DEVIL IN THE WATERS // BOOK 9 // CHAPTER 11 (Patreon)

The apartment was quiet when Josh got home, five-to-seven in the morning, gray dawning light bathing his familiar space in glum reverie. Something was different. He recognized right away what was out of place. Kimmy had been home alone all night while he was out with Devlin, yet the apartment wasn’t spotless, wasn’t restored to orderly angles and uncluttered surfaces. Something about the incongruity with how he knew his beloved Kimmy to be twisted further at his heart. Not that coming home to find their apartment tidied would have resolved the torment he felt, only finding it untended further reinforced the dreadful chasm between him and Kimmy.

He kicked off his sneakers, walked into the living area, setting his overnight tote on the couch, and the zippered bag with his suit inside draped over the seat back. There were kernels of popcorn on the coffee table. The aroma of buttery popcorn remained.

As his eyes roamed down the hall toward their bedroom, his heart rate spiked and his palms went slick with sudden sweat. His stomach gurgled. He had to look away. But with his eyes on the popcorn kernels dirtying the tabletop, a surge of awful unfamiliarity frightened him enough an icy shiver whipped up his spine like a January wind. His eyes swelled in their sockets and he jabbed the back of his wrist into one, squeezing out a tear. He’d never been more bewildered in his life, more alone and frightened. Monstrous betrayal stormed at his mind’s gates, battering it with blood-stained fists, scratching at his ramparts with ragged inch-long claws.

It took an entire minute with his hand clutched on his skull, palm on his nose, splayed fingertips pressing on his forehead and temples, before the anxious whorl of fight-or-flight subsided. He breathed deep, held it, and slowly let it go. Over and over.

When he had his mind in place again, he faced the hallway, arms hanging at his sides. The first step was the hardest, but then he was traveling, ears stuffed with imaginary cotton, the only sound he was privy to was the rapid beat of his heart. He paused at the bedroom door, open but parted only an inch, and fought the return of terrifying panic. When his hand went to the door, it shook.

* * *

Nothing prepared him for what he saw. His heart jumped and an audible gasp of shock whisked from his lips as he physically recoiled from the sight.

With only the sound of his thudding heart in his ears, his eyes narrowed as he struggled to make sense of what he saw. Two figures in his bed; two separate but side-by-side cotton mountain ranges under the terrain of the bedcovers.

Kimmy was in bed with someone.

His knees went to jelly, and his bladder loosened. He caught the surge in time before he urinated, lurching forward and gripping the door handle, his weight sagging against it.

The sleep-disturbing sound of his weight on the door hinges had one of the figures stirring. His jaw slackened, and his eyes quivered on the sight like a man awaiting some imminent biblical revelation. There were two heads on the pillows, the blankets pulled up high so only the crowns showed. Two heads of black hair. One head arose, looked over the other head to regard the table side clock. 6:59. It was Kimmy. The head rolled away from the other to look up at the ceiling—then she caught him watching in her periphery. Kimmy jolted but relief showed on her face almost immediately, and she rolled her eyes and chuckled as her head hit the pillow. When she lifted it again, the other head rose as well, turning his way, the two people in bed rising at the same time. It was like two Kimmys, and for one long-enduring schism, he stared and blinked without comprehending. Two Kimmys stared at him, both sleepy and mildly amused, one more sheepish than the other—embarrassed?—both with the same haircut, one in a Western law sweatshirt, the other in a Queens one. One face was sly and smirking, lean and mean, the other softer, paler, innocent.

Hyun. Jesus, it was fucking Hyun.

A tidal wave of emotion crashed against his embankment, and he hid his face in his hands. He’d come home early for a purpose and now he’d been sent into disarray, the fog of war encircling him and his wife disarming him. He breathed into his hands and opened his fingers to see Hyun jumping out of bed like he had caught her doing something, separating herself from Kimmy, pulling down the sweatshirt to cover her upper thighs. Was she not wearing anything under that sweatshirt?

Kimmy said, “Why are you home so early, baby?”

Josh’s eyes were glued to Hyun, who sat on the edge of the bed near the foot, looking at him without expression. His mouth opened to answer Kimmy, but no words came. All the things he wanted to say that had welled up in his throat, ready to be unleashed, were all quashed, sprayed down like revolutionaries under authoritarian water cannons.

His hand went in his pocket out of instinct. The hand hadn’t forgotten what he was here for. His fingers gripped the silk-satin embroidered panties he’d found in Devlin’s couch, working them like a worry-stone.

“Josh?”

“I— I couldn’t sleep.”

“You’ve been up all night?”

Kimmy rested on her elbows, sexy, hair bed-tossed. Why did Hyun look so guilty? Was it his imagination, or did Kimmy have her arm around Hyun?

“Pretty much,” he said, letting the panties go, rubbing that hand through his hair, feeling a sudden weight of leaden enervation settle on his shoulders, seeking to push him to the bedroom floor. Rage sizzled in his heart. Hurt whimpered on his tongue. All he’d come for this morning was dashed.

Hyun, in her soft voice, said, “We stayed up late watching Boys Over Flowers.”

He squinted, dizziness making the room sway. “What’s that?”

“A Korean show,” Kimmy said. “From when we were younger. You know it.”

“Oh.”

Kimmy said, “Hyun stayed over so we could all go out for brunch this morning.”

Hyun checked her watch, then didn’t know what to do when she wasn’t wearing one.

Kimmy sat up and opened the bed covers, showing off a long leg all the way to her hip. Wasn’t she wearing panties either? She said, “Come on, it’s too early to eat. Come to bed and sleep in with us.”

Hyun looked at Kimmy, chewing her lower lip. Kimmy encouraged Hyun to come back to bed, luring her with the sway of her smiling face, like pulling a fish onto a boat. Hyun looked at Josh and then back to Kimmy.

None of this was how it was supposed to go. Nothing was right. Everything was wrong. His hand went into his pocket and gripped the panties. Adrenalin rushed as he played with the idea of tossing them into Kimmy’s face and saying she left them at her boyfriend’s apartment. But the feeling abated. It was wrong to do it in front of Hyun. It would be cruel to Hyun. As much as it would hurt Kimmy more to do it in front of Hyun, it wasn’t the right thing.

“I’m just going to lie on the couch,” he said.

“No,” Hyun said, rising, “I’ll go to the couch.”

He saw she wore PJ shorts. She’d borrowed the whole ensemble from Kimmy. He could still see them in his mind that way he’d first seen them coming into the bedroom, confused, like they were the same person—and yet diametrically opposed. One innocent, one sinful.

Kimmy said, “Oh, come on, both of you just get in bed, please, before I get too awake.”

Hyun huddled in Kimmy’s sweatshirt, unsure. Hyun’s presence made this awkward and uncomfortable, and he cared about her. He trudged to the bedside—but Kimmy stopped him. “You didn’t wear these clothes last night, did you?”

“No, just to drive home in.”

“Okay,” she said, satisfied, opening the sheets again for him to join her.

With Kimmy holding up the bedding, he backed into the bed wearing socks and sweats and a T-shirt. Kimmy let the bedding settle on him, saying to Hyun, “Come back to bed. A little more sleep, then we’ll go get some breakfast. I would kill for a mimosa this morning.”

Josh felt the bed jostle a little with Hyun’s slight weight joining them. Kimmy folded her arm around his neck, her mouth near his ear. “How was your night? Did you guys have fun?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How was the game?”

“Jays won.”

“That’s good. What was the box like?”

“Luxurious.”

Kimmy shifted, lifting her head a little. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Everything okay with Devlin?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Did you guys go out after?”

“Yeah.”

Kimmy was quiet a while. Then she whispered, “Did you guys get in a fight or anything?”

“No. We’re cool.”

“Okay,” she said, and he liked the idea of her stewing over what was wrong. But it felt petty. He knew it was petty. There was so much more to this. Even in bed with her right now, all he could feel was a self-perpetuating cycle of sick torment. Knowing in his heart he was right, knowing the truth, but still deep inside, praying—fucking praying—there was something he didn’t see. If Kimmy’s arm weren’t around him right now, he’d be ungrounded, vulnerable, likely to fly off the face of the planet with the speed his world spun around him.

He said, “Thanks for sending that bag for me.”

“You’re welcome.” She kissed the edge of his ear.

“You gave it to Devlin at work?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason.”

“Did he do something with it?”

He shook his head no, but Kimmy was bothered. She lifted off him, and the cool air hitting the warmth transferred to his neck from her arm felt miserable. He reached up and found her arm and pulled it to return to his neck. She snuggled up to his back. His hand wandered down to the back of her thigh, to the leanness where her knee bent.

“I missed you last night,” she whispered.

“I missed you, too,” he said, thinking about how he found her in bed with someone else. In the last twenty-four hours he’d been shifted to a different plane in the multiverse, and in this one Josh was scared and lonely and full of despair. Nothing in his world was the way he’d thought it to be. He could still taste that fucking stupid expensive cigar and it made him want to hurl. Something sick and furry curled up in his esophagus, and for three terrifying seconds, he was convinced he would hurl. He even leaned closer to the bed’s edge so he wouldn’t have to do laundry today.

It didn’t come. Despite his horrible evening—the cigar, the drinking, the box nachos and charcuterie, the strippers, his wife’s panties at her boss’s apartment—the gorge didn’t rise, and he settled back into the bed with Kimmy. Her arm went around him again and hugged him. She smelled good. She smelled like his familiar best friend and lover. The room spun.

The hand on her knee retreated up to his own hip and into the pocket of his sweatpants. He fisted that lacy, light fabric—so heavy with existential weight—turned it over and over, squeezing and squeezing, wishing it were all so much easier.

He withdrew his hand and rolled to his back, Kimmy’s face over his, dark eyes watching him. “Go to sleep, Josh. It’s so early for a Saturday.”

His eyes stayed on hers, her pupils flicking over his, trying to decipher his mood. Blanket pushed down, he brought the balled panties to his chest and let them lay there, studying his wife’s eyes, watching her reaction, looking for anything sparking a glimmer of hope but knowing it wouldn’t come.

Kimmy frowned at the clumped fabric that eased open, folds blooming and revealing the true colors of this bud as it became a loathsome flower.

He said, “Did you lose these?”