The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I take another step backward and look for an exit. It was always my plan to leave once we got news. I just didn’t realize how much it would actually hurt to see him and walk away.

  Suddenly, his mother is pointing toward me and his head jerks my way, astonished. His eyes lock with mine, and it makes me so happy and hurts so much at the same time.

  I give him a small, pathetic wave, accompanied by a small, pathetic smile. One that says Hi there and I’m glad you’re okay and I get it, this is weird, but I’m playing along.

  And then he’s pushing past them, breaking through the crowd to reach me. He stops when he’s a foot away and I’m frozen, uncertain how to be this near him without pressing my face to his chest, without throwing my arms around him. I was right, I guess, when I said it would never work. It still doesn’t work.

  “You came all the way here for me,” he says.

  I swallow. “Of course I did,” I say roughly, and then there are tears rolling down my face.

  “Because you love me.”

  I nod. “Yes. But your family—”

  He steps closer and reaches toward me. One hand lands on my waist, the other cups my jaw. “And you’re in this for the whole ride, wherever it takes us?”

  My eyes widen. “Yes,” I whisper in a choked voice.

  In the distance someone shouts What the fuck? But Josh is smiling. The world is falling apart around us and he’s smiling.

  “Me too,” he says and then he kisses me. In front of his entire family and all the people in this waiting room, he kisses me like he thought he might never see me again. And then I start to cry once more, because I never dreamed I’d end up with everything I want from this, and I have.

  48

  JOSH

  There’s a time to worry about being diplomatic, about handling everything in exactly the right way. But this isn’t that time. Not after nearly dying and realizing I didn’t want to leave the world without letting her know how I felt.

  “I love you,” I tell her. I know I should let her go, stop kissing her long enough to get this all out, but I want too many things at once right now. “I love you so fucking much.”

  “I love you too,” she says, sounding like she is laughing and crying at the same time. “And I was so stupid. I didn’t know it was that dangerous and—”

  “Not stupid,” I tell her. How could she have known? I went out of my way to make it sound manageable. “I hurt you. I was so freaked out that I didn’t think at all about how it made you feel.”

  “I should have given you a chance to explain it,” she says. “This might have escaped your attention, but I’m a little messed up.”

  I smile against her mouth. “You hid it so well.” But inside I think Not messed up. Resilient. She’s a tiny fighter and I love that about her. I love everything about her, the bad and the good. I want to tell her this, and tell about that bleak moment when I was certain I was going to die, and she was the only thing in my head. I want to make her a thousand promises and then go somewhere with her alone.

  But it’ll have to wait, I guess. I owe a few people apologies, after all.

  I hold onto her and turn back to face my family. My dad is at the front door where he—and a security guard—are holding my brother back, while my mother walks toward us.

  There were times when I hoped maybe she knew, and was trying to push us together—by insisting on lunch in the hotel Drew was staying in, for instance. But there is pure shock on her face right now. Apparently, she didn’t have a clue.

  “Mom,” I tell her, “I’m sorry. I love her. I just couldn’t help it. I’ll work things out with Joel eventually.”

  There are tears in her eyes and then she smiles. “That’s okay,” she says, wrapping her arms around us both. “I knew she was meant to be part of our family. We’ll figure it out.”

  A small sob comes from Drew and I know my mother’s words have hit her hard. I pull her even closer and press my lips against her hair. Family. I’m going to do my best to give her everything she’s never had before, but I’m glad my mom is still with us to give her this too.

  The bullet was removed by a medic in Somalia, but I still have to get my wound checked out before I’m free to leave. My family stays in the lobby, while I wait to be seen in an examining room. I bring Drew with me, of course, because her presence here still feels too good to be true.

  I sit on the examination table while she takes the only chair, and we discuss the past day. She tells me about their trip here, about some unfounded rumor that an American had died. I offer her as few details about what happened as I can. I still have to go back, after all. She doesn’t need to know how close I came to not making it out alive.

  “You’re sure you’re okay with this?” she finally asks. “I mean, with us.”

  I laugh. “Are you really asking me that? I just got everything I wanted, and my mother was fine with it.”

  “Your brother isn’t. Sabine wasn’t either.”

  My brow furrows. “Sabine? The nurse?”

  She grins. “Are you serious? She just ran across the lobby to hug you. She was sitting next to you when I showed up in the canteen. You cannot possibly be surprised by this.”

  “Surprised by what? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She stands up and starts to cross the room and I ward her off. “Drew, you swore you’d remain in your chair.”

  She kisses me once, closed mouth, and returns to her seat. “That’s all I wanted. I wasn’t planning to blow you.”

  I groan. “I think you have no idea how little it takes to excite me.” I’m wearing scrubs, for God’s sake. This doctor is gonna walk in at any moment and see way more of my anatomy than I’m interested in sharing.

  “I’ll talk about my feelings,” she says. “That kills any erection.”

  I grin. “Don’t be so certain about that. I’ve been waiting a very long time to hear about your feelings.”

  The doctor checks out my shoulder and prescribes some painkillers and a lot of rest, though he’s clearly aware, having seen Drew, that I have no intention of resting. “Do your best, anyway,” he concludes. I’m given scrubs and hospital slippers, and then Drew and I walk out hand-in-hand to find my parents waiting in the lobby. Joel is gone, and it worries me only because I’m sure it worries my mom. At the moment, however, she’s so delighted about Drew and me that nothing can touch her.

  My dad suggests we all go to dinner, but my mom looks at our linked fingers and suggests we meet up tomorrow. My father is complaining about this as they walk away—We flew all night to see him—but she waves him off.

  “I want grandchildren,” she replies. “Let’s not get in their way.”

  Drew hears it and laughs. “I think your mom might be getting ahead of herself.”

  I picture Drew pregnant, and I picture the child we might have. I smile and tug her closer. I’m not sure my mom is all that far ahead of herself, but I’ll take baby steps for now.

  49

  DREW

  When we get to the hotel—Ben somehow arranged this too—I help him remove the shirt over his bandaged shoulder. Standing there shirtless, scrubs hanging low around his waist, he looks so good I can hardly bear not to touch him.

  “I need a shower,” he says. He comes closer, his mouth at my ear. “I might need help. You know…bum shoulder and all.”

  I let my palms rest against his chest. “Yeah?”

  He nods. His eyes have gone all hazy, the way they do when he is not thinking about cleanliness, and there’s a bulge distorting the front of his scrubs. “The doctor said you should rest,” I remind him.

  He leans down, finding my mouth. “Even he knew that wasn’t realistic. It would take a lot more bullets to make rest a priority right now.”

  He strips me of my hoody and the t-shirt beneath. It’s not easy with only one good arm, but with my help he manages just fine. I push the jeans down myself. He tugs me against him then, like he can’t stand not to touch me. �
�I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” I sigh. More than I would ever have let myself admit. His nipple is level with my mouth. My lips close over it, taking it between my teeth.

  “God,” he groans. His hips reflexively arch toward me, seeking friction. “Shower.” It comes out more as a plea than a demand. I let him lead me, shedding my bra and panties on the way, watching with breathless anticipation as he tugs the scrubs down over his narrow hips.

  His cock is thick and long and shows no sign of needing any rest whatsoever. It needs the opposite of rest. I reach for it but he evades me, stepping into the spray with a laugh. I follow, taking the hotel soap and lathering it in my hand.

  “Hmmm…where should I start?” I ask.

  He laughs again. The last time I saw him this free, this unburdened, was the day we reached Kalalau Beach. It’s as if he’s suddenly got everything in the world he wants.

  “You’d better start at the top,” he replies. “Otherwise this will be a very brief shower.”

  I lather his neck first, letting my hands run over his chest and his back, avoiding his shoulder. I don’t miss his small intake of air every time his cock slides against my stomach, the way he tenses as if it’s so good it hurts. My core clenches in response. I go down to my knees to get his legs, slowly working my way up and over his skin.

  “You’re torturing me right now,” he says.

  Finally I rise, moving behind him, running my hands from his back down to his ass, reaching through his legs to cup his balls while my other hand roams over his hip to stroke his cock. Air hisses between his teeth at the contact. I move to face him and when I reach for him again, he stops me.

  “Fuck,” he groans. “No condoms.”

  “I’m…clean,” I whisper. “And I’m on birth control.”

  This is something I never, not once, gave his brother.

  His eyes slowly close. “Drew, I’m not gonna last two seconds without one.”

  I smile. “If memory serves, you’ll be ready for round two fast enough. I can wait.”

  He moves us so I’m completely out of the spray, my back against the wall. “You’re going to get your bandage wet,” I warn.

  “That’s okay,” he says with a half grin. “I know a guy.”

  His palm glides down my leg, hooking his fingers under my knee to pull one thigh around his hip. He bends his knees to get the right angle, rubbing his hardness over my core, hitting my clit with just the right amount of pressure and then he’s inside me, hissing at the feel of it. “Oh God, that’s so good,” he whispers. I arch to get closer to him as he tugs my hips toward him and begins sliding in and out, the tempo even and perfect.

  I didn’t think it would be so different. After all, it’s the same amount of friction, the same amount of force. But it’s slicker, hotter, more real. When he thrusts inside me hard for the first time, my feet nearly leave the floor.

  One of his hands is on my hip as the other trails over my neck to my breast, then my rib cage, then lower. His fingers slip between my legs.

  I laugh. “This is going to end so fast if you do that.”

  He groans. “This is going to end so fast in either case. That’s why I’m doing it.”

  He is stiff with the effort to restrain himself, to not push faster and harder and take what he needs.

  “Faster,” I demand.

  “Drew,” he says with a warning in his voice but I arch toward him and he complies, his hips bucking hard and fast, almost involuntarily. My blood heats and leaves my brain entirely. That thing in my stomach starts to wind tight and tighter. “I’m close,” I warn him.

  “Thank God,” he grunts, and his next thrust is pitiless and entirely selfish and it sends me right over the edge. I cry out and then he pushes once more, hard, and I hear his own muffled cry as he buries his face against my neck.

  Eventually, we dry off and find our way to the bed where we repeat everything at a more leisurely pace, sleep like the dead for a few hours, and then wake and do it again.

  It’s dark when he rolls toward me and says, “Tell me about the numbers.”

  I frown. We’re happy now and it’s not a happy story. “Was I talking in my sleep again?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head. “No. Not here. But in Dooha, you were. All night long.”

  I try to think of a way I can distract him, a way I can turn it into a joke, but I guess the time for that has passed. At this point, failing to answer would feel like a lie.

  “They’re bus lines,” I tell him, staring at his chest. “From the last time I went to see my dad.”

  He stiffens. “I thought he died when you were young.”

  “He did,” I reply, and then I close my eyes and let the story spill free, each piece of it a little uglier than the one before it.

  My father was distraught after that bottle hit me in the face. I told my mom the truth because a stupid part of me thought she’d understand how lost my dad was, how much he needed us.

  “She said she was taking away his visitation rights, instead,” I tell Josh. His hand slides over my arm, encouraging me to continue. “And he said he was going to do his best to fight it.”

  I believed him, little idiot that I was. I believed him and I packed a bag and memorized the bus schedules and left New York, alone. And I was so scared the whole way. I’d never taken a city bus in my life and I was sure someone was going to ask why I wasn’t in school, or that I would get off on the wrong stop, or forget which bus came next. M7 to the 199 to the 88. And I dream about it again and again, those moments before I knew how it would all turn out, when I still was full of blind, stupid hope.

  “Did you make it?” I hear concern in his voice, as if this is a story that’s still evolving, that can still change.

  “I did,” I reply. I take a single deep breath. “He’d shot himself in the head.”

  He stiffens. Maybe he isn’t sure if I’m making another wildly inappropriate joke. Lord knows I’ve made enough of them. I hear the air leave his chest in an audible rush. “Jesus, Drew.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t really remember it,” I tell him. “A neighbor came in behind and got me out of there.” What’s left, mostly, is the feeling of being blindsided, of being stunned that he didn’t try like he said he would. He was never going to try, and I truly believed every word out of his mouth until that moment.

  Josh holds me for a long time after I conclude. I’m not sure if it’s for me or for him or for us both. “I think it’s why I reacted so badly when I came to see you in Dooha,” I admit. “It just felt like it had all been a lie.” I cut him out of my life because it felt like the least painful option. Until I realized how much more painful things could be.

  “I wish I could go back and fix it all for you,” he says. “What happened then. And how I acted when you came to visit.”

  “I’m not sure we’d be where we are if it all hadn’t happened just the way it did,” I tell him. I close my eyes. “It’s all gonna come out now, though. Davis knows. Once he discovers I wasn’t bluffing when I fired him, he’s going to tell the whole world, and he’ll find a way to make me look bad. I think I probably need to get it out there first.”

  It still terrifies me, but not the way it did before. Those hours I spent thinking Josh might be dead make any other outcome pale by contrast.

  “I’ll be there with you, at the interviews, if you want me there,” he says, pressing his lips to the top of my head. “I’ve got two weeks off now, but I’m going to find a way to get out of Somalia permanently. I already put in the request but now I’m going to demand it.”

  I blink up at him, my throat swelling a little. “Really? But…I thought it was impossible? What changed?”

  “What changed is that I fell in love,” he says. “And I don’t ever want to spend a single night away from you again. It might take a while, but Drew, even if we’re apart, you’re not alone anymore.”

  I press my face to his chest and cry. Not about my father, r
eally, or the scare we’ve just had. But about all the lonely years that existed between those two events.

  And how relieved I am to discover it’s coming to an end.

  50

  DREW

  Nine Months Later

  Our new terrace looks spectacular.

  Fairy lights are strung haphazardly overhead. The long plank table is laid out with ten place settings punctuated with wine bottles and vases full of hydrangeas. And Josh stands on the other side of it, which might be the thing I like most.

  He grins at me now while helping Audrey, Tali’s daughter, take uncertain, lumbering steps across the grass. Gemma, Jonathan’s oldest child, is trying to teach her somersaults, which might be a little advanced given that Audrey just started walking a month ago.

  Tonight we are celebrating several things at once—our new home, the release of Tali’s book, Jonathan and his partner’s newest child.

  And perhaps most of all, Ben’s first but significant victory over Davis—and therefore mine as well. It took many months to sort out all of Davis’s mismanagement. This week, he finally freed up the eleven million they owed me, and now we go after him and my former accountant for the ten million they embezzled. I don’t need the money, but I’m looking forward to ruining them both—or ruining them more, anyway.

  The interviews I gave about my father’s death, with Josh by my side, highlighted Davis’s role in hiding it all, and the way it kept me silent and compliant as well. His company’s other clients fled once the stories came out, but the best part for me was simply getting out from under it. That story held a lot of power over me for a very long time, and letting it out broke the spell. If I had to continue rehashing it in interviews, I’d probably be okay, but my new publicist terrifies everyone into good behavior so it doesn’t come up.