The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (The Devils #2)(21)

And then I race back down the trail, past the entrance, and keep going until I finally find myself on some street where I don’t see a single person, thank God.

I can’t keep living like this, I think.

It’s exactly the thought I had that night in Amsterdam, except there it felt paralyzing and right now it just seems…freeing. I pull out my phone and call my assistant’s number. “Ashleigh,” I tell her, “I need a haircut and color in Waikiki.”

She pauses. “Have you talked to Davis?” she finally asks. “He probably has a certain look he wants for the apology tour.”

The apology tour. I still can’t believe they’re calling it that.

“Which one of us pays you, Ashleigh?” I ask. “And who does my hair belong to?”

“You,” she says sullenly. “Fine. When do you want to do it?”

“Now,” I reply. “Right the fuck now.”





15





JOSH





Those photos of Drew and me walking out of the water are suddenly everywhere, it would seem.

Every five minutes I’m getting a text from a buddy in med school. It’s amazing just how many of my friends have made precisely the same joke, some version of Life in Somalia looks a lot better than I realized. My colleagues back in Somalia write to say I see you’re making the most of your time away, or You’re never coming back, clearly, and I can’t blame you.

I could live with the ribbing. But I’m not sure I’ll survive Sloane’s attitude about the whole thing, because she’s getting texts about it too. And even though she knows there’s nothing to it—even though she was there for most of it—she’s absolutely livid.

We arrive at Diamond Head with Sloane’s considerable intellect focused entirely on the question of whether I’m aware of my brother’s girlfriend. It seems a little unfair, as Drew currently comprises twenty percent of the people on this trip. It would be almost sociopathic for me to not notice, but apparently if Drew is surrounded by a crowd of jackals pulling at her clothes and her hair and commenting on her weight, I’m just supposed to ignore it. Someone can say aren’t you going to rehab and someone else can say I thought you’d be thinner and I’m supposed to be sitting there on my damn phone, reading an article about the Greek debt crisis or checking out reviews of the restaurant we’re eating at tonight.

I did almost nothing to extricate Drew from the situation, but Sloane was still irritated.

Look who’s suddenly Sir Lancelot, she said under her breath.

So for ten minutes I have marched forward, determined to salvage a situation I didn’t put myself in in the first place, and when I finally stop I find my parents approaching.

Alone.

“Where’s Drew?” I bark, and I know I sound far too angry and invested, but I can’t help it.

My mother blinks. Just once. A tiny processing of something and discarding it. “Poor thing,” she says. “She saw those crowds coming down and panicked. She said she couldn’t do this.”

“And you just let her go?” I ask.

My father raises his brow. He’s a quiet man, but I know what that look means: Watch your tone. As if he has a leg to stand on where treatment of my mother is concerned.

“She said she was fine,” my mom argues.

What am I supposed to do at this point? I’ve got three adults who think I’m overreacting, and maybe I am. But if it was up to me, I’d be going right down the path after her.

We finish the miserable climb—the summit is closed so there’s really only one decent view to speak of—and return to the hotel.

I shower and leave for the pool, praying I find Drew there since she wasn’t in her room. I’m approaching the elevator when the doors open and a woman walks off, the kind of woman who makes the whole world go silent for a half second. She’s got the cheekbones of a supermodel, curves, and a body made up of at least 70% long bare legs, encased in tiny shorts.

It’s only when her face lifts up from her phone and I see her eyes—the softest, most luminous brown God ever created—that I realize it’s Drew.

Her hair reaches her collarbone now, and it’s a darker blonde. She was beautiful before—in the way of a priceless object you’d stand in line to see. Now she’s beautiful in the way of something you didn’t expect to find, something you’ve chanced upon and know will change your life. “You cut your hair.”

Her smile has a brittle, uncertain edge. “Your keen powers of observation never fail to astonish.”

“It’s nice,” I tell her, and it seems like too much and not enough all at once. “You look…I mean…it suits you.”

“Oh,” she says, and she swallows as if she’s about to cry. “Thank you.”

It’s only as she turns to walk away that I realize she expected me to say something shitty. That she was already hunching her shoulders like a boxer entering a ring, because she fully expects the world to hurt her all the fucking time.

I’d probably have panic attacks, too, if I had to live like that.





16





DREW





I stare in the mirror for a long time after I see Josh in the hall.