“It’s been busy,” I reply distractedly, kicking off my shoes. I have no idea how to broach the topic I need to…but I know it won’t go well.
Her laughter sounds a trifle mocking. “Busy hanging out with the rich and famous, more likely. I’ve heard from Liddie about your glamorous little life out there.”
My jaw grinds as I fill a measuring cup with water. I can easily imagine the spin Liddie put on things, and it’s so like my mother to take her side.
“Since we’re judging each other,” I reply, slamming the microwave door, “Dr. Shriner is worried about you. She said you appear to have been drinking when you show up for family therapy.”
“I’m an adult and we’re not paying for Dr. Shriner to take care of me,” she says. “I’m allowed to have a glass of wine in the evening if I want one.”
We aren’t paying for Dr. Shriner at all, I think. I am. And you can’t even bother to be sober for it.
“Mom,” I say, taking a slow breath as I lean against the counter, “it doesn’t look good when you can’t even stay sober for your kid’s therapy appointment. She isn’t sure Charlotte should be coming home to you under the circumstances. If you could—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she says, her voice so shrill I have to pull the phone from my ear. “Shriner’s just looking for someone to blame for the fact that Charlotte isn’t better.”
If she were calmer right now, more rational, more sober, I might consider what she’s saying. She’s the parent. She’s supposed to be the one of us who’s right about things. But the truth is that she hasn’t been right about much in the past year, and she’s been perfectly happy to let me figure it out in her stead.
“Mom, she just wants to make sure Charlotte’s coming home to someone who’s going to be able to take care of her.” I pull my hair out of its ponytail and run my fingers through it, wishing I hadn’t called. “And right now, she’s saying that person will have to be me or Liddie, so I really need you to just...pull it together, okay? Wait to have your glass of wine until after therapy.”
“She can’t hold Charlotte there,” my mother argues.
“Jesus, Mom,” I snap, pinching the bridge of my nose, “you’re missing the point. Charlotte needs to come home to someone capable of staying sober. Can you do it or not?”
“I don’t answer to her,” my mother replies, “and I don’t answer to you either.”
I blink in shock when I hear the ring tone and realize she’s hung up on me. She fucking hung up on me.
Which means Dr. Shriner probably had a point. And unless something changes fast, I really might have to move home.
23
We all have our talents, and mine is avoiding unhappy thoughts. I mostly try to forget the miserable conversation with my mother, and when I remember, I simply assure myself that even if she didn’t sound receptive, I made my point, and things will turn around.
There’s not much time to think about it anyway because I’m so busy getting Hayes’s luncheon planned I can barely breathe, much less dwell. It seems almost every attendee wants to bring extra friends, and I swear to God if I hear about one more woman with a “special dietary need”, I’m going to lose my shit.
Two days before the event, the gift bags arrive completely botched, which leaves me frantically assembling them myself on Hayes’s living room floor. I’m halfway through counting out lip balms when the emergency phone rings, and I’m seriously tempted to let it go to voice mail—it’s not as if there’s ever been a call to that phone that was actually an emergency. They’re usually of the I’m looking especially old today variety.
Reluctantly, my hand slides beneath a mountain of ribbon and cellophane for the phone, trying to banish the weariness from my voice as I answer.
“I need Hayes,” the woman on the other end of the line croaks. “It’s an emergency. My ten-year-old…I think he’s got a broken nose. There’s blood everywhere.”
“Uhhhh…” Hayes does not treat kids, as far as I know, and this sounds a little more pressing than his booked-out-three-weeks schedule will allow. “If he’s bleeding heavily, he needs to go to the emergency room.”
“No,” she insists. “We can’t. My son is Trace Westbrook. If we go to the ER, the paparazzi will be all over us asking how it happened.”
I know little about him aside from the fact that he has a popular YouTube channel, but I find it deeply suspicious that his mom is more concerned about paparazzi than she is her son’s health.
“Hayes understands the situation and has helped us many times before,” she says brusquely. “Just call him.”
She hangs up, and something sours in my stomach. If Hayes has helped many times, that means this kid has gotten injured many times. Why would Hayes be going out of his way to help a parent avoid the paparazzi instead of sending him to the emergency room? Surely he realizes how suspicious it all is?
Hayes wouldn’t help a family hide abuse. I know he wouldn’t.
But you also thought Matt would never cheat, a voice says. You thought he supported your dreams the way you supported his. You’re a terrible judge of character.
I call him, feeling strangely certain the bottom is going to fall out. That he’s going to disappoint me. I pull my legs tight to my chest.
“If this is another party question, you’re fired,” he answers. “Tell Jonathan his adoption is off. He can get a cat instead of a baby—much easier on everyone.”
Please don’t disappoint me, Hayes. Please don’t prove I was wrong about someone else.
“I just got a call from a woman who says she’s Trace Westbrook’s mom.” My voice is quiet, hesitant. “She said he broke his nose…and she doesn’t want to go to the hospital because they’ll ask questions.”
I hug my knees tighter, waiting for him to clarify this, to explain why he’s helping these people instead of letting them hang.
Instead, I hear only a curse and the screech of tires. “I’m turning around. They’re in Laurel Canyon, but I don’t remember the exact address,” he says. “Get it, phone it into my car, and meet me there.”
“Meet you?” I do not want to be a part of this. And if I meet this kid’s parents and it’s as bad as it sounds, Hayes might end up dealing with multiple broken noses. Including his own.
“Yes,” he says. “I need the black bag in the linen closet in my bathroom. Get it and get there as fast as you can.”
He’s so cool and collected under normal circumstances that hearing him sound worried is deeply unsettling. “Tell me why you’re helping these parents cover up a broken nose,” I say, my voice hard. I will quit on the spot if I don’t like his answer.
“I will,” he says, “but first, I need that address. Now.”
I pull up to a sprawling rambler, framed by short, stocky palms and gnarled old fig trees. Hayes’s car is already there, so I grab the bag and head to the door. A woman answers, looking like death warmed over. “He’s upstairs,” she says, clutching her robe around her. A small pale face peers over the couch at me, eyes wide and sad, hair matted to her head.
I put my anger on hold and run up the stairs, two at a time.
The kid in the bed looks even younger than I’d have expected, and Hayes is holding his hand, talking to him about skiing with feigned calm. He glances over his shoulder. “Valium,” he says. I open the bag and begin fumbling through bottles until I find it. “Get me two and a glass of water.” There’s no doubt this is an order. There’s a degree of don’t fuck with me in his voice I’ve never heard before.
I run to the bathroom beside Trace’s room and fill a disposable cup with water before I run back, handing it to Hayes along with the pills.
“I need you to swallow these for me,” he says to the kid, who begins crying. “It won’t hurt, I swear. You aren’t going to feel a single thing.”
Hayes gives the boy the pills and holds the cup to his lips, still discussing ski slopes, his voice so calm even my breathing slows.
When the boy’s eye
s droop and then close, Hayes reaches into his bag and withdraws a very, very long needle. Between that and the blood, I feel like I can barely stay upright.
“I need you to hold him down,” he says quietly. “Can you do that?”
My jaw falls open to argue, but I see he means it, and maybe it’s bad judgment, but I trust him. Implicitly. “How?”
“Grab his shoulders,” he says. “Make sure he doesn’t jerk while I’m injecting the lidocaine.”
Swallowing, I do as I’m told, going to the opposite side of the bed and leaning over him. He looks like he’s out cold, but my hands band around his biceps as tight as I can anyway.
Hayes glances at me. “You’re looking a little pale,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I reply, my voice breathless and threadbare.
He holds Trace’s jaw with one hand and with the other presses the needle into the upper bridge of his nose, right beside his eye.
“Oh, God,” I whisper.
“Hold him, Tali,” he growls. “Just look away. I need you. Don’t pass out on me now.”
I close my eyes, trying to hold it together. I’ve never thought of myself as someone prone to acting like a girl, but I’ve also never seen a needle that fucking big aimed at someone’s eye.
“What was the name of that ride at Universal?” he asks, in that same calm voice he was using on the kid. “The Harry Potter one.”
I breathe through my nose. “I don’t…I don’t remember. There was the Hagrid one. Oh, or the Hippogriff? Why?”
“You can look now,” he says. I open my eyes and his mouth quirks upward. He was distracting me like a child, and it worked.
He starts spraying something up Trace’s nose, with a tube. “More lidocaine,” he explains quietly. “And now we wait for it to kick in.” He begins wiping blood off the boy’s face, as gently as he might his own child’s.
I’ve never seen him like this before—acting like he cares. Acting like something matters. I want to look away and I can’t.
“Is he going to be okay?” his mother asks behind us, her voice tremulous. I hadn’t even realized she was there, and it’s hard not to glare at her, not to assume the worst. Would Hayes cover up abuse? I can’t imagine he would, yet he does all sorts of things for money I would not. He drives out to houses where women proposition him and let dogs jump on his back. Do I really know where he’d hit bottom? Do you ever know, with anyone?
“It’s a basic fracture,” says Hayes. “I had them several times myself as a kid. I’m about to push the bones into place, and he’ll be good as new.”
He gets a tool out of his bag and glances at me. “You probably want to shut your eyes again,” he says.
I do, feeling too confused to be angry. I don’t understand how he can be so gentle and sympathetic, yet not intervene. These people might be claiming the kid is simply clumsy, frequently hurt...but Hayes wouldn’t know if that was the case. That’s why they should be forced to go through the hospital, where it will be documented. Where someone who knows the signs of abuse will catch them. And Hayes must realize this too.
I swallow hard. I really thought he was different. I thought he was better than he appeared. Now it seems possible he’s worse.
The rest of the work is done quickly. Nasal packs go into his nostrils to support the bones and Hayes splints the bridge. He quietly gives the mother instructions and then pats her shoulder before taking his leave. I follow on wobbly legs and lean against the hood of my car, watching as Hayes throws the bag I brought in his trunk.
“What happened to him? If he’s getting hurt a lot…” I feel jittery and out of control. Tears spring to my eyes. “I don’t know why you’re helping that family the way you are. This should all be getting documented.”
He shuts the trunk and turns toward me. “Tali,” he says softly, “he’s got a heart valve defect. It decreases blood flow to the brain, and he blacks out. Did you really think I’d help someone cover up child abuse?”
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but the dam breaks. I press my face to my hands as tears begin to fall. “Can they fix it?”
He comes over and wraps an arm around me, pressing my head to his chest. He smells like soap and starch and home. “I wish they could, but no.” His voice is so kind it makes me cry harder. “I think you’re in shock. It’s okay. It happens.”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I just thought…”
“You thought what?”
I struggle to find the right words. I’m glad my face is pressed to his shirt so I don’t have to make eye contact. “That I am probably a terrible judge of character,” I whisper. “I was with Matt for ten years…”
My voice breaks, and I stop talking. It’s ridiculous what I thought. It’s ridiculous my experience with one human being out of thousands could make me distrustful of everyone, including myself.
He pulls me closer. “I know,” he says quietly. His heart beats faster, just beneath my cheek. “I know exactly how you feel.”
I guess he must. He gave up his inheritance for Ella, and she left him for his dad. It would be enough to ruin your faith in people forever, if you let it.
“Is it going to always be like this?” I ask. “Am I always going to feel like I can’t trust anyone?”
I feel his slow, weary exhale. “A guy who hasn’t been in a relationship for seven years is probably not the person to ask.”
I spent so much time looking down on him for the way he lives, but are his threesomes and foursomes any worse than me revenge fucking Matt’s closest friend in LA? Are they any different than my long runs at night on the bike path? It’s all just a way to drum out the emptiness.
He’s me, only with a lot more money and slightly less self-control.
I don’t want to still be this version of myself in seven years. I don’t want him to be this version either.
24
Drew texts the day of the luncheon to see if I want to meet up. She’s just back from Spain, where she was visiting Six. I know from her sporadic messages he was both wonderful and terrible. That he alternated between telling her he can see a future with her and then commenting on the size of her thighs. I don’t know why she doesn’t see through him when she’s so clever about everything else.
I tell her I need to take a rain check because the luncheon is consuming every waking minute. And today, when I have to be at my sharpest, I feel like I barely have the energy to push myself into the shower. I’ve gotten by on Hayes-levels of sleep for days on end, continuing to do my job while setting up the three-ring circus Hayes wants in his backyard: catered lunch, aesthetic services, favors, open bar, valet...the list is endless. There is so much to do today, and I only want to collapse in bed, which means there’s no way this thing is going to work out as seamlessly as he’d like.
I arrive at his house with my ridiculously expensive beige dress, my toiletries, and a pair of sky-high heels in one bag, the last of the party favors in another.
Hayes is already downstairs, looking so pressed and perfect and alert that I can’t help but resent him for it.
“You look like death warmed over,” he says.
I let both bags drop to the floor. I feel like I don’t even have the energy to respond this morning.
“What?” he asks. “I’m just wondering how you can look so bad when I know you spent yet another night in, watching Jane Austen movies and dreaming about marriage.”
I lean back against the counter, scraping my hair off my face and re-gathering my ponytail. I’m going to be a disaster by eleven AM when the guests arrive. “So that’s what you think I do?”
He shrugs. “Mostly, I picture you at home vigorously masturbating.”
I pretend to gag, and today I’m not entirely faking it. I wonder if it was the deli sushi I grabbed on the way home last night. I knew I should have stuck with ramen. It might not be the healthiest food, but pre-packaged ramen never gave anyone food poisoning.
&n
bsp; It’s cool in the house but I’m already sweating and the smell of Hayes’s coffee is making my stomach churn. I head outside into the too-bright-morning to discuss table placement with the caterer, and the heat makes my head swim. I have to brace myself against a pillar to keep from swaying as she speaks.
I get through the next two hours, but by the time the linens are down and I’ve set the place cards out, I’m wondering how I’ll survive until the end. The fumes from the chafing dishes alone have me staggering inside to get away.
Hayes is there, looking like a cool dream in a black button down and suit pants while he tinkers with the set-up for aesthetic services. I want to lean my head against his chest, which would be inappropriate and would also destroy his shirt since I can’t stop sweating.
“You really are very quiet today,” he says. “I don’t think you’ve nagged me once in the past fifteen minutes, which is certainly a record. What did you do last night?”
My eyes fall closed. God, what I would give to lie down right now. “I vigorously masturbated while watching Jane Austen movies.”
“Well done,” he says. “I’ve never gotten an erection and had it killed in the space of one sentence before.”
I force my eyes open, force my shoulders back. I’m not going to be sick right now because I can’t afford to be sick right now. “I didn’t do anything last night. I stayed up until midnight putting together gift bags, and then I went to bed. I’m just a little tired.”
He’s silent for once. His mouth is pressed tight, his jaw locked. Which is his worried face but also his angry face, and I’m not sure which I’m seeing now.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
The air conditioning felt so good when I walked in, but now even that’s not enough. I’ve been less sweaty walking out of spin class.
“I’m fine,” I reply, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I promise your little luncheon will be spectacular, and you’ll have more new patients than you know what to do with.”
A Deal With The Devil: A Steamy Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 13