Page 17 of A Deal with the Devil

Anyone who’s ever met Matt would tell you he’s “one of the good ones”, while I doubt anyone would say that of Hayes. But Matt is not nearly what he appeared, while I suspect—under that beautiful, callous exterior—Hayes might be a little more.

* * *

For two hours, he sleeps like the dead.

When it’s time for him to get up, I call his name, and he doesn’t move a muscle. He’s a heavy sleeper, like my dad was. My hand looks like a child’s as it presses to his broad back, warm under the T-shirt. “Hey,” I say softly, “wake up.”

“Half a syringe,” he murmurs, eyes still closed. The man works so much he’s there even in his dreams.

“Hayes,” I say more firmly, kneeling beside him and shaking his shoulder, “wake up.”

His eyes open, and for a moment he just takes in my face—not as if I’m a stranger or his annoying assistant, but as if I’m someone he’s known his entire life, someone he absolutely trusts. It’s...unexpected. By the time I’ve recovered, the look is gone, replaced by his standard suspicion and disdain.

“I couldn’t wake you,” I say briskly, rising to my feet. “I made you some lunch.”

“Lunch?” he asks, placing his head in his hands as he tries to rouse himself.

“Yes, it’s a form of sustenance taken midday, one universal through cultures across the world.”

“I don’t eat lunch,” he says.

“Come on. It’ll help you get through the rest of the day,” I tell him, going to the refrigerator to get the salad I made him.

Hayes shrugs on his button-down as he walks to the counter, briefly revealing a wedge of taut stomach. “You sound like a mother. Not mine, obviously, but the good kind who doesn’t outsource all her parenting.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I reply, placing his salad on the counter. “I don’t have the greatest mom either.”

He cocks his head as he sits. “Interesting. I pictured you as a beloved only child, cosseted and fawned over daily.”

I laugh outright. Nothing could be further from the truth. “Hardly. I’m in the middle of three girls.”

“Three daughters?” he asks, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus. That would drive a man to an early grave.”

My heart tightens into a clenched fist. Even now, even after waking up three hundred days in a row with the same set of facts, it still doesn’t seem real. Sometimes I dream the past months were a mistake, and I wake stunned anew.

I carry the cutting board to the sink, feeling fragile as blown glass. Don’t think about it. Not here.

“Tali?” Hayes says, eyes open now and worried. “Shit. I’m sorry. You’re so young. I just assumed…”

I force a smile. “Well, three daughters, early grave…you kind of called it. He died last summer.”

“Jonathan told me you’d had a rough year,” he admits, looking away.

I frown. Jonathan isn’t the type to go around spilling other people’s drama unnecessarily, so I can’t imagine what led him to spill mine.

“Well, I hope he didn’t tell you too much. I’d like to sustain the illusion of having my shit together a little longer.”

“Have you seen the car you drive?” he asks. “I never thought you had your shit together.”

I laugh. He’s awful, and I like that about him.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he adds, “I think half of adulthood is pretending to have your shit together when you clearly don’t.”

My gaze flickers to his, briefly. There is something bleak in his eyes, something alarmingly honest, and suddenly I ache for him. Hayes, on the surface, seems to have everything he wants. Too much of everything he wants. I’ve been judging him for the way he lives, assuming it’s a reckless disregard for what he has.

But maybe it’s just a reckless attempt at being content with it.

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