Devil In The Waters 10-4: Quills and Barbs (Patreon)

If she picked Josh up at the airport it would lead to an uncomfortable drive home from Mississauga to Ajax, more than an hour in the car with so much to say and no room to say it. Josh carpooled to the airport with two of the other team members headed to Rome, and he’d left his vehicle at the Swanson lot. He’d ride back with them and drive home to the apartment from work. His flight was due at seven, and he’d be home around eight-thirty. She had a lot to prepare.

Late afternoon on a Friday, back in the office for the first time this week. But now she was packing up and heading home at five o’clock. But as she closed up, Tami knocked on her door, indicating through the glass with her expression something urgent. Kimmy waved for her to come in.

“Devlin’s downstairs. He called to say don’t let you leave yet.”

She couldn’t help an aggravated sound and a desperate sigh. She’d almost made it through another week without seeing him. “Did he say what he wanted?”

“No.”

“I was almost out the door. Where was he?”

“Pulling into the parking.”

Shit. “Fine,” yeah.”

Tami went back out front to her desk and now Kimmy sat down in her office chair, wishing she had left an hour ago. She slumped in the leather, shaking her head, then brushing her hair back from her face. Gone was that razor-sharp killer look, coming to work today in a gray suit and flats and her hair shaggy around her face. When the elevator door opened out in the foyer, she got back to packing her shit to take home for the weekend. Outside Devlin paused to talk to Tami. Tami looked over her shoulder to Kimmy, back to Devlin. Then shut off her computer and got her purse. She disappeared then, going around the desk and Devlin, down the hall, Kimmy figuring she would retrieve her things from the fridge and head home under Devlin’s instruction. Devlin watched her now through the glass, hands in the pockets of his navy double-breasted suit, his hair slicked back and gleaming.

He stepped forward then, coming to her door, smiling like an asshole. Tami walked behind him to the elevator with her cooler bag slung over her shoulder next to her purse. He came into her office, the door hissing closed behind him. He said nothing, still smiling, dragging the moment out, knowing he deserved to be screamed at, to have her nails scratch his face. He practically dared her to do it with his arrogant demeanor. He looked over, looked her up and down as she put contracts into file folders. He said, “Casual Friday?”

She said nothing now too, continuing to pack up, as he crossed her office to the window wall and admired the view of the city. “I was in Kingston all last week, and you weren’t in the office this week. I feel like it’s been forever since we talked.”

She closed the file folder and snapped the lock. “What’s there to say, Devlin? What do you want to hear?”

“Why weren’t you at work this week?”

“I worked from home.”

He turned from the window, still smirking. “Home?”

“I completed all my tasks. You’ve never checked up on me before. Why now?”

“I know you weren’t at home, Kimmy. I know where you were. Rome in September, my, my, my. Spectacular.”

She stopped what she was doing and stared at him, hating her gaze even touching him. “Then why ask? Why does everything you do or say have to come with such dramatic flair? I know you know where I was, so don’t try to reveal this knowledge of my whereabouts as if you work for fucking Mossad or something, Devlin. I used my company card in Rome—for necessary incidentals, not for the flight, not for the hotel. And I’m not sneaking away, I wasn’t hiding. There are important things I had to attend to. You of all people know that. What do you have to say about it?”

His smirk widened to a teasing smile. “Did you have a good trip?”

She went back to packing. “It was wonderful.”

“Did you see the colosseum?”

“No.”

“Shame. Beautiful city. I’m sure you saw plenty.”

“I did.”

“And how’s our friend Josh? Doing well, is he?”

At the mention of Josh’s name she bristled, almost lashed out at him, but held it in instead, grumbling under her breath, choking back all the things she wanted to say, all the things she knew would hurt him or scare him in return.

Devlin asked a new question when she didn’t respond. “How did it go for him out there?”

“Everything’s great. He’s doing wonderful.”

“Oh, good. Good, good,” he said, coming nearer to her desk now, the setting September sun coming in and lighting half of him in cool autumn blue. “I imagine he’ll be heading home tonight. You picking him up from the airport?”

She said, “Is that why you’re here? To poison my spirit before he comes home? Did you come all the way to Toronto to catch me on a Friday night before I head home just to stick your scorpion tail in me?”

He smirked, seeing her unintended double entendre. “UFC tonight, Kimmy. Me and the guys. Would’ve invited Josh, but I knew he’d be away on business.”

“You have to be sick in the head, Devlin. This evil act you’re putting on, it’s cartoonish. I played with you for a while but now that I’m not in the mood, I’m puzzled why you’d think acting this way is intriguing. You’re laughable.”

Devlin put a hand over his heart, furrowing his brows with sympathy as though she were a feisty kitten before an ill-tempered pit bull. “Oh, Kimmy. No one laughs at me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You ruined my life. You think you’re going to get away with that?”

Devlin patted the hand on his chest over his heart. “Oh, come on, Kimmy, your life isn’t ruined. You’re here, you’re alive. Not a thing about you looks ruined. In fact, you look fantastic. Get some sun and some rest in Rome?”

“You’re the cruelest man I’ve ever met. How couldn’t I see it coming?”

Devlin scoffed, bewildered. “What’s it? What’s this it of which you speak?” He laughed and looked around the office like he might spot the it she referred to, hands on hips in that arrogant Superman pose. “This it sounds like some sort of train wreck, some devastation.” He looked around again, this time with a perplexed look on his face. “I don’t see smoke, I don’t see fire. I see you, back at work. The worst thing that’s happened is you’re not wearing heels anymore—but don’t worry about me, I’ll recover.”

“I knew you were a pig. I knew it. I always knew it. I can’t believe how stupid I am. I hate myself for that.”

Devlin chuckled. “This pig, as you call me, granted all your life’s wishes. It didn’t come free, you had to pay a toll.” He stepped closer, meeting her at the side of her desk, raising his strong chin and looking down on her, studying her. He fingered her suit’s lapel. “But if you think I want to ruin anything, you are miles off target. I want to build. I want to create.”

“You did nothing but destroy.”

Devlin shook his head, sorry for her lack of comprehension. “Don’t pretend you have no vision, Kimmy. You’re not dumb. You can see where this is going. You can see where I’m taking us.”

She pushed his hand off her lapel, hating the ugly sparkle from feeling the size of his large warm hand under her own. “Devlin, look at me. We had something going, and it was fun. I enjoyed it. I have no idea—I mean zero—why you did what you did...”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to tell you or do you want me to let it play out? I could tell you, but it ruins the surprise of it.”

“Is that a threat? You think you can threaten me?”

“Threaten you with a good time, yes. These are not words you have to worry about. I’m not threatening you. You are in the clear. You are the star in my life. I’m threatening no one. You don’t see it. That’s the thing, there’s so much you don’t see even though I told you from the beginning how all of this would go and where it would end up.”

She zipped up her computer bag, gathered her keys and hefted the file folder, ignoring him. Then she moved around him toward her office door, stopping to give him a look asking if they were done here.

Devlin sat on the corner of her desk, tugging his pant legs, spreading his legs and showing her his generous bulge. He crossed his arms. “You’re going to be so proud of me.”

She scoffed. “How can you be so delusional?”

“I’m sure of myself. I know what I’m doing. You’re my prize. The trophy I win.”

“I’m no one’s trophy.”

He put up his palms. “I agree. You’re right, you’re right. I apologize, Kimmy. Trophy is the wrong word. A trophy you win after the game. You’re what I win before the game.” Now he stood again and approached her. She didn’t budge.

They stared at each other, her eyes flickering over his black devilish orbs, wondering how one man could be so deluded, so motivated by sin and deceit. His hand moved to her chin, and she recoiled at his touch, turning her nose up. “You don’t get to touch me anymore.”

He showed that perplexed look again. “What’s changed? We were so good together. I remember how you would tremble at my touch, how you would beg for me—”

“You gambled it away because you don’t know how a game is played.”

“I don’t know how its played? Kimmy, I wrote the rules.”

“I used to think there was more to you, Devlin. That everyone was wrong saying what an asshole you were. Maybe there was something in there, deep in there that was like sophisticated, dark but sophisticated. But you’re not even an asshole. You’re just a pompous blowhard, puffed up on privilege. You like to talk like Nietzsche, but you’re dime-store, through and through.”

Devlin burst out in an amused and shocked chuckle, reducing her insult to a schoolyard taunt with his merriment. He sighed a comical sound of someone with endless patience for such a game. “You’re mad now. You’re swearing to yourself how you hate me and I disgust you and you’ll never be with me again, but soon, soon you’ll get that ache deep inside you, and bit by bit you’ll talk yourself back into my bed because you’ve got a secret spot about ten-inches deep in that sweet pussy of yours that I love so much, and I’m the only man who can touch it, I’m the only man who can fill you all the way up and explore your tenderest territory, make you squeal and squirt and—”

She grimaced and pulled away from him. “You’re out of your fucking mind, Devlin. A pure fucking sociopath.”

“Ooh, that’s dirty talk to me, Kimmy. Tell me how bad I am.”

She said, “Some day very soon, I’m going to make you regret ever tangling with me.”

They both smiled at each other, practically sneering, then she turned around and left her office, looking to get home as fast as she could.