. My voice is tight but it stays steady for four whole syllables, which I’m sadly proud of.

“But is your sister getting by?”

My head snaps up, and I stare at him, wordless. His expression is all innocent curiosity.

“That new place she’s in, the supportive housing. Most people have SSI or Medicaid to help with the monthly fee, but she doesn’t, not yet at least. And you’ve only just started with the applications, the appointments, the documentation. Hard to pull together a case when all you’ve got are scattered ER visits, hard to work toward any eligibility when she’s been dodging a diagnosis and medication for years.”

My lips are parted but not to speak. I have no idea how he knows this. No idea why.

“But they’ve been kind to your sister at this place. As long as she can pay, she can stay. And she needs to stay, doesn’t she? She needs the staff there to keep her on track with her medicine, to drive her to therapy, to keep the booze and pills and bad men from walking through the front door of her apartment. You’ve seen glimmers of the real her since she moved in, but you’re terrified that those glimmers will slide through your fingers and slip into the dark if she stops getting help…if she gets kicked out for the simple reason that she can’t afford it. And for the first time in your lives, shewantsthe help. This could work, couldn’t it? Itisworking. All you have to do is pay for it.”

Something drips off my chin, and I realize I’m crying. God, how? How can the truth hurt so much to hear?

“So the real question is: How much are you making right now? With your furniture? With whatever job you’ve managed to find around this shithole? Is it enough to cover her housing fee? What about the doctors and therapists until she can get Medicaid? Which can’t happen until she’s on Social Security? And then what? It’s two years after that for Medicare?Ifeverything goes right.Ifyou can keep her there and get all the documentation and keep her compliant on her medication long enough to prove that she still won’t be able to hold down a job even with treatment.”

“Stop,” I whisper. “Stop it.”

He catches my chin and makes me look up at him. He is so exquisite that it hurts. His thick, straight brows, his carved jaw. That finely wrought mouth. Those eyes, the color of sea ice against the dark. “Birdie, I can help you.”

“Help me?” I’m trying to twist my head out of his grip, and he doesn’t let me.

“Well,” he amends, his fingers digging into my jaw, “I’m willing to make a trade.”

I stop struggling. I stare at him, breathing hard.