Page 65 of Devil in Disguise

“Never mind,” Foster said. “I know the story. Tragic. It sounds like we need to get you to Portland.”

“But how?” she asked.

“You take our car, of course,” Foster said.

“I can’t do that,” she objected.

“Of course you can. How will you get there, otherwise?”

“You’re kidding. How would you two even get home? What would you drive while I’m gone? Because I’m pretty sure I won’t be back until tomorrow. And wouldn’t you, uh …” Her brain was spinning away from her body. “Worry about it?”

“No,” Avery’s mother said. “We live in Broadmoor, barely two miles from here. We’ll take an Uber, and we have several cars.”

“Don’t stand around arguing, Dyma,” Avery said. “Go. Dad—keys. I’ll go with you to find the car, Dyma.”

Dyma took the keys—Mercedes. Oh, boy. She grabbed her backpack, but said, “If I wreck it—Harlan’s good for it.”

“If you wreck it,” Foster said, with that same quiet amusement behind his eyes,“I’mgood for it.”

“Good luck, Dyma!” Sydney chimed in. “Do you need us to run up and get anything from the room for you? Can we call anybody?”

Dyma didn’t answer. She was stuffing her laptop into her backpack and telling Avery, “Let’s go. Oh—” She turned to his parents. “Thank you. I can’t thank you enough, truly. I’ll try extremely hard not to wreck it.”

* * *

She was runningthrough the rain with Avery, wearing his raincoat because he’d insisted, before she managed to ask, “What was all that with my roommates?”

He pounded along beside her, his upscale hoodie plastered to his body and revealing his trim but actually fairly hot physique. “That would be my dad.”

“Yeah?” She was trying not to shiver. It was freezing out here. “Who’s your dad?”

“Microsoft superstar. He’s got a whole division reporting to him. Special Projects. That ‘visionary’ thing Sydney said—that’s pretty much true. Also, I’m an only child.”

“Oh.” She digested that. “And Cassandra’s father works for him. Which would make you …”

He grinned, but didn’t stop running. “Extremely eligible. Which is why I don’t talk about it. Same as you, I guess.”

“How come they don’t …” She had to stop to hold her side for a second. “Know you? Why didn’t you go to the Bush School?”

“Because I went to Overlake, and I’m two years older than they are. Also, I was a major nerd. Trust me, nobody noticed me.”

“Oh, man,” she said, starting to run again on the slippery pavement, “those girlssomiscalculated in every way. Poor Cassandra. First the loss of the NFL, and now she’s never going to be wearing that red dress and having the Chinese banquet with you. Don’t you get money or something? I saw it in a movie. I’ll bet that’s a horrible loss.”

He laughed out loud.“Hongbao.Wonderful red envelopes stuffed full of cash. The money goes to the parents, though, sadly. That’s what pays for the wedding. Fortunately, the other tradition is the parents buying the groom a house, not to mention supporting the grandkids, so I don’t imagine I’ll come out of it too badly. If you want to be her new best friend, I’m guessing there’s a spot open.”

“Yeah, you know?” she said. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

29

An Inadequate Substitute

Dyma would’ve saidthat she’d been through a fair number of difficult situations in her life. So many, in fact, that driving Avery’s parents’ very large and extremely high-end Mercedes sedan on a crowded freeway through the pouring rain barely even counted. When she was sitting next to her mom on a hospital bed barely three hours after she’d borrowed that car, though, her hair and pants still damp from her dash through the Seattle rain, and was cudgeling her brain for every childbirth-support-person action she’d ever seen in a movie—the only one she really remembered was boiling water, and nobody here needed any water boiled—she knew that nothing had come close to this. Every support person she could remember from those movies had been cool and calm and steadfast, but her mom was alternately moaning and gasping, and she was alsosweating and bleeding. Her hair hung lank around her face, and her hand gripped Dyma’s so hard during every pushing session, the fingernails left marks.

Where wasHarlan?The game had been over for half an hour. Wasn’t he coming? Oh, God. He’d better be coming. She couldn’t do this.

Game-day traffic. From thestadium.Please, no. This had started out hard, and it just kept getting harder.