Page 33 of The Devil Gets His Due

I lean back in my seat, fighting a smile. “Couldyou actually solve medical mysteries?”

“Of course not. The production team will solve them. They just need me because then viewers will be like ‘oh she’s pretty and also a doctor, I didn’t see that coming’. No one ever believes I’m a doctor.”

I glance at her untouched plate. “That might have less to do with your looks than you think.”

She clicks her tongue and pulls out her phone. I feel like a dad eating dinner with the teen daughter he’s just grounded. I guess, aside from the daughter part, it’s not that far from the truth.

“Ugh,” she says to her phone. “Fuck you, Shannon.”

I raise a brow.

“My stepmother. She’s having a party,” she explains. “Why the hell would I want to celebrate her son-in-law going to law school at age forty? You know what’s worth celebrating? Going to law schoolwithouttaking eighteen years off first.”

I focus on my dinner, trying not to laugh since she seems genuinely irritated by the situation. After a moment, I sense her gaze on me. There’s something about Keeley’s focus. It’s a physical thing, one that leaves a mark long after she’s left the room, which is the only explanation I’ve got for the way I followed her all over LA during the weekend of the party we threw. I wanted to shake her off, erase her somehow. I was sober enough to know that it wasn’t going to work and drunk enough to keep trying.

“We could just eat in front of the TV,” she suggests. “There’s a movie about a sexy kidnapper that—”

“I’m not watching anything that involves the descriptor ‘sexy kidnapper.’”

We are certainly learning about each other by living together. I’m still waiting for one of those things to be good.

I’ve just finishedmy first conference call of the day with New York when she marches into the kitchen, smoothing balm over her lips while reading on her phone.

“Elijah Wood’s house is really kind of small,” she says aloud, her brow furrowed.

Trust Keeley to worry that a person with way more money than she has isn’t spending enough of it.

“Instead of reading about Elijah Wood, you could actually eat breakfast.”

She narrows her eyes, reaching for the muffin she’s saved for Mark. “Never too early in the day to start giving advice, is it, Graham?”

I hand her a Tupperware container. “Your lunch.”

She takes it, and then her face falls at the sight of the leftover fish and salad from last night.

“Bro,” she says. “I didn’t even want to eat this the first time. If you think I’m eating it of my own volition, without a single witness to laud me for it, you don’t know me very well.”

“Keeley, you’ve got to eat vegetables.”

“I know, but the thing is, vegetables are terrible and…”

I wait for her to finish the sentence and she does not. “Vegetables are terrible and…?”

“That’s it. I realized I’d already made my point. Vegetables are terrible. Where were all these control freak tendencies of yours the night you knocked me up, anyway?”

Muscle memory takes over, as if we’re back in that hotel bed and her nails are digging into my back while she’s sayingoh-God-I’m-going-to-come-again-this-never-happens, her voice breathy and desperate, the way it gets just before she…Fuck. Stop. You’ve got to forget all of it.

I turn away. “This isn’t entirely about you, Keeley. I’m not sure how else I can hammer that home.”

She stomps out, and suddenly the apartment feels empty, desolate. Maybe it’s simply the absence of her incessant noise, which I should be grateful to escape. I send a few emails, then grab my wallet and head downstairs for coffee with no small amount of dread. I lived in my building in New York for five years without enduring a single conversation beyond some patently obvious comment about the weather. Now I can’t even get through the lobby without endless small talk.

“Keeley just got another package,” says the guy at the front desk. “She said it was just another bra and could wait, but you can take it if you want.”

“I’ll get it on the way back,” I say grimly. Why the fuck Keeley needed more bras or had to discusslingeriewith this guy is beyond me.

I walk outside and Keeley’s Homeless Friend waves to me. He’s gotThe Wall Street Journalopen to the trading page. You’d think he’d have more immediate needs than knowing what to buy and sell on the stock exchange.

“Take a look at Press-Kasker,” he suggests. “They make a piece of desalinization equipment that’s going to be in high demand in the next few months.”

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