The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (The Devils #2)(65)

I find myself blanking out, again and again, throughout the day. I’m an adult now, cossetted and sought after. But whenever my eyes close, I’m eleven years old, riding on a bus that’s getting farther and farther from home with no idea how I’ll ever get back.

The performance in the evening is relatively easy. I’m one of several acts, thank God, so I put my five songs in and then I’m led to some room where I’m stripped of one tiny dress and clad in another, pushed into a limo—an umbrella overhead to protect my hair from the fat snowflakes descending over the city—and delivered to a charity event in a plush hotel ballroom.

The event is packed with wealthy adults in cocktail attire, people who are here to meet me but older and unlikely to be fans. I’m simply the lure to get them through the door, the modern-day equivalent of a bearded lady or a twelve-inch man, the thing they’ll pay good money to ogle and discuss later.

I’m hugged and grasped and grabbed and tugged. My dress is too small, my heels are too high. I smile, smile, smile and all the while I’m wondering how I allowed this to happen. Not simply tonight, but everything. I’ve turned into something less than human and I don’t even know why. To earn my mother's respect? To vindicate my father? If those were my goals, they haven’t worked. They were never going to work. How did I not see that until now? My reasons for putting up with all of this now seem so juvenile and pointless. My chest aches and I rub it, trying to get it to stop.

I sign one photo after another and let overdressed strangers wrap their arms around me, but inside I’m feeling colder and colder.

I picture Josh on his flight—wearing his khakis, pecking away on his laptop. So very boring. I have no idea why such a boring thought has me looking at the clock on the wall, wishing he’d text.

Which he won’t—because he’s on a flight but also because this is over. I know this and yet, as I am being shepherded from one group of people to another, I pull out my phone for the hundredth time anyway to see if he replied.

He did. And all it says is, I’m outside.

I’m almost scared to take it literally but my heart is leaping, ready to thump right out of my chest. Josh is here. For me.

Two seconds ago, I was empty and despondent and now it's as if fireworks are igniting in my veins, hot and cold at the same time, so thrilling it almost hurts.

“I need a minute," I tell the girl assigned to me. Her eyes open wide—apparently me needing a minute is not on her schedule. "And I have a friend at the door, Josh. Can you please have the doorman send him back?"

"You still have donors who want to meet you," she says.

I'm doing this whole thing out of the goodness of my heart, or whatever I have in place of a heart, and I have put in two hours. I don't know what was promised to all these people, but is there really no limit to it?

"I need a break," I repeat, more firmly, “and until I get it and have seen Josh, I am not meeting anyone else.”

"So I can tell everyone you'll be back in five minutes?" she asks.

"You can tell them whatever you want," I reply. She looks satisfied by this, not realizing what I'm really saying is I don't give a shit what you tell them because I am going to do what I want right now and what I want, more than anything in the entire world, is to lay eyes on Joshua Bailey.

I'm back in the green room for less than thirty seconds when there's a knock on the door and he walks in wearing a heavy coat, snow still melting in his hair, looking like the most delicious thing I have ever seen in my life. I’m already shaking with the desire for him to touch me. “I was in the neighborhood,” he says. He hands me a small white bag and his mouth curves upward. “I heard you wanted brioche.”

I stare at him for a moment, blinking back tears. I’ve been given crazy gifts. I’ve been given diamonds and designer dresses. I was once given a car. But I’ve never loved anything as much as I do this brioche in a white paper bag.

I fling myself at him, jumping up to wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He catches me with a pleased smile, a quiet laugh, and then I’m kissing him. His face, his hair, anything I can reach.

“I hope these are good tears,” he says, brushing one off my cheek, and I’m too choked up to do anything but nod.

He cups my jaw and then we are kissing, and neither of us is laughing or crying anymore. I reach behind him to lock the door and slide to my feet, opening his coat, letting my lips graze his collarbone. He’s in jeans and thick-soled boots. I never dreamed that combination could inspire so much lust.

He pulls me closer and finds my mouth once more, his hands digging into the small of my back. I feel small and safe like this, wrapped up in the cocoon of him, with his overcoat falling around us, his erection digging through the thin fabric of my dress.

“I have five minutes until they start banging on that door,” I warn him.

His ridiculously large hands palm my hips. I feel tiny in his grasp. “That’s not nearly enough time,” he says.

I pull him down to me again by the lapels of his coat. “I love that you came here to see me.”

“It didn’t feel like a choice,” he says, his mouth ghosting over mine, sliding to my jaw. “I couldn’t fucking stay away.”

“Can you wait for me?” I ask. “I can be done here in an hour, tops. Less if I’m rude.”