The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (The Devils #2)(24)

His teeth sink into his lip. “It looks like you to me.”

I smile at him and my heart gives a weird little kick when he smiles back. Josh sometimes makes me feel like I still have the ability to change everything.

I am strangely ebullient, practically floating, as I enter my room—where a pile of luggage and two guitars sit in the middle of the floor.

“Surprise!” says Six, crossing the room and pulling me into his heavily-tattooed arms.

“Wow,” I say. “You’re here!” Somehow I can’t quite inject enough volume, enough joy, into my voice.

He pulls back, holding my face in his hands, observing me. “Babe, what the fuck did you do to your hair?” he asks.

And I fall from that cloud I was on and land right back on earth with a sharp, unpleasant splat.

“Come here,” he says, lying across the bed and holding out his arms. I’ve always liked how easy it is for Six to be affectionate, but now I think it’s simply that it’s so meaningless for him. I feel awkward as I slide onto the bed and put my head on his chest.

His lips press to my forehead and then he pulls back just enough to seek my mouth. “I’ve missed you,” he says. “I’m so glad you stayed.”

He kisses me and then rolls me onto my back, using a knee to push one of my thighs out of the way. There was a time when I’d have gone along with it, but today it feels as if my limbs have turned to metal, as if there’s a cage encircling my chest. I don’t want this. The moment I think it, I panic a little, as if it’s already gone too far. “Six,” I say, pushing against his chest. “Stop.”

His laughter is silent, a huff of air against my neck. “Babe, come on. Is this about the stupid rule?”

No, but also…it’s not not about the rule. I mean, he agreed willingly when he was trying to get me on this trip. I told him I wasn’t coming along as his fuck buddy. “You agreed,” I say, trying to push him off me. He’s impossibly heavy and doesn’t budge. “Are you already reneging the minute you get here?”

He gives an exasperated exhale and rolls off me. “It’s five days into the trip,” he argues, “and you said we’d see how it went.”

“You haven’t been here,” I reply stiffly, climbing from the bed. “Three FaceTime calls aren’t what I meant when I said we’d spend time together and reassess.”

He climbs off the bed. “Fine,” he says a little sullenly. “Whatever. We’ll spend time together.”

He’s only been here a few minutes and I’m starting to wish he hadn’t come.





The entire family takes a pool day at last. Beth is so thrilled to see Six she can hardly remain in her seat. She keeps tearing up and saying I’m so happy you made it, as if this is the only vacation they’ve ever had together. But every time Josh looks at his brother I see signs of strain, and Sloane—watching it happen—is just as unhappy. I still don’t understand what Josh meant the other day about me being the glue, but it’s clear Six isn’t. If the Bailey family was spinning out a little, Six’s arrival has only increased the speed of it.

Once the excitement diminishes, Jim goes back to talking exclusively to Josh, and Beth’s conversation with Six takes on a frenzied quality, as if she’s trying to distract a toddler from crying for a lost toy and knows she can’t quite succeed.

Josh finally gets up and goes to the pool alone. I suspect it’s simply to get a break from his father. I’m still watching as he climbs the ladder to get back out, sun glinting off those nice broad shoulders, dripping over his perfectly flat stomach. His swim trunks are hanging low and I find myself riveted by that trail of hair below his belly button, by the pale skin beneath his tan line and the hint of a tattoo just to the left of his hip. I picture dragging the trunks slightly lower to get a better view and suddenly I have goosebumps in eighty-degree weather.

Lunch is ordered and just as we’re finishing up my mother calls. I’m not entirely surprised—this is the pattern, after all. I’ve upset Richard and he had to run and tell on me as fast as he could.

I walk over to lean against the railing by the sea wall, because I don’t need the Baileys overhearing that even the woman who brought me into the world thinks I’m a useless screw-up.

She bypasses the whole Hey, how’s it going? part of the conversation entirely. “Did you really call Sandra the c-word?” she demands.

“Cancer?” I ask, squeezing tightly to the rail as a family passes by. They don’t even look at me twice. I wonder how long my anonymity will last.

“You know which word I’m referring to.”

“Yes, we both know,” I answer dryly, “because only one c word fits.”

My mother gives a heavy sigh. That sigh of hers is so familiar to me that I hear it in my sleep. I heard it in my head when I regained consciousness in Amsterdam. When I die, I won’t hear anyone grieving, I’ll just hear my mother’s long-suffering sigh, as if my death is simply one more thing I’ve done wrong.

“Maybe your merry band of misfits throws that word around without a care, but normal people don’t. You lash out at people and just assume all will be forgiven, Drew, but it adds up. Eventually people are going to stop letting things go.”

I slump into the same chair I sat in this morning with Josh, watching the sun come up. “Yeah, I’ve noticed how you all let things go. Which is probably why Sandra asked me to stay sober for this one, as if I’ve shown up rolling at every other family event we’ve ever had. And I don’t assume all will be forgiven. I just don’t give a shit.”