Devil In The Waters, Book 6, Chapter 5 (part 2)

Heyo! Maybe I'm actually doing better now. I've had some really good days. Might be able to put this weird interlude behind me. All positive things currently, so once again: thanks all for staying with me, and for offering support and encouragement here publicly and privately too. Once again, it really does mean mountains to me.

Now, let's try and get this Kimmy train back on the tracks . . . 

***

Every chance he got where he thought neither of them was looking, he would shoot swooping sidelong glances at Kimmy, his pupils darting over her, feverishly intent on finding something that would spike his anger. His jealousy. Or even his lust.

That’s what drew him most to examine his wife’s clothing. Lust. Proof she had done the terrible thing he’d always been suspecting of her. The way Devlin looked in his eyes and told him he and Kimmy’d gone by his hotel room together so he could pick up his things. This was worse than when he thought she might’ve gone to a bedroom in the Royal York Hotel. This was proof. She’d been in a room with Devlin, and that room contained a bed.

His heart raced. He had difficulty swallowing. The three of them came into the foyer, then walked into the high-ceiling sitting room, congregating in front of the closed off fireplace and mango wall.

His eyes still scanned his wife. Shirt tucked in. Skirt straight. Jacket not crumpled. Still wore her pendant necklace. Had her hair been retied? Where there any scuffs on her shoes? . . . 

Devlin asked: “So what do you think of the place, Josh?”

And just the way the guy stood made him so mad. Standing tall, hands on his hips, looking up and around like he owned the place.

But this was his place now. Kimmy’s place, and thusly his as well. Devlin didn’t own this place. His company didn’t own this place. Rented it.

Or maybe they did own it . . . 

Either way, it was Kimmy who had earned the right to be here. And yet, as much as the anger rippled through him, all he could manage was a tepid: “Yeah, it’s pretty great. We really like it.”

We really like it? This guy might be fucking your wife.

No, that wasn’t true.

Stand up straight.

He put his hands in his pocket, stood straighter, moved closer to Kimmy. “We really do like it.”

Devlin said, “I knew you guys would. See, Josh? Nothing to worry about at all. And you thought you didn’t want to come . . .”

“No, I did want to come.”

Kimmy said, “We’re very happy to be here, thank you, Devlin,” and slipped an arm over the small of Josh’s back and hugged his waist. He put his arm around her shoulders. The two of them facing Devlin together.

Devlin said, “I don’t want to keep you guys. Kimmy says you’re going out for dinner. She won’t even let me take you guys out. Too bad, I know some great spots.”

Kimmy laughed and said, “You can just tell us where they are, you know.”

“I need to have my secrets,” Devlin said, grinning at her.

Kimmy laughed and said, “You’re terrible.”

And that sudden camaraderie between them spiked his heart again.

He broke from Kimmy, determined to make Devlin’s visit brief. “I’ll make drinks. What can I get you?” He shot a finger at Devlin like he figured one of Devlin’s buddies might do, bunch of big shots.

“There’s a fifteen-year-old in the kitchen,” Devlin said, adding, “Scotch, I mean,” before laughing.

Yeah, that’s what him and his buddies would joke about. Getting a fifteen-year-old. Bunch of rich, smug assholes.

He said, “They’re not labeled.”

Devlin said, “One with the emerald lid, Josh,” reminding him that as much as Josh might be staying here, this villa was still on Devlin’s bill.

But it wasn’t Devlin’s. Even if his company did own it, that was his father’s company. Not Devlin’s . . . 

“One thing I’ll say,” Josh said, pausing at the kitchen doorway, “you really got my wife drinking whiskey.”

Devlin looked at Kimmy and smiled. “She’s a woman with great taste.”

He hated the sick smile on that smug son of a bitch’s face. Everything he presented to Devlin—from niceties to veiled threats—were batted away like Josh Waters didn’t matter. Didn’t exist. Calling Kimmy Kimmy Chang.

Josh smiled at his wife now. “Kimmy? What can I get you?”

She said, “I’ll have whatever you’re having, Josh.” Then she smiled at him.

Was that a shared moment? He was pretty sure it was.

He smiled back at her warmly, hugged the archway for a second then rapped his knuckles twice on the wall. “Coming right up, baby.”

“Thanks, baby,” she said after him.

What the fuck? Now he was in the kitchen all by himself, leaving those two alone together. Great planning, Josh.

What’s the difference? They just came from Devlin’s hotel room.

What were they going to do, shag one out super-quick while you’re mixing three drinks? Get a grip.

Before he pulled down glasses from the cupboard, he took a moment’s pause to lay his sweaty palms flat on the cool of the kitchen counter. Took some deep breaths. Worst thing was there was definite plumpness in his underwear. Whatever blackness swirled inside him, right now it did more than just churn his stomach and squeeze on his heart. It riled him. Aroused him.

Soft footsteps came into the kitchen, and he moved quick to look like he was busy making drinks.

“Hey, baby,” Kimmy said, slinking up behind him and hugging her hands over his stomach. She pressed her chin into his collar. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s totally okay,” he said. “I told you I’m okay with this.”

She said, “We can work through it, I swear. It’s you and me together. You hear me?”

Now he turned in her clutch and faced her, put his hands on her shoulders. “I do hear you. I appreciate it. . . . How did he end up here?”

“I was done my meeting with Rathburn, I come out to the lobby and he’s just there waiting for me. He said he had business here after all, and he just swung by in case I was still at Rathburn’s.”

“That guy’s so fucking weird.”

“He’s my boss . . .”

“I swear he’s doing this to get to me.”

“Maybe you’re right. We’re not gonna let that happen, though, right?”

“We’re in this together,” he said, “I remember,” thumbing her shoulders.

“You and me,” she said, locking eyes with him.

“So what we do? Couple drinks, go sit by the pool then he gets the fuck out of here, right?”

“Right,” she said, nodding.

“Okay, I’m going to go make drinks. Let’s make this quick.”

“All right,” she said, “I’m going to go change,” and stepped back from him.

He grabbed her hand quick and pulled her to kiss him. When the when their mouths came apart, he looked in her eyes and said, “I love that you sent me to hell.”

She smiled till her eyes narrowed. “Did you feel the hellfire?”

“Hot as blazes,” he said, circling a hand on her back.

Kimmy giggled, hugged her head to his chest. “Thanks for getting me a T-shirt.”

“Devlin thought it was a band. Fucking moron.”

She laughed again, but said no more. Then: “I’ve got to go put my swimsuit on,” she said, “hurry up and make drinks and we’ll get him out of here.”

For Devlin, he poured whatever ostentatious whiskey was in the emerald-lidded crystal decanter into a highball glass. For himself, he mixed the old Hemingway. Cuba libre. In Toronto, despite Hemingway’s formative newspaper presence, just a plain old rum and Coke. He left Kimmy’s on the counter, strolled out to the sitting room where Devlin stood by the window admiring the view.

Look at the guy, standing there so confident. Wearing his shorts with his stupid tanned legs. Who cares if he has muscles? Who cares if he’s tall? He had that personality you had to deal with.

He came up beside him, presented him the whiskey. “There you go.”

“Thanks, Josh.” Before Josh lifted his glass to his mouth, Devlin presented his so they could clink together.

When their glasses touched with a high singing note, Devlin said, “To Kimmy.”

Josh groaned interiorly, grimacing at a toast made with this man over his wife, but imbibed anyway. Much better than whiskey. Manly, too. Hemingway was manly.

He said, “So, bit of an emergency meeting, coming out this way.”

“I didn’t want to get in your guys’s way. You know, come down on the plane with you and all unless I was invited.”

“And you had to meet with Rathburn?”

“No, not really. Other stuff’s got me here, but I was driving past Rathburn’s, I looked at the clock, thought, hey, might as well see if Kimmy’s still there. I offered to take you guys out for dinner, but she said”—now he paused to make finger quotes, his hand big enough to do it and still wrap his thumb around the highball glass—“this is Josh’s and my time.”

“Well, Josh,” said, feeling proud, “it was nice of her to invite you by for a drink.”

“Kimmy’s a class act.”

A nice thing to say, and yet Devlin’s words of familiarity still bugged him. This fucking guy had dominated their topic of conversation last night. Had him breaking down. Had his wife breaking down. All he had to do to get through it, he reminded himself, was whenever he looked at Devlin was just picture the nice house he and his wife would buy in a few years when it was time to begin their family. Devlin was just a big juicy steak. To a hungry man. Or hungry woman.

The sound of the plumbing for the shower in the master suite bedroom had him turning to look down the hall; Kimmy was having a shower first.

He cleared his throat now. Took in a deep breath. He said to Devlin, “You want to step outside with me?” . . . Before he’d even finished the words, he felt himself flinching. That was provocative. If he’d said that to Devlin in high school, Devlin would’ve fucking knocked him on his ass. You want to step outside? That’s what guys said when it was time to fight. But this wasn’t high school anymore. They weren’t dumb teenagers. They were both men. This was about his wife. And about his honor. He didn’t mean step outside for a fight, he meant to do what he’d planned to do when he returned to Toronto . . .