The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (The Devils #2)(40)

I love the way you take care of everyone, the way you always try to do the right thing.

Thank God you’re not even a possibility.

Josh gets his mom set up on a lounge chair and comes to where I stand in the water. His eyes brush over me and then jerk back up to my face, as if he forgot himself for a moment.

“Thought I’d better make sure you don’t need saving,” he says.

I grin. “I never need saving. I’m in fantastic shape.” His gaze darts, for a moment, to my hips and then away again. “How far did you and your mom go?”

He frowns. “We went up for about thirty minutes before she finally agreed it might be too much.” There’s a sort of sadness wrapped around him. I wish I knew how to cut through it. “It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow, so, uh, choose what you wear carefully. I’m guessing if the whole trail is like what I saw, we won’t reach the campsite ‘til dinner.”

I take a cautious step forward, trying to get past the rocks. Between the pulse of the waves and all the boulders, it feels like I could topple right over. “Were you under the impression I was going to show up in a ballgown and heels? I’m not Sloane.”

He gives a disgruntled laugh. “Glad you’re still managing to take potshots when she’s thousands of miles away. I just meant, like, don’t wear some stupid lacy thong that’ll ride up your ass the whole time.”

I look at him over my shoulder. “Spend a lot of time thinking about my panties, do you?”

He blinks, shocked and guilty. So guilty, like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He schools his expression. “Fine. When you’re chafed, don’t come crying to me.”

“Did you really imagine that if I had chafing on my genitalia, I would come crying to you? Oh, Josh, can you take a look at my vagina?” I ask in a whispery baby voice. “It hurts so bad.”

“Jesus,” he grunts, plowing forward to where the water is deeper. “Forget I brought it up.”

“You don’t need to worry about my panties!” I shout after him. “I’m not planning on wearing any.”

He exhales then, and it’s not weary or disdainful. He sounds like he just got the wind knocked out of him. I hope he’s past the rocks, because he dives right in.





26





DREW





January 30th





I was nine when my mother announced she was leaving my father for Steven, her boss, who lived in New York City. She was full of promises about how much better our lives would be, but really it was her life she was concerned with.

I didn’t want to leave New Jersey, or my bedroom, or my school. Most of all, I did not want to leave my father. “I’d give anything to stop her,” he told me on my last night at home, “but there’s nothing I can do.”

My mother and Steven both had law degrees and money. They’d both been born in the US. There was no way my father could fight them. For the next two years, I heard my father say I’d give anything or I’ll do my best and it broke my heart every time. Because I believed him, and nothing ever came of it.

The very last time I heard that phrase was the night I called to tell him my mother was removing his visitation rights. “I’ll tell them I want to live with you,” I pled in whispers, praying I wouldn’t be overheard. “Talk to your lawyer.”

“I’d give anything to make that possible, Lina,” my father said. “I’ll do my best.”

I know now I should never have taken him at his word. I know now when someone says those things what they really mean is I’m not even going to try.

That’s how I know that when Six says he’s gonna do his best to come on the backpacking trip, it means he won’t be coming at all.

Yes, he showed every sign of planning to come, frantically reorganizing both our packs while I was out of the room this morning, asking someone in the band to reschedule the Pitchfork interview. He even came all the way to the trail, but he didn’t get out of the car when we did and I should have known then.

Josh was helping me with my backpack, which was too heavy for me. “Turn around,” he said, grinning way too much as he placed it on my shoulders like I was a small child going to school for the first time.

“What are you trying not to laugh at?” I demanded.

“You’re gonna go over like a turtle on its back with that thing on, and you’ll never get back up,” he said.

“Don’t laugh too hard,” I replied. “If I fall, I’m taking you with me.”

Our eyes met. “Of course you are,” he said softly.

That’s when Six climbed out of the car and told us the Pitchfork interview was happening in thirty minutes. “I have to call in it for it, but I’ll catch up,” he said.

I stared at him. I thought I had no expectations of Six, but I realized then that I must, because he was still consistently managing to disappoint me. “Catch up? You don’t even know where you’re going.”

“There’s only one trail,” Six said. “It might be a push, but I’ll do my best.”

As soon as those words left his mouth, I knew, unequivocally and beyond a doubt, that he and I were done. There was a time when I loved how rebellious Six was. I lived vicariously through his apathy. It was the middle finger I couldn’t entirely give anyone—my mother, the record label, Davis, my agent, my publicist.