“And why didn’t it feel right before?”
She was a beautiful, blond Spanish Inquisition. Should he confess his sins? “I was too busy being a hotshot to focus on anyone else, okay? It was all about me.”
“So now that part of your life is over, you miss being the center of attention and you want someone to pass the time with?”
Ouch. Dev turned away from her and flopped on his back, staring at the ceiling. “Listen, Kylie—you’re making me feel like some kind of criminal.”
“Sorry. I guess I don’t see you as the settling-down type.”
Dev struggled up to his elbows and glared at her. “Hell, I didn’t say I wanted a wife, two-point-four children, a dog and a white picket fence yet. I just want a girlfriend.”
Kylie’s lips twitched. “I’ve got some news for you, Sparky—at our age, most girlfriends are going to want the relationship to lead to something.”
He laughed bitterly. “Right now I’m just trying to keep a fish alive,” he said. “A lousy fish.”
Kylie lifted an eyebrow. “How’s that working out for you?”
“Truthfully? He looks like he’s got fish flu.”
She laughed. “Dev, really, don’t take this the wrong way, but that doesn’t bode well for the girlfriend.”
He glowered at her. “What’s so wrong with me? I have a past, maybe, but so does everyone. Just because I’m a relationship rookie doesn’t mean I’ll fail at it.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
“So how about it?”
Kylie went very still. Then she turned toward him and sat upright, inching away and leaning against the headboard. “How about what, exactly?”
“I’d like to see you again.”
She blew out a breath. “Look, this has been great. But it’s just been sex.”
“
Great
sex.”
“Yes, but still only sex. And frankly, I’m not looking for anything else.”
“So? You found it—me—anyway.” He tried a big white grin on her. No dice.
“I just got out of a relationship.”
“Just?”
“Well, eight months ago.”
“That’s not all that recent.”
“To me, it is. I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to jump back into dating one person.”
Undaunted, Dev took a different tack. “Okay, try thinking about it this way—have you ever bought a pair of shoes when you didn’t need one, but ran across a great sale?”
Kylie let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, but—”
“Or a hot dress?”
“Sure, but that’s not—”
“It
is
the same thing. You may have found me unexpectedly and at a discount, but that’s good fortune. Lady, you should definitely take me home. I’m one hell of a bargain.”
“Devon—”
“Six-two, full head of hair, well-hung, no stock portfolio but I do own property—”
“Stop.”
“—charming, tolerant of female foibles, mostly housebroken—”
“Stop!”
He stared at her, perplexed. “Is it my lack of a foreign language? If so, I can learn Spanish.”
“It’s not your lack of a foreign language, for God’s sake.”
“What’s the matter? I’m not trying hard enough?”
“You’re trying
too hard.
” Kylie slid her legs over the side of the bed and walked to the bathroom while he gazed at her delectable ass.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? I can do a fantastic sneering, son-of-a-bitch impression. See?”
The bathroom door shut on his best too-cool-for-this-world face. Dev sighed, dejected.
Dejection, like envy, was a completely new emotion for him. Another one he didn’t understand. Devon McKee didn’t get dejected. Depressed every once in a while, sure. For that, he had reason.
But generally, he was the life of the party, even when there was no party. He didn’t envy anyone, because he’d always been the one envied. He’d always had it all—the musical talent, the looks, the lifestyle, the toys, the chicks.
Yeah. He’d had it all.
If only he could remember how and why
all
had fulfilled him. If only he could look back with less jaded eyes, he’d go down on his knees and gather up all the glee he’d spilled with abandon. He’d put it in a jar to be savored at moments like this one.
That past euphoria was gone with the wind. That sense of being king of the world. And all Dev had left were the memories, some old recordings and videos, and a pile of bras and panties.
True, every once in a while he got a small royalty check for a song played on the radio somewhere. And his sleazy sometime agent kept insisting that he was on the verge of closing a deal to use an old song snippet of Dev’s for some TV commercial.
But that was it. He’d blown through most of his easy money, though thank God his father had made him buy some property. So he had his condo. He had his bar. And he still had his colossal ego.
Trying too hard? Him? Devon McKee?
Then it hit home: all those girls who used to run screaming after him, or conspire to get backstage to meet him, they’d all been so easy and available that he hadn’t been interested.
They’d
been trying too hard. He’d taken them for granted.
And now look at him, practically begging Kylie to let him into her life. He was behaving like some groupie.
Disgusted with himself, Dev rose and found his clothes. He’d somehow ceded all power to her. He’d played the serf to her queen. Well, he was done with that, and done with her. Never in his life had Devon McKee not bagged the babe of his choice.
It was officially time to recover his inner asshole. Rake back some of the pride he’d scattered at her feet like rose petals.
Kylie emerged from the bathroom as he stuck one leg into his black silk boxers.
She looked at them as if they confirmed her worst fears. As if they’d been signed in blood by Satan himself. What the hell? Would she have been happier with a mallard print? He really was tired of all her disapproval. He was good enough for her to screw, but not good enough to let into her life?
“Dev,” she said, in tones that held a stretched-taut kindness.
Oh, here we go with the Dear John speech.
“I think you’re a great guy. I’m flattered that you’d want any kind of relationship with me, especially since you haven’t exactly seen me at my best this weekend. But—”
He looked at her generous, glorious nude body, then cracked his neck. “Sweetheart, spare me the speech. I’m already over it. And if it makes you feel any better about being a psycho hose-beast, those tits overcame any personality flaws you might have displayed.”
Her mouth closed. Then it opened again. Then it closed.
He put on his pants during the ensuing thunderous silence.
“
What
did you say?” she finally managed to ask in a voice so arctic that it would freeze the piss of a polar bear in midstream.
He grinned at her and winked. “I said that your tits make up for your personality. Sorry, wasn’t I clear enough?”
Her face went white and then strawberry-red. “Get out of my room before I call security.”
Dev scooped up the rest of his clothing.
“You know,” she said bitterly, “I’d actually started to fall for you. I might have called you in a week or two, if you’d backed off a little. But clearly, I misjudged your maturity level, McKee. Emotionally, you’re still thirteen.”
Thirteen? He didn’t have to listen to this. Dev got his pants zipped as he reached the door. He yanked it open.
“Good luck keeping that fish alive,” she called.
“Little boy.”
Dev slammed the door behind him.
9
IKE WAS UNMISTAKABLY DEAD. The goldfish floated on its side at the surface of his small tank, and if he’d had toes, they would have been turned up.
“I’m sorry,” the neighbor kid sobbed. “I don’t know what happened. I fed him every day, the way you said. Not too much, not too little.”
Billy was nine, but looked more like he was seven. He was gangly, knobby-kneed. His round face hosted hundreds of freckles, his short red hair stuck out like the bristles on a toilet brush and the poor little guy was so upset that he’d actually fogged up his glasses.
Dev felt bad enough for him on a normal day—Billy didn’t belong in some sterile high-rise with nobody his age to play with. But the parents were locked into a year’s lease.
“Kid, it’s okay. Really. We all gotta go sometime, and Ike had a nice life for a fish. Short, but nice.” Dev handed him a tissue.
Billy mopped bleakly at his face. “You’re not mad?”
“Nope. I promise.” But truth to tell, Dev was as close to devastated as a guy with a dead goldfish could be. This, clearly, was a sign. An omen.
If a fish couldn’t survive in his home, then how could a relationship? Kylie’s words echoed in his mind.
Emotionally, you’re thirteen. Good luck keeping that fish alive, little boy.
Dev stared at poor, dead Ike. How much easier and simpler to be a fish than a man…how much better. He cleared his throat. Better, that is, if you ended up in a decent home, unlike his own.
If Ike had been purchased by a worthier human being, he might still be popping in and out of his made-in-China treasure trunk. Dancing with the bubbles in his dyed-cobalt artificial reef. Racing joyously through the multihued plastic plants for the surface upon sight of his morning fish cereal.
But no. He’d been cursed the moment Dev laid eyes upon him in the pet store. That had been the
fin
de Ike.
Dev still remembered carrying him happily home in the plastic bag, poor Ike looking bewildered as he rode shotgun in the Corvette, sloshing crazily every time Dev shifted or braked. Then he’d calmed down while floating, still bagged, in the aquarium while Dev conditioned the water for him.
And look at him now. An empty shell of a fish, his joie de fishy vivre vanished, along with his giddy, gilly little soul.
Dev was damn close to bawling himself. Maybe he
was
emotionally thirteen.
“So,” Billy said, sniffling. “Are we going to dig a hole for him?”
Dev frowned. “No. We’re going to give him a Viking burial at sea.”
Puzzled, Billy asked, “Ike was a Viking?”
“Well, not really. He wasn’t the raping or pillaging type. But we can still give him a Viking send-off.”
“What’s pillaging? And what’s ra—”
“Uh, never mind. It’s not important. C’mon, let’s find a suitable barge for Ike.”
“Barge?”
“You know, a boat. The Vikings used to put their dead guys in a boat, light it on fire and then push ’em out into the water.”
“Cool.” Billy followed Dev into the kitchen, where he stood with his hands on his hips, eyeing the possibilities. Finally he settled on a paper French-fry packet from the trash. He cut down the side of it with a pair of scissors and trimmed it so that when he was done, it only stood an inch tall.
Billy ran home for a minute and returned with a yellow rose from an arrangement that his dad had given his mom for their anniversary. He peeled the petals from it and made a bed of them in the bottom of the little rectangle. Dev plucked poor Ike from the aquarium and laid him to rest.
They stood looking down at him for a moment, the mood lugubrious. Then Dev said, “Maybe we should give him some food for his next life, in the Viking tradition.”
“Huh? Isn’t he going to heaven?”
“Oh, yeah. Ike is definitely going to heaven. He might get hungry on the way, though. I don’t know how long it takes to get there. Do you?”