The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (The Devils #2)(7)
“Feel free to just admit you’re far weaker,” he says, folding his arms across his broad chest, “and we can proceed with the run.”
Okay, I rescind my previous statement. I totally want to hurt this guy.
Fast as a flash, my leg swings out. It’s been a while, but I can still do a decent roundhouse kick, if nothing else. But just as I’m about to make contact, he grabs my leg. Two seconds later, I’m on the ground and he’s kneeling above me.
I don’t even know how he did it, but I do know my whole Max Greenbaum victory feels a little tarnished now.
He pulls me up by the forearm. “So, is there anything you’d like to say?”
“Yeah,” I reply, brushing myself off. “You seem to enjoy throwing a female on the ground a little too much. No wonder Sloane looks so unhappy all the time.”
His face reverts to its previous severity. Maybe I aimed a little low, but I’m not the one who invited her.
“I’ll take that as your concession speech,” he says. “And you might want to take it easy today, by the way. Lounging isn’t really on the Bailey vacation itinerary, ever.”
“I’ll be fine,” I reply. “Worry about yourself.”
I pat my pocket for my inhaler though I have no intention of using it in front of him, lest he add asthmatic to his ever-growing list of my flaws. And then I turn toward Diamond Head and start running, knowing I’ll have to go longer and harder than I ever planned, just to prove to Joshua Bailey I don’t need his advice.
5
JOSH
There is absolutely no way she intended to run six miles this morning. She looks like she’s going to keel over as we stop in front of the hotel. “Are you going to stalk me every day?” she demands, breathing so heavily she barely gets the words out.
“I hope not,” I reply. “This barely counted as a workout.”
She is currently leaning over, palms pressed to her thighs, as she tries to catch her breath. She looks up to glare at me and I get a glimpse of very ample cleavage before I remember myself.
“Look,” I say, “all you have to do is promise you won’t run alone at five AM anymore.”
She straightens. In the early morning light, flushed and bare-faced and doe-eyed, she looks a lot younger and a lot more innocent than she probably is.
“You are way too scared of strangers, and I would just like to point out that, from a legal perspective, the specificity of that statement renders it useless. Tomorrow, for instance, I could run at 5:05.”
“It’s really a wonder no one’s beaten you to death,” I tell her wearily. “And I’m not talking about strangers. I’m talking about the people who know you best.”
She smirks, flips a middle finger at me, and walks off.
I’m free of her at last, but I can’t go to the room yet since Sloane will be asleep—not that I’d want to go there if she was awake. I took the couch last night, which didn’t improve the situation between us. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I can’t pick up where we left off last summer, not when she’d be thinking it meant something. Not when I know I’d be extracting myself again at the trip’s end, which is the kind of shit my father and brother would do.
I go to the lounge chairs by the pool and watch the sun slowly emerge from behind Diamond Head, thinking about what a messed-up situation this is. All the secrets weigh on me even more than they did yesterday.
Babysitting my brother’s pain-in-the-ass girlfriend is not what I need right now.
I think of her running in the dark by herself and stifle a quiet groan. And telling me she could fight ten guys at once when she barely hits my rib cage. My brother has brought home some troubling women before, but Drew Wilson is—hands down—the worst.
An hour later we’re seated at breakfast when Drew strolls up, her plate from the buffet heaped to overflowing with carbohydrates.
“Well, good morning, Joshua, Sloane,” she says with exaggerated cordiality, setting her plate down across from Sloane and pulling out a chair. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I have a philosophical objection to buffets,” I reply.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not even fully seated and you’ve managed to make breakfast dull,” she says. “What’s the problem? Too much pleasure?”
“It’s a waste of food,” I tell her. “Half of it ends up in the trash.” I know she won’t understand. It’s not as if this buffet is actually taking food out of other people’s mouths. It’s just easier not to see it. It’s easier not to think about the kids at the camp, how one breakfast like this would be something they’d remember the rest of their lives.
Drew gives me the most exaggerated smile possible as she shoves half a chocolate croissant in her mouth. “I plan to eat way more than normal this week if it makes you feel any better. They won’t be throwing out that much.”
“American excess is repellent to people who’ve actually witnessed true poverty,” Sloane says, looking pointedly at Drew’s plate, her voice rife with condescension.
“Oh, yeah?” Drew asks, her eyes darting from the expensive purse hanging off the back of Sloane’s chair to the mug in her hands. “How’s that oversized cappuccino, by the way? American excess is often quite tasty, I find.”