Devil In The Waters, Book 8, Chapter 2

TUESDAY, AUGUST 18

Devlin was running a game on him, and he didn’t care. And he had little fear. The feeling was indescribable.

Tuesday night, not a care in the world, and here he was enjoying a night out with his friends. Right after work they hit the Kelsey’s for a beer, then over to the Cineplex. Marvel mayhem. Now they were in the Montana’s having an after action report on the Avengers and enjoying a juicy prime rib like men were supposed to.

“Not as good as the steak in Cayman,” he said, “but it’ll do.” Steve rolled his eyes.

Meyer said, “I can go outside and scoop up a bunch of grit from the parking lot and throw it around you. You can pretend you’re on the beach.”

With a pooched lower lip, he lamented in Homer Simpson’s voice, “But it won’t be Caribbean sand.”

They ate their steaks and their fries, and they drank two pitchers of Labatt Blue between the three of them.

“You’re not the only one who had a great weekend,” Meyer said, laying an arm over the back of the banquette seating and looking content.

Josh said, “Oh yeah?”

Steve said, “Meyer and I went to Paris this weekend.”

Josh said, “Romantic getaway?”

Meyer said, “I don’t think we’re there yet, Josh, where we’d call it romantic”—putting romantic in air quotes and looking a little giddy—“but things are progressing.”

Steve swooned and batted his eyes at Meyer. “I’m so glad you feel the same,” he said breathily.

Meyer blew him a kiss and Josh laughed a good laugh, topping up his beer.

“No, really,” Meyer said, “I did something finally.”

“What’s that?” He gestured with the pitcher to Meyer’s dwindling beer glass and Meyer nodded he wanted more.

Meyer said, “I called up Quinn.”

“Hey-ey,” Josh and Steve both crooned at the same time.

“Yeah, we’re going to go out—”

“Where you taking her?”

“Play date. With the kids. We’re going out next Saturday during the day. To the park, and whatever.”

“It’s a start,” Steve said.

“It’s a good date.”

“Not really a date,” Meyer said.

“Which is the best kind of date,” Josh said.

“That’s how you sneak up on them,” Steve said.

Later, when Steve went off to the can, it was the first time he’d been alone with his cousin. He said, “Fucking Cayman was unbelievable.”

“As unbelievable as you considering not going?”

“I was being difficult.”

“You? Nah, never. You’re a straight shooter.”

“Fuck you. But it was, really. Like life-changing.”

“That sunburn is life-changing?”

Josh squeezed his sore nose. It wasn’t too red, but he had got sun. “You know . . .” He paused, wondering if he should say it—but he really wanted to talk about this, bounce it off someone. “Her boss showed up there.”

Meyer looked his way and showed an expression like he was unsure if Josh was kidding or not. That simple reaction got his guts squirming. It was weird that Devlin showed. They’d somehow made the best of it, but it wasn’t right.

Josh nodded now, rotating his beer glass clockwise with his fingers, eyes down and watching his hands work.

“What do you mean he showed up there? When?”

“On the Saturday.”

Meyer’s brow furrowed with concern. “And what happened?”

That got him smiling, thinking what happened. “Crazy stuff, man.”

Meyer leaned back, amused. He smirked, still frowning. “Like what?”

Josh looked around, then leaned forward on the table with his elbows. “Well, when he showed up I was like ballistic. I wanted to go crazy, but I swear to God, I just played it cool.”

“Yeah, so what happened?”

“It was tough, because I was really mad—I still can’t believe I handled it. But . . . Devlin was clearly flirting with Kimmy. Like doing it right in front of me.”

Meyer looked disgusted. “That guy’s an asshole. Why does Kimmy work for him?”

“The money. But listen: the flirting makes me mad and I go inside. Kimmy follows me in and says, ‘I like it when you stand up to him. Why don’t you come out and flirt with me.’”

Meyer smiled, adjusted his ball cap. “I love Kimmy.”

“I love her too. So I’m thinking about it, and I go right. This is my wife, for fuck sake. So I go out there, and you have to understand, we were all supposed to go out to dinner. Devlin just kind of shows up—it’s our weekend alone in Cayman—but he’s going to meet her for a drink. Kimmy brings him back to the villa, and the next thing you know he’s taking us out for dinner. But it’s Kimmy and I who’re supposed to go out for dinner. Anyway, Kimmy’s waiting for me to flirt with her, and I do it. I flirt with her right in front of Devlin. And she makes it clear—like she comes right to me, starts making out with me, tells Devlin, tells her boss, ‘We’re going to need a little time before we go out to dinner.’” This got him smiling and excited, and he looked around to see if Steve was coming back yet—but at this point he didn’t even care. “She brings me into our villa and we have”—now he looked around again, making sure no one could overhear—“sex. But like crazy sex. Loud sex. Kimmy is so loud. She’s doing it for him, for Devlin to hear.”

Meyer curled the brim of his hat and held it there, closing himself off in Josh’s story, and embarrassed to hear intimate details of his cousin’s sex life. “This is amazing.”

“I love how you’re smiling.”

Meyer said, “It’s making me smile. I don’t like this Devlin guy, but I like what Kimmy did.”

“Me too. And Jesus, Meyer, I don’t know how to tell you. The sex . . .”

Meyer grimaced under the shade of his cap, but he said, “You can tell me.”

“You sure it’s okay?”

He nodded, still looking unsure. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Josh couldn’t help smiling, getting wriggly in his chair, talking with his hands, saying, “Sex with her recently has been like out of this world. I don’t know what’s going on between us, but she is like, I don’t know”—he ran his hands through his hair, laughing—“a tiger. Maybe it’s because of this guy being around all the time, I don’t know what it is, but . . . We’re doing it like all the time. And I can make her . . .”

Meyer showed a face like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear more, but made direct eye contact. “Continue.”

Josh couldn’t help himself, whispering, “Squirt.” Then felt bad when it was said. But it had to be said.

“All right,” Meyer said, putting up his hands in surrender and sitting back from the table. “I didn’t want to know that.” He put a hand over his stomach like he felt queasy.

Josh broke out laughing. It was uncontrollable. “Sorry, sorry. But like I’m just . . . I feel like a superhero.”

“Well, good for you, Joshy-boy, I’m glad you finally found your superpower. Maybe we’ll see you up on the big screen someday with the rest of the Avengers.”

Steve came out of nowhere, sidling into the booth smelling like hand soap. “What’s Josh’s super power?”

Meyer said, “You don’t want to know.”

“I don’t?”

Josh shrugged his shoulders, beaming, taking a big thirsty drink of beer.

Steve persisted, showing some hurt he was left out. “What’s his super power?—come on now.”

Meyer looked up at the timber rafters of the restaurant, then said, “He says he can make Kimmy squirt.”

“Mey-er,” Josh scolded, hunching and looking around to see if it was overheard.

It took a beat for Steve to get what Meyer meant by that, then he raised his eyebrows. “You’re right,” he said, “I didn’t want to know.”

He hoped neither of them were trying to picture what Kimmy looked like when she came so hard she squirted (though he could tell them if they wanted). He said, “Now you know my superpower.”

Meyer said, “I think that calls for another pitcher in celebration.”

“And this one’s on Josh—”

“Gross, so he can get us wet now too?”

They all broke out laughing and ordered another pitcher as the server passed.

Then Steve said, “Jesus, what else I miss?”

Meyer said, “Kimmy’s boss showed up in Cayman when they were there.”

“No shit?” His features stretched long with open-jawed incredulity.

Josh showed Meyer a shut-the-fuck-up face, and Meyer shrugged like it was no big deal.

“That guy you mean, the one we saw at the Dragon on Wednesday?”

Josh said, “She only has one boss.”

“No, I know, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

“We’re on the same page.”

Meyer said, “Steve, it’s the guy, remember you had Josh’s knees shaking before his surprise party thinking maybe he was right?”

Steve played along, “Oh, that guy, the one who took Kimmy to the Royal York—”

“That’s the one,” Meyer said.

“Right, the one who uses her maiden’s name because it’s Chinese.”

“And Kimmy’s secretary thought Josh was Chinese,” Meyer said. The two of them got a big kick out of ribbing him.

Then Meyer said to Steve, “That guy, that very same guy, showed up in Cayman this weekend.”

Steve’s smile shrank. “He did for real?”

Meyer nodded and laughed. “And Josh said he was flirting with Kimmy.”

Steve didn’t like it one bit, scowling aside at Josh, saying, “Du-ude.”

“What? It was fine. We sorted him out.”

Steve said, “Sorted him out how?”

Josh felt confident, rolled his eyes and gestured for his cousin to go ahead and tell him.

Meyer leaned close and said, “Kimmy got Josh to flirt with her in front of him, then she told her boss, ‘Oh hey, give us a minute before dinner,’ and she took Joshy into their villa and had sex with him, getting super loud with the windows open so the guy could hear them. Then I guess she played sprinkler and Josh here ran in and out of it like it was a hot summer day.”

Their pitcher arrived, and they laid back on the dirty talk until the server was gone again. They were all buzzing pretty good right now.

Steve said, “Kimmy asked you to do that?”

“Do what, flirt with her?”

“Yeah, but also to have sex so he could hear.”

He nodded, expectant, seeing Steve was going somewhere with this. When Steve said no more, Josh asked, “What?”

Steve shook his head, mouth down-turned, saying, “No, nothing.”

Josh said to Meyer, “What?”

Meyer looked to Steve. “Beats me. Steve?”

“It’s nothing,” Steve said, trying to brush it off. But it was useless because both Josh and Meyer were rabid now.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Steve reiterated, stressed. Then: “So, what? How far away was this guy, what’s his name, Devlin?”

“Like down at the beach. We’re up at the villa. Maybe, I don’t know, like half a soccer field.”

“Oh okay,” Steve said, like the answer changed his mind.

“What the heck were you thinking?” Meyer asked, roused by the dirty possible connotations Steve might be thinking.

But what would that be, that what, Kimmy wanted Devlin for a threesome or something, her sex sounds were like a siren’s call?

The moment got uncomfortable, and the table felt quiet even though the restaurant was at full capacity. Josh couldn’t let it go, hating that his friend might harbor some ill thought about what happened in the Caribbean. He’d been there. The experience had been transformative. He said, “Go on and say it. Kimmy opened the windows so her boss could hear us.”

Steve nodded. “She opened the windows?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. It’s nothing, it’s . . .”

“What?”

“Like, why would she want him to hear?”

There was more to the story. More that he would keep to himself. “Are you trying to get me going again?”

Steve laughed. “No, definitely not. I’m not. It’s just, maybe . . .”

“Maybe what?”

Though he was reluctant, Steve at last said, “Maybe she’s trying to make this Devlin guy jealous. That’s all I was thinking.”

Meyer and Josh stared at him with blank expressions, and Steve looked at each of their faces in turn. “Sorry,” Steve said, “that was stupid. That’s why I didn’t want to say it.”

It hurt to hear, and damn if those words didn’t polish a new shine on that brassy knob of strange sexuality within him, thinking of Kimmy having desires for Devlin Stone. he said, “No, I get it, I hear you. But it wasn’t like that. Trust me, I was there and there’s nobody more paranoid than me, right?”

Both Meyer and Steve chuckled and smiled in nodding agreement. Steve said, “I’m gonna grab us some nachos, I think we need to sober up a little.” he got up from the table and headed to where he could see their server over at one of the stations.

Meyer said, “Don’t listen to him.”

“No, don’t worry, he can’t get to me.”

“He’s not trying to, he just didn’t realize how it sounded.”

“You had to be there—”

Meyer said, “No fucking way—if I had to hear you and Kimmy having sex, I’d drown myself in the ocean.”

“Sea.”

“Whatever, in the sea.”

And now here came that sickly stomach-dropping thrill of sexual worry. Kimmy wanting Devlin to hear her get fucked, not to thrill her husband so his bully knew her sexuality was satisfied, but to turn him on, to make Devlin lust after her. He chewed his lower lip and did his best to fight back those awful feelings returning, but his stomach tightened and despite himself he could feel his cock thickening at the terrible thought.