A Deal With the Devil by Angel Lawson

Author:Angel Lawson [Lawson, Angel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 54282971
Published: 2020-08-20T05:00:00+00:00

20

Reyn

“Get cleaned up,” Dad says when I walk in the kitchen. I’m dripping with sweat from a morning run that was supposed to be one loop around the neighborhood, but ended up turning into four.

I grab my water bottle off the counter, still breathless. “Any particular reason why?”

“Because we’ve been invited to watch the Vanderbilt game at the Halls’.”

I freeze with the bottle halfway to my mouth. “We’ve what?”

“You know how they are about game day,” Dad says, finishing breakfast as he flips through his mail. It’s started stacking up. “They’ve invited people over. Including us.”

“Including me?”

I know my father and I resemble one another. The green eyes, the sharp cheekbones. The hint of arrogance and impulsivity. It’s a little unnerving to look at him sometimes.

“Specifically you, as a matter of fact. Denise made sure I knew you were welcome.” He carries his plate over to the sink. “It’s an olive branch. We’re going to take it.”

What my father doesn’t realize is that the branch has not only been extended, but the tree has been climbed. Vandy and I are good—better than good—like, ‘slept in the same bed all night for the best sleep I’ve had in ages’ good.

I left before dawn, sneaking out the way I came in, through the window and off the small overhang. I crept back into my house, ignoring the woman’s jacket on the coat rack and going for a run instead. I didn’t want to lose the feeling from the night before. What it was like to have time with Vandy. To touch her scars. To hold her in my arms. To wake up and watch her sleeping, face placid and soft, and run a careful fingertip over the curve of her delicate cheek bone, unable to fight the awful awareness that I could have destroyed this.

But I hadn’t.

She says she’s not ready for sex and I’m okay with that. I wasn’t as careful with her as I should have been. I won’t make that mistake twice.

An hour later, I follow my father into the Halls' house. It’s a midday game and we come bearing gifts; a six-pack of locally brewed beer and a bag of organic chips. I scan the room, eyes peeled for my girl, but I don’t see her. I do take in the foyer, full of shoes and keys and old mail, and then the formal living room, which looks elaborately unused. It’s been a long time since I’d been in this house—at least not through the upstairs window.

Nervous about meeting with the Halls again, I linger in there, looking at all the photos on the mantle. I remember when some of these were taken. Emory, in the eighth grade, holding up an MVP trophy. That year had been crazy, with everyone vying for a good spot in Preston’s underclassmen programs. In another, more recent photo, Emory and Vandy are posed for one of those boring professional shots that never quite look natural. It’s taken outside, probably by the lake, and it looks warm, bright.

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