Page 32 of A Deal with the Devil

He seems reluctant too. He places a hand on the car’s roof, in no rush to get inside. “Enjoy your quiet night in, refusing to get a life. I’ll think of you while I’m out doing the things you won’t.”

My nose wrinkles. “I’d prefer you not think of me during that, if it’s all the same to you.”

He gives me the dirtiest smile imaginable. “A man has limited control over where his mind goes at various points.”

My body sags a little against the car as I release a quiet breath. I know he’s joking, but my stomach is fluttering anyway—like a single baby butterfly trying out its fledgling wings. If I thought he’d ever actually imagined me during sex, I’d probably orgasm right where I stand.

I cross the driveway to my car, which looks especially rusted out and ready for the junkyard this afternoon. After a day in Hayes’s BMW, it will feel like I’m driving home in a car from The Flintstones.

“Hey, Tali,” he says, as I reach for the door. “Thanks. It was the best day I’ve had in a long time.” He’s being earnest for once, and I can tell it’s difficult for him.

Another baby butterfly takes flight. I smile, stifling the impulse to ruin it with a joke. But I can’t bring myself to tell him the truth…it was the best day I’ve had in a long time too.

* * *

At home, before I’ve even kicked off my shoes, I go online to look up Hayes’s dad and wife.

His dad is hot for a guy in his fifties and looks a lot like his son, which really just makes the whole thing creepier.

Ella, his wife, is fine-boned and tremulously beautiful in that way only foreign women are: So fragile you’d think a strong wind might blow her over. The kind of woman other women don’t even try to imitate because you know, looking at her, that imitation is impossible.

It makes my chest ache. It’s not as if I ever thought I would replace her. It just sucks to realize I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.

17

If I thought forcing Hayes to take a day off would teach him the value of leisure, I soon learn I was woefully mistaken. When I suggest he consider a weekend off, he laughs, and when I ask about blocking out another Friday, he only says “maybe”, in a tone that sounds a lot like no.

But he’s coming home nearly every day for lunch, so…baby steps?

On an office day, when he can’t come to me, I go to him instead. I need to go anyway, since I’ve just gotten his oil changed and have to return his keys. The feminist in me winces as I show up at his office, toting a bag from In-N-Out Burger like some 1950s wife bringing her man his midday meal, but…fuck it. He needs to eat.

The receptionist looks at me like I’m taking my life in my hands and suggests I set it outside his door and run. I know he goes out of his way to appear distant and intimidating…I just didn’t realize people actually bought the act.

I wander back through the hallway to his office, walking in after I tap on the door.

“I got you a cheeseburger and fries,” I say, handing him the bag. “The rest is mine.”

He closes a file. I’m clearly interrupting him, but he doesn’t seem annoyed. Not that I’d care if he was. “Trying to ruin my social life by fattening me up?” he asks.

“At one cheeseburger a week, it will take me about two hundred years, but I have faith in our longevity.”

“You have faith in my longevity?”

I smile. “You might have a point.” I nod at the food. “I mean, look how you eat.”

I reach out to take the bag back from him, but he points to the chair beside me. “Stay,” he says. “I have a few minutes before my next patient.”

“I thought you hated people,” I reply, slumping in the chair happily and pulling out my fries. “Your receptionist wanted me to set the stuff outside your door.”

He spreads the paper wrapper out neatly on his desk and places a napkin in his lap, as if this is a proper meal. “I do hate people. I guess your constant nagging sets you apart somehow.”

I laugh despite myself. “Your staff could learn something from me,” I reply, shamelessly licking the grease from my fingers. He watches me, a flicker of interest in his eyes. “Maybe I should offer an in-office training.”

“Your smart little mouth is plenty,” he says. There’s a purr to his voice that makes my core clench tight as a drum, something that seems to be happening more and more. I’ve always had a fair amount of self-control, but one lingering look from him, one low note in his voice, and I feel like I’m another kind of girl entirely.

Remember why it’s a bad idea, Tali.

I know his romantic past is certainly littered with examples of bad behavior, but when I scour my brain for them, I come up empty-handed. Even the few reports I’ve seen about him in the press have been complete bullshit, like the one claiming that girl I saw leaving his house weeks ago is “broken-hearted” over him—though he saw her only once—just because she looked vaguely depressed walking into yoga. Who doesn’t look depressed walking into yoga?