Devil In The Waters, Book 6, Chapter 1 (complete)

The fight had probably really begun on Wednesday night when she’d scolded Josh for not getting Friday off work. Josh had overreacted—in her opinion—like he was stressed out by the whole process of this impromptu vacation. She’d even chided him, saying, “Maybe it’s best if we don’t go at all,” which made Josh acquiesce.

“Of course I can get the day off, Kimmy,” he’d said then, “I just didn’t get a chance to ask today. Hell, maybe I’ll just call in sick on Friday . . .”

“Right,” she’d said (maybe too snidely), “and come back on Monday with a tan?”

That’d calmed him, getting him working to make her less mad. “Like I said, I’ll get the day off. I’m going to Cayman with you. Don’t worry.”

“I just don’t understand how it’d slip your mind to do it today.”

“It didn’t slip my mind. Whenever I swung by Harjeet’s office, he was busy with something, and I never got a chance to connect with him.”

“He has email, Josh.”

Josh’d said, “I like to meet with my boss when I need something like this.”

Now it was Friday night, the sun gone down, and they were far from home. All the way in the Caribbean, on the island of Grand Cayman, the inside crook of the West Bay curl, at a four-cottage estate. Each of the four cottages shared amenities like a main house, a bar, a gym, a swimming pool, but they were completely separated by gardens and lawns, and each had access to the sandy beach, a short walk through a barrier of evergreen thickets and towering palms.

Through the door to the bedroom, she said to him, “I’m sorry, Josh. Can you please come out now?”

She stood in the hall outside the bedroom, leaning on the wall; Josh was in there by himself.

It took him a moment to answer, but finally his voice from the other side: “I’m fine, Kimmy.” Though his tone didn’t sound fine. Surly. Which she supposed was better than being hurt. Because she did feel as though she’d hurt his feelings. Now he said, “It’s not like I’m sulking or anything. I’ll be out in a minute, I just need a bit to get my thoughts together.”

She said, “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

“I know,” he said, his tone firm and flat.

It had come out of nowhere. They’d taken an Uber to the Toronto Island airport, their bags taken for them and loaded on the small private jet Stone Brokerage had arranged. Everything had been fine. An amazing flight. One they had to share with two other lawyers unrelated to Stone, but the lawyers kept to their sides of the plane after some brief small talk, and it was practically like her and Josh alone on a private jet. They had champagne. They had brunch. Grapefruit and crepes and chicken salad. They fly into Owen Roberts on Grand Cayman, disembark into that hot baking sun, and Josh isn’t giving anything away like he’s about to unload on her. Maybe she could see now there were some things that had made him stiff on the plane ride, but she’d just chalked it up to her husband being a little miffed that it was his high school bully who’d arranged for them such an amazing adventure on a private plane to the Caribbean . . . 

They took an airport limo north from George Town up to the northern point of Grand Cayman, dipping into the east side wilderness of West Bay. The estate where they were staying was spectacular, the airport limo coming in between iron gates that opened for them, winding through a perfect asphalt strip that toured through the property to get to the main house. They checked in, took a golf cart to get to their cottage, this beautiful turquoise A-frame with bright white trim and Caribbean wooden shutters, manicured gardens, all the insides painted in tropicals, pale leather furniture. She was walking around astounded, but it turns out Josh was preparing himself to get it all off of his chest. He did, and then she’d said the thing that had made him so mad. And also divulged that she knew more about what was going on than Josh thought.

She tapped the door again with her fingertip, saying softly, “Come on, Josh, come on, baby . . .”

***

The idea to bare it all to Kimmy had come to him in bed the night before they left for Cayman. Laying in bed with her, the two of them tucking in early, no hanky-panky just teeth brushing and cuddling up before falling asleep, preparing for their big day. Kimmy was snoring in no time—well, not snoring, but lightly puffing sleepy air—and he lay there thinking how he’d almost gone through with bailing on this trip to Cayman.

One side of him was explaining to himself that it was a middle finger to Devlin (Fuck, you Devlin—I’m not riding in your stupid plane to go to your stupid company’s villa . . . no, your father’s company . . . Out of principle alone, I turn my back on your offer). And at its face value, maybe that was a valiant move. Maybe that had merit. But he had to come to realize there were things luring him in that direction of abandoning the trip that weren’t so wholesome or noble. There was something about it that made him feel a certain way. An unexpected way.

But the thing that had flipped this whole comprehension of relationships, the three-way vectors running between him and Devlin and Devlin and Kimmy and Kimmy and him were turned on its head by the realization that what kept his bond strong with his wife, with his beloved Kimmy, was the honesty. That was what had saved them. Dishonesty was what had put them in jeopardy. And he’d engaged in dishonesty because of a sick lurid thrill. Because he was so ashamed to share the truth with Kimmy because she would reject the arousal it presented her twisted husband.

Only, a glimmer of that truth had been revealed, and he discovered that his Kimmy wasn’t so alarmed by the weird thing that nothing but bold outright honesty would make them strong as they could be. He had to divulge to her—as embarrassing as it may be—the cavalcade of truths that he’d obscured, stepped in front of them, waving his hands to block the view, saying, “Nothing to see here.”

So the plane ride had been fraught with twisting emotions. He’d just about chewed a hole in his cheek (and the grapefruit they served sure did make that sing sounds of complaint—the champagne soothed the sting). By the time the limo’d taken them to the Stone Brokerage’s fancy-schmancy turquoise villa with all its top-of-the-line amenities and its ocean view, he was a bundle of nerves. And he countered the nerves by saying stupid things. Looking out the window in the grand A-peaked main room with its towering mango-painted wall and its inset fireplace, looking out the window with his hands in his pockets and complaining about the view. He’d said, “Barely see the ocean.” Then: “Is it the ocean? I guess it’s the bay, really, isn’t it?” Taking the villa down a peg or two. Then the more bizarre concepts came. Wandering around saying to Kimmy, “Wonder how many secretaries Devlin’s fucked on this couch.” What an ugly thing to say. And Kimmy, maintaining her smile, patient with her disgruntled husband, nodding, saying, “I don’t think they always get this cottage. There’re four cottages here . . .” Like that made a difference. All right, whatever number of secretaries Devlin had fucked on this estate, divide it by four, divide by the number of couches and beds in the villa, there you have your number. Kimmy was good at math, he didn’t have to do that for her.

Then he was going even stranger and lower. “Probably his dad, too. His dad’s a real piece of shit as well. Wonder how many times he cheated on his wife? Not that Devlin’s mom was a treat by any means . . .” Kimmy still staying all smiles, the polite and professional wife. Her complacency began to irritate him. Almost as if her not joining in on his shit-kicking was somehow approval for her boss’s behavior . . . And shit, here he was, piling it on again. Making things worse. Steering his cart from the path of truth onto the rough terrain of belligerence and lies and future trouble. Then when he began with her, trying to be real and honest, it all came out too fast in a jumble of emotions, everything that had been weighing on him, everything he’d hidden from her . . . 

***

An hour ago, this was how it began.

In the kitchen, he watched Kimmy pour two short crystal glasses of some high end whiskey, smelling the whiskey one more time before plugging the decanter closed with its jewel lid. She passed him his glass, held hers up and they clinked them together, the crystal singing a high heavenly note that soured his disposition again. The fine things collected by those Stone men. Maybe Kimmy just another thing to add, another notch on Devlin’s belt. He sipped the whiskey and it burned. Kimmy enjoyed hers, set it down, pushed against him like she wanted to squeeze all the bitter badness out of him. That was when the emotion welled up inside him. Regret and shame, worry that his bad demeanor was ruining his wife’s great gift. She’d earned this. Earned it and made sure he was there. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Told him outright she wouldn’t go if he wasn’t coming. And this was how he treated her. He had to give her a gift bigger than what Devlin could give. Honesty. As difficult as it may be for him, the thing he needed to do was present to her the truth. But where to begin? He started by saying, “We should talk.”

Off to a terrible start. Even he knew that. We should talk sounds like there was trouble coming. But he didn’t want it presented like trouble, no sir, he wanted it presented as a good thing. Here’s this burden I’ve been caring, I’m going to release it and in releasing it, there’s a hidden burden on you maybe you didn’t even know you carried, but we’re going to push it off your shoulders, too, and it’s going to make both of us better. But it wasn’t the best sentence to start with.

“Talk about what?” she’d said, and instantly she was nervous. And in that darkness of his mind, now he wondered what she was so worried about, and started imagining she was worried that he was going to talk about breaking up, maybe putting things aside for a bit, and that made him wonder why would she think that? Was there something she was guilty for? Something weighing on her? Flashes of meanness crossed him then, and in the wake of his stupid opening statement his lips were twitching, and he couldn’t help scowling.

She’d said, “Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh God, no,” he’d babbled, feeling his eyes swell. The idea that her feelings would be hurt by his rudeness or brusqueness or inarticulate nature hurt his heart. “God no, Kimmy, nothing like that at all. We need to talk. I need to come clean . . .”

“What did you do?” she said, her chin dimpling.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, “it’s not like that. There’s so much . . .” And then he was talking fast, his hand rolling and rolling, trying to hurry up his own words like now that it started he couldn’t wait to get finished. “There’s so much that’s weighing on me, and I just keep it hidden, I let it fester inside me, I don’t talk about it, I tell myself it’s for your sake, that I don’t want to put this burden on you, that maybe I’m imagining some of the shit, but there are things that I shouldn’t hide. You’re my wife and I love you, and even if these things are embarrassing to me, maybe I need to tell them to you . . .”

Though her posture softened, her features stiffened. She licked her lower lip, her brows lowered as far down as they would go. “What are you hiding from me?”

“Kimmy, again, it’s not bad. It’s not something bad. Not something I’ve done, just things that in the past I never wanted to talk about. I let them sit there in the dark, and you’re forging ahead, and I’m pretending like they don’t matter but they matter . . .”

She said, “What is it?”

“I don’t know how to start this,” he said, now rejecting the whole idea and wishing he’d just come to the Cayman Islands, enjoyed this villa, did dirty things with his wife in every room, defiling the couches in his own way instead of lamenting how Devlin had done it. Instead, he’d thought it was a good idea to be truthful . . . 

Kimmy, reading his mind: “Be truthful, Josh, tell me the truth.”

“Let’s . . . Let’s grab our drinks. If you don’t mind—maybe something a little sunnier?”

“You don’t like the whiskey?”

“Something sunnier, something fruity . . . this won’t be the happiest talk, and I don’t want my mouth to go dry and only have this firewater . . .”

“Is it bad?”

“The talk? I don’t know if it’s bad, Kimmy,” he’d said, looking away. “But it’s honest.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to make the best of it. She opened the fridge, said, “Pineapple? Rum? You want an alcoholic drink?”

“You know what—just Cokes or something easy.”

“I can make things in the blender here,” she said, pointing at the Vitamix and the Cuisinart gleaming on the polished counter. Was she stalling? Why would that make you mad? Why would he even think she was stalling? Now he was offended that maybe she wasn’t so eager to hear his truth. Maybe his truth was only important to him. But if that were true, how low would that be? Kimmy wasn’t like that . . . 

He rubbed his eyes, said, “Yeah, you know what, let’s make proper drinks. You don’t have to have rum. I think I’d like to have rum . . .”

At least that brightened her spirits for the moment, and they worked together (though stiffly), getting frozen pineapple concentrate, rum, tequila, lemon juice, grenadine, a touch of coconut milk into the blender. Made themselves proper frosty drinks, and suddenly the proposition of what he was about to do didn’t seem so bad.

But he’d forgotten the enormous weight behind the words he was going to utter.

And he’d never anticipated Kimmy’s terrible response . . .