Page 49 of The Devil Gets His Due

“They aren’t goingto demand we kiss, right?” I ask on Saturday night, preparing for the worst.

He cuts a glance at me from the driver’s seat. “What kind of people would demand wekiss?”

“It happens in movies all the time. You can’t be in a fake relationship without winding up on a kiss cam or having to kiss because someone’s family has demanded it.”

“That has literally never happened in a single movie I’ve watched, nor in a book I’ve read.”

“If that economics book you’re reading had a fake relationship trope in it, you’d have finished it weeks ago.”

We pull onto the idyllic streets of Newport, which I’m familiar with thanks to abundant reality TV programming, and then arrive at his mother’s house.

I’ve seen it before in photos, but never from the street in all its glory: a massive two story with a Spanish tile roof, a wood door, and a long driveway that is already full of cars. It’s far more impressive in person than it was in photos.

“Your mom should be onReal Housewives. This is incredible. I’d never have thought you came from this.”

His lips press tight. “I didn’t come from this. My mom and Walter moved here a few years ago, after his company took off.”

I’d forgotten they had some lean years after Graham’s father died. Of course they didn’t live in a mansion.

“My mom is…sensitive about a few things,” he continues. “From when we were kids. We try to avoid talking about childhood stuff as much as possible around her.”

There’s something in his face that warns me not to ask what she’s sensitive about. That same something in his facewheneverhe discusses his mom.

“You know, if we’d just lived a little closer to Newport, your mom might have married my dad instead. We’d have been stepsiblings.”

“I think we dodged a bullet, then,” he says as he opens my door.

“I’d have been a very good little sister,” I argue.

He lifts me from my seat as if I’m as light as a feather, his gaze falling to my face, to my lips, then away. “I wasn’t trying to say you wouldn’t have been. Come on. Let’s get this over with. Pretend you’re in labor if this thing isn’t over within two hours.”

We walk through the wooden door and discover absolute chaos, the kind I longed for as a kid. A football arcs through the air, followed by a woman shouting, “no football in the house!”Two of his brothers wrestle over the ball, and his mom gingerly steps past them before throwing her arms around me as if I’m a long-lost friend.

“Keeley, it’s so good to see you again!” she cries.

I worry for the first time about whatever conversations she and I might have had the weekend I drunk-married her son.

I hope none of them were about Six Bailey.

Graham is dragged off by one of his younger brothers, while Jeannie Tate leads me through the house, its walls lined with photos of her boys and Walter’s daughters. I was hoping to spy baby photos, to get a hint of what our child might look like, but there are none. Instead, I spy Graham as an awkward teen warily staring down the photographer in a family photo, and a more recent picture where he’s shaking hands with someone and looking devastatingly handsome. The frame is different than the others and appears to be hand-painted. “I love that,” I tell his mom, touching it.

“Oh, right, I should take it down.” She blinks, stumbling over her words. Her discomfort is so obvious that it’s painful, and I can’t imagine why. It’s not like I was going to ask her togiveit to me. “I just got that at Christmas. Err, as a gift, but, um, anyway, let’s go out back while Walter finishes grilling.”

I’m led out to the spacious terrace, overlooking a large pool. Walter, Graham’s stepfather, waves from the grill, and I’m pushed into a comfy chair and surrounded by his stepsisters, Gracie and Noah, and his great-aunt and his mom.

“I can’t believe Graham’s going to be a father,” says Gracie. “Are you going to find out what you’re having?”

“We haven’t decided. We had it written down for us and put in an envelope.”

“How can you stand the suspense?” Noah squeals. “I’d have torn that thing open before I was out of the office.”

“Have you thought of a theme for the room?” his mother asks.

“No…” I glance across the lawn to Graham, feeling the first twinges of panic. We should, I guess. We probably need to look at furniture.

“What are you going to do about work?” Gracie asks.

“I—”

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