Page 17 of The Devil Gets His Due

“This is for Mark. I don’t eat breakfast.”

His eyes darken. “Mark, yourfriend? You make his breakfast?”

I could tell him, once again, that it’s none of his fucking business. I only answer because the truth will bother him more. “He sleeps outside the building. I’ve told him he can come make it himself, but he never takes me up on it.”

Graham grips the counter and breathes slowly, in and out of his nostrils. “So let me get this straight: the guy advising you about your finances ishomeless, and you’ve offered him access to your apartment.”

“You shouldn’t judge people based on their occupation.”

“I’m not judging him on his occupation, Keeley,” he replies, mouth ajar. “He doesn’thaveone. Do you have any idea what parenting even requires? You need to have money. You need to have some food in your refrigerator. You need to not offer random homeless men the run of your apartment. And I really hope to God you’re not still drinking.”

Jesus,of courseI’m not drinking. Did he miss the part where I said I was a doctor? Has it escaped his attention that if I’m living in this very nice—albeit messy— apartment I must be doingsomethingright? I’m also taking vitamins and choking down green juice and salad every day, but I’m not going to waste time defending myself. And since he’s going to think the worst of me no matter what, I might as well have some fun with it.

“We’ll see about the drinking,” I chirp. “All bets are off when I go to Coachella. I getsothirsty.”

“You’re not seriously going to Coachella…with all the pot fumes and cigarette smoke you’ll breathe in? What if you accidentally take an elbow to the stomach, or get trampled?”

I return the cream cheese to the fridge. “FYI, getting trampled would kind of be an issue, pregnant or not, medically speaking.”

He ignores this, suddenly focused on the purse I’ve slung over the chair beside him. “If you’reactuallya doctor, why do you have a closet like a Kardashian? And how the hell did you buy an Hermes bag on a resident’s salary?”

“It was a gift.”

He stiffens. “Anythingthatexpensive is an ‘arrangement’, not a ‘gift.’”

I slam the knife down on the counter. “What,precisely, is that supposed to mean?”

He doesn’t answer because we both know exactly what he was trying to imply.

I nod at the door. “Time for you to leave, Graham.”

He hesitates before he rises from his chair. “I’ll call you.”

“Don’t feel compelled,” I reply, as the door shuts behind him.

10

GRAHAM

Ithought the answers would quell the panic in my chest, but I have the answers and a full night of sleep, and I only feel worse.

I mean, of all the people with whom to be producing a child, something I never wanted in the first place: a woman who eats popcorn in bed, seeks financial advice from the homeless, is being “gifted” shit worth thousands of dollars, and who still doesn’t seem entirely sure she even wants the kid.

There’s a piece of me that thinks it would be better not to know, but better for whom? Not our child, who’d then be raised by Keeley alone, with no supervision. She probably thinks she can let him sleep in a pile of designer dresses in her closet and feed him Skinny Pop when he cries. Maybe she’d ask “Mark” to check in on the baby during the workday if she was feeling extra responsible.

And how the hell am I supposed to fix anything when I live three thousand miles away?

When I get back to Newport, my mother grins at me from her seat at the kitchen table. “Someonehad a late night,” she teases, undeniably pleased. She’d begun to worry I’d always be alone, something I’d assumed as well and was fine with. Trust Keeley Connolly to fuck up every one of my carefully laid plans.

I cross the kitchen to the coffee pot. If I admitted where I’ve been, she’d be thrilled. She’d dance across the kitchen, then hire a skywriter to shout it to the rest of Newport. But I’m not going to tell her she’s got a grandkid on the way when I have no fucking clue what Keeley’s going to do between now and the next time I see her.

“Anyone special?”

“No, Mom. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Her smile wavers and I get a sudden glimpse of the worst days of my childhood. And possibly a glimpse of my kid’s childhood too.

I won’t fucking stand for it.

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