Page 24 of A Deal with the Devil

He continues to look troubled when he really shouldn’t. It’s been a year, almost, and I should be well over this by now.

“Was this recent?” he asks.

“Not really.” I straighten the hem of my skirt, toying with a loose thread. “We were together for ten years and broke up last summer when my dad died.”

“Ten years?” he asks, incredulous. That he finds ten years of monogamy unfathomable is completely unsurprising. “How’s that even possible? You’re in your early twenties. You couldn’t have even been in the same place the whole time.”

I shrug. “Same high school, same college, then he went to New York for work, and I went to grad school there.” And then he begged me to leave New York with him, and I did that too. I put him first, because I thought that’s what you do for someone you love. It’s a mistake I won’t make again. “Matt was on location when my father died, and when I got back from Kansas, he told me he’d cheated on me while I was gone.” My tone is flat, factual. I refuse to let anyone think I’m still upset about what he did, especially when it wasn’t the cheating that ended it—it was what he said when we fought afterward. Just admit the fucking book isn’t going to happen, and find something else to do with your life. You’d never have gotten the deal in the first place if it wasn’t for me. For years, I’d encouraged him, supported his dreams when mine were coming true and his were not. But the moment that flipped, he couldn’t do the same for me.

Hayes’s jaw shifts and his eyes narrow. “He’s a twat then, Tali, and he never deserved you.” For someone with a pretty poor track record of his own, his anger is unexpected. “I could ruin him for you, if you’d like. Give me his name. I know people.”

I’m not entirely sure he’s joking.

“I’m surprised, given the way you live, that you’re not taking his side,” I whisper. So many people told me I should let what Matt did go, and there’s a part of me that wants Hayes to be among them. That wants to continue believing he’s the charming but unrepentant douchebag I could never trust.

He swallows. “Think what you will,” he says, looking away, “but I’ve never cheated on anyone in my life. Nor will I.”

Every bone in my body wants to argue...and yet, I kind of see it. No matter how much I dislike some of Hayes’s behavior, I’ve never seen him break a promise.

But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t. How do you ever know for sure? How do you predict when it will go wrong again? There were no warning signs with Matt. I search our history for them, but there were no lingering glances at other females, no mysterious late-night texts. He didn’t even lock his phone. And the words that would end it, there’s no sign of them either. I really thought he believed in me until I realized with a few sharp words he never had.

If Matt could turn so false, without a single warning sign, anyone could.

* * *

I speak to Liddie that night for the first time since Charlotte’s birthday. We’ve texted, of course, but I guess I’ve been avoiding her otherwise, still irked that she used what should have been a happy occasion to start a fight with my mom. I get that she and Alex aren’t in a position to help with Charlotte’s stay at Fairfield, but she could at least not make things worse.

“Well, I’m not pregnant,” she announces, her voice flat.

“Sorry,” I say, but I don’t sound all that sorry. If I’m being honest, her obsession with having a second child seems self-indulgent to me, given everything else going on. It’s a problem she’s created and yet she seems to think it deserves equal billing. “It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen,” I add.

“That’s such bullshit,” she says. “That’s what someone says when they want you to shut up about it.”

Precisely, I think, though I’ve got just enough restraint not to say it aloud. But it doesn’t even make sense. The first time she got pregnant, she was a senior in college and devastated. She’s spent years lamenting the fact that she didn’t finish her degree, and now that Kaitlin is old enough for preschool and she has time to spare...she’s pining after the opposite.

“Fine, tell me what you want me to say,” I reply. “Since there’s apparently a script.”

“Right,” she says, with a bitter laugh. “Sorry. You’re probably busy with your book deal and your famous boss and your famous ex, and this must all seem so very trivial to you.”

I stare at the blinking fluorescent bulb overhead, at the off-brand crackers I had for dinner and the four walls I can nearly reach while remaining in my bed. “You’ve absolutely nailed it, Liddie,” I reply. “I’m too busy with my glamorous life.”

And then, for the first time since we were teenagers, I slam down the phone.

15

“I’m having a little get-together Friday,” Hayes announces as he takes his seat at the counter Monday morning. “I’ll need...stuff.”

“Could you be slightly more specific?” I ask. “Since I’ve never seen your parties, I don’t know if ‘stuff’ means a few six packs of Coors Light, or a kilogram of cocaine.”

“Could you even get a kilogram of cocaine?” he asks. “Is that something I should have been hitting you up for all along?”

“I have no idea. I never learned the metric system.”

He rolls his eyes and mutters bloody Americans under his breath. “No, I don’t require cocaine. Just a bar and food. And music. And a valet, I guess. Two hundred people, maybe.”

I groan. A valet? Two hundred people? “That’s not a ‘little get-together’. That’s a wedding. Did you finally find someone worthy of you? Just so we’re clear, I’m not sure you can legally wed your own reflection.”

He climbs to his feet. “I’m still hoping that law gets changed.”