The Devil Series Books 1-4 (Devil #1-4), page 97
It’s my favorite thyroid cartilage in the entire world.
“Hey,” he says, looking up, frowning. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
You can always wake me, Graham. I want to see you. I miss you when you’re gone.
I’m not telling him that. Especially when he looks so wary, the way I do when I know a guy is about to say too much and I’m thinking please don’t do this. Don’t profess your feelings when I’m about to ask if we can take a break. “It’s okay. How’s Colin?”
He runs a hand over his head. “Not great. He thinks she’s got cold feet.”
The old Keeley would come alive at drama like this. I’d race to the counter and climb on a stool, placing my chin in my hands as I said, “tell me everything!” I’d pry and pry, doing my best to get Graham to admit he doesn’t like Mandy, or to reveal something shady Colin did that brought this on. I’d suggest Mandy is cheating, and he’d accuse me of enjoying other people’s tragedy too much, which is completely true and about which I would be wildly unrepentant.
But the realizations I’ve had over the past day or two about myself and Graham have thrown me into internal disarray. I find myself tongue-tied, a big tub of awkward as I try to find a path between being the old me and being the girl who begs a guy to like her back.
“The crib’s being delivered Friday,” I say, struggling to meet his eye. When have I ever struggled to meet someone’s eye? “They left a message. Can you let them in?”
He stills. “I’m actually leaving for New York Friday. Did they give you a window?”
“New York?”
He never goes to New York. He’s been here for months without going back once, but suddenly now a visit is a necessity?
“I have a few loose ends to take care of, and as we get closer to your due date it’ll be harder to go.” He’s looking off to the left, which is a sign of evasiveness. I learned this from Criminal Minds, not med school, so it’s definitely true.
And what loose ends? With technology, no meetings actually have to take place in person, and the only loose ends I can think of that demand a face-to-face are personal ones. Is it Anna? And is he doing this for closure, or is he doing this because she’s a loose end he might want to pick back up, now that the end is in sight?
God, did sleeping with me make him realize how good he had it with her?
My mouth opens but I can’t think of a way to ask without sounding like a jealous harpy.
“Go back to bed, Keeley,” he says softly. “It’s late.” Even hearing the word bed fall from his lips is a turn-on for me.
My gaze lingers on him for a moment, and something shifts between us. His eyes are suddenly hazy in a way that looks a lot like interest. But he’s turning toward his room before I can even say a word.
Maybe I can pretend I’m going into labor so he misses his flight. That, to me, sounds like an entirely reasonable way to handle this situation. And a lot easier than admitting I don’t want him to go.
37
GRAHAM
“We’ve got a problem,” says Ben on Tuesday, and I want to put my fist through a wall.
I’ve got enough problems as it is, thanks. My second-in-command just quit, which means I’ve got to leave for New York in the morning rather than Friday afternoon…at the exact moment when it feels vital that I stay here and get shit straightened out with Keeley. I could see it on her face last night—she is ready to pull the plug on our arrangement. The crib’s coming and she needs me out to get the room ready, and what the hell happens then? It feels like my life is about to implode, and I don’t need more Tate family bullshit on top of it all.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Colin and Mandy broke up, and the idiot told Mom already.”
Fuck. Tate family bullshit it is.
Colin was a newborn the first time things in our life went sideways, and he wasn’t around the second time because his departure was what made them turn that way. It was the incident that would eventually help him straighten his shit out, but running off with a girl when he was eighteen and getting thrown in a Colorado jail seemed like the end of the world at the time, especially to our mother.
She never wanted him to know how badly she fell apart. Maybe we should have told him anyway.
“Is she okay?” I ask, pinching my nose. Keeley and I need one normal evening, just to get us back where we were. I have to at least tell her I’m leaving in the morning.
“Of course she’s not okay,” Ben says. “She’s blaming herself. Walter wants her to check in somewhere and she’s refusing because she wants ‘to be there for Colin this time’. Can you go see her? I can’t get back to California until Thursday.”
I agree, of course, because the idea of my mom suffering is unbearable to me. She’s already suffered so much, and most of it was my fault.
38
KEELEY
I want the phrase “no good deed goes unpunished” to be written on my grave.
Here’s the score, so far: I stopped drinking and got a real grown-up job. I started saving money and eating salad. I missed out on some well-earned chicken tikka and ruined a very nice pair of shoes to bring a life into the world. And I’m pretty sure I’m now in love with the father of my child, which doesn’t necessarily sound laudable but is way less villainous than previous Keeley iterations.
What do I get in exchange for all this virtuousness? Graham, probably rekindling his relationship with Anna, and Fox making work so unpleasant that no sane person would stay. I’m double-booked all day. I’ve got no lunch break, and my last scheduled patient is coming in at seven-thirty, which means my last actual patient will be arriving an hour after that.
And the really shitty thing—well, there are several really shitty things, of which this is one—is that we are flooded with calls from new patients asking for me. If I’d planned for all this in advance, I’d have gone off on my own before Mindy and Mills ever aired. I doubt any sane bank would have given me the start-up money for office space and equipment, but I picture it anyway: something modern and glamorous, where I’ve stolen Trinny and my favorite nurse and we all work reasonable hours.
But that’s an ideal scenario...and it still falls flat. Even in a perfect situation, I’d still be stuck seeing one patient after another whose greatest complaint is that she’s starting to look old.
There’s nothing wrong with those patients. But they are the grilled chicken and salad of dermatology, and what I want is the chicken tikka and spanakopita. They are the boring parts of Real Housewives where everyone is sober and being polite. I want the part where they’re drunk and accusing each other of shit.
I need a little delicious and exotic and unusual. The occasional guy who turns out to have agyria or ichthyosis vulgaris. I want skin turning blue. I want a kneecap covered in fish scales. I want the cases Dr. Patel pushed me front and center to treat, always finding fault and upbraiding me no matter how well I did.
And I want to discuss this with Graham, along with all the things I’m still not ready to say to him—I don’t know that I can do a relationship because I haven’t really done one before, and I don’t know if he wants one because he’s sure not acting like it—but the one problem I can’t flesh out with him is the one he’s the subject of.
Maybe I’ll try anyway.
Will you be home tonight?
He normally responds fast, but it’s over an hour before I hear back.
Graham
Sorry…had to go to Newport for a family thing and heading to NYC early. Leaving for the airport at four tomorrow morning.
At four? How am I supposed to fake going into labor before he leaves at four? It’s like he did this on purpose to foil me. He knows I won’t wake willingly before seven-thirty, not even for childbirth.
And a family thing he didn’t even invite me to…he’s ghosting me with a level of commitment I’d admire if I wasn’t the recipient.
I call Gemma because I need work advice. I’m also wondering what exactly I wasn’t invited to.
“Let’s get dinner,” she suggests. “Ben’s in Seattle tonight and I’m at loose ends.”
“You’re not…going to the family thing? In Newport?”
“There’s no family thing, as far as I know. Jean has her book club on Tuesday nights.”
“Maybe I misunderstood,” I say quietly.
Except it’s in writing. I didn’t misunderstand. He lied.
We meet at a restaurant between her office and mine. I order a salad to start and asparagus and chicken as an entrée, though I’d really prefer risotto.
“So what’s up with Mandy?” I ask.
Gemma shakes her head. “I can’t believe she dumped him. It was so sudden.”
I blink. “She dumped him? The last I heard, Colin was just worried.”
Her brow furrows. “Oh, yeah, last night after Colin got home, they had a talk and she said she wanted him out.”
Why didn’t Graham tell me this? I mean, I realize that him not telling me isn’t the most important story, but still…why didn’t he tell me?
“Poor Colin. Is he upset?”
She nods. “Yeah, and I guess the last time he went through stuff with a girl he wound up in jail, so they’re all a little concerned.”
“Colin? In jail?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “He was eighteen. It’s not like it was last week. I’m surprised Graham hasn’t told you any of this.”
“He isn’t telling me anything, apparently,” I reply, my voice quieter than it was.
“What happened? You guys seemed to be getting along so well.”
I trail a finger over the condensation on my glass. “We were getting along. And then we slept together.”
“Wow,” she mouths. “I take it that went badly?”
“No,” I moan, pressing my face to my hands. “It was amazing. But, you know, I was the one who didn’t want anything and he’s respecting it, and now I kind of wish—”
“That he wouldn’t?”
I nod. I hate how it makes me sound. “I’m not trying to jerk him around. But you know how I am. I leave. That’s just what I do.”
“With all due respect,” she says, “that’s absolute bullshit. You didn’t leave me, even when I refused to go out and only returned calls sporadically. You haven’t left your dick of a father or your awful stepmother, no matter how much they deserve it. You haven’t left your career, even though you work crazy hours and aren’t doing what you want. You’ve stuck with the things that mattered to you. And no offense, but most of the guys you’ve dated until now…deserved to be left. They were douches. What’s happening here is that you’re starting to believe all the shit Shannon has said about you, and do you really want to let the opinion of a woman who’s had a bone to pick since you were an infant be the one that sticks?”
I swallow. No. I don’t want anything Shannon has ever said to stick. “But what if she’s right?”
Gemma smiles. “Keeley, she just…isn’t. Trust me.”
“But what if Graham doesn’t want what I want?” I ask, and she laughs, and only stops when she sees I’m not laughing with her.
“Oh my God. You were serious?” she asks. “Since when are you worried someone doesn’t want you?”
“I don’t know.” I guess it’s just the first time I’ve wanted someone back.
39
KEELEY
Though I’m listening for him, I don’t wake when he gets in, and he’s gone when I get up. I check the kitchen for a note from him, perhaps sarcastically asking me not to eat all the fruit as if I’d ever willingly eat fruit, but there’s nothing.
He’s just gone, and the apartment has never felt so empty. I didn’t realize how much I liked hearing him demand projections and bark orders I don’t understand as I got ready for work.
I take Mark his breakfast, something Graham does at least half the time now and stop for a second though I know I’m going to be double booked all day.
“Did Graham get out okay this morning?” Mark asks. “That was a tough break, Prescott leaving like that.”
“Prescott?” I repeat weakly.
“The guy running the New York office. We’ll see if Jody can step up but I kind of doubt it. And not because she’s a woman. I just don’t think she’s going to be forceful enough for that crew.”
I know none of this, yet Graham knows all about Dr. Fox and her weekly appointment to get her roots done, and how Trinny was doing a juice fast and got the runs. Is it Graham’s fault for not telling me, or my fault for not asking? It’s not as if he greets me at the door every night saying, “tell me everything.” I just do, and he does not.
“How do you know about all that?”
Mark shrugs. “I had the same job, you know, and it’s stressful as hell. Graham’s a young guy with a good head on his shoulders. I’m just keeping tabs to make sure it stays that way.”
“Maybe I should have been asking more questions,” I say quietly.
Mark shakes his head. “You’re already performing the most important role, and it’s the one thing I really needed back then.”
“What’s that?”
“You give him a reason to wake up in the morning, Keeley.” He laughs when my mouth opens to argue. “No, not the baby. You.”
I get through another long day at work, followed by a lonely night without him.
By Thursday, I miss him so much I can barely stand it. I walk into his room—the door is open, it’s not like I’m prying—and sit on his bed. The pillow smells like his shampoo. On the right wall, he’s begun to consolidate his stuff so there’ll be room to place the crib on the left. It’s already beginning, this process of him separating himself from us. Maybe that’s part of the reason he went back to New York.
I lie down on my side and cry, realizing far too late that my mascara is all over his pillowcase. “Well done, Keeley,” I sigh. Rosa’s not even in for the rest of the week, and I’m never getting that stain out on my own. I’ll blame it on the crib delivery guys, I guess.
Once I’ve pulled myself together, I call him. He’s out, though it’s late there—I hear glasses clinking and laughter.
“Is everything okay?” he shouts over the din.
I briefly consider claiming my water has broken, but that’ll be hard to play off when it breaks a second time later on. “It’s fine!” I shout back. “I had a question about the crib but it can wait!”
A text comes through only a second later.
Graham
Sorry about that. You said something about the crib?
I figured it out, but thanks.
Is everything okay?
I hesitate. No, nothing is okay. I’m sad, and I miss him, and I don’t know why he hasn’t told me any of things other people seem to know. Graham is the type of guy who keeps it all close to his vest, or so I thought, but if he can tell Mark something, surely he can tell me?
Why didn’t you tell me Presley quit?
Prescott? How do you even know who Prescott *is*?
Mark. You can tell me that stuff, you know.
I thought you said everything about my work was boring.
It is. It’s super boring. But I still want to know.
I feel like this isn’t really about Prescott.
Ignore me. I’ve had a hard week. You have, too, apparently.
I wait for him to ask how my week was hard, because he’d usually ask, or to tell me something more.
I wait and wait, but he doesn’t even reply.
Friday feels like the world’s longest day, though I leave at a reasonable hour for once.
When I get to my building, I stop by the front desk to thank Jacobson for letting the delivery guys into my apartment, and he waves me off. “I didn’t need to. Graham took care of it.”
“He’s here?” I ask, my heart racing.
Jacobson raises a brow. “I figured you’d be the first to know.”
I’m never the first to know, but he’s here and I’m too excited to be sad about that. I walk-run to the elevator and then down my hall, bursting into my apartment with no couth whatsoever.
He’s in the kitchen, in shorts and a t-shirt, making a pie. I don’t know why the sight of him makes my trachea feel half its normal size.
“You’re home,” I say, then swallow hard. Oh God, do not let me cry over this. Do not.
He gives me an uncertain smile. “You’re home. Hours early.”
“I lied about a doctor’s appointment so I could leave,” I admit, and he laughs. “What happened? You said you’d be gone until Wednesday.”
“I’ve got to head back in the morning. I just thought—” He looks at me, his tongue prodding his cheek. “You said you’d had a hard week. I thought maybe I ought to be here.”
I open my mouth to tell him he didn’t need to do that, and instead burst into tears.
In seconds, his arms are around me. “Keeley, what’s going on? Is this just a pregnancy thing or is it something else?”
I sob against his chest. “You haven’t been weird at all,” I cry. “Ever since we slept together, you haven’t been weird at all.”
He laughs quietly. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“No. Why hasn’t it been weird for you? Because it’s been different for me, but you’re just business as usual. It’s like it was meaningless.”
