Page 50 of The Devil's Trials

He offers me a sympathetic smile. “I know.”

Dad heads out after lunch, and I tidy up from our meal. My thoughts spiral as I load the dishwasher and only get worse by the time I’m finished, causing me to gravitate to the bottle of tequila I bought the day I moved in.

A few hours later, I’m sitting in the dark living room squinting at my phone instead of adjusting the screen brightness—because that makes more sense. Obviously.

Curled up on the floor in front of my coffee table, I giggle to myself, then hiccup and cringe at the threat of my poor decisions making a reappearance all over the floor. Tequila sounded amazing when I was trying to forget everything that has me waking up with a heavier weight on my chest each day. But now as it sloshes around my stomach? Not so much.

I tip my head back against the couch cushion and scroll through my contacts. Instead of calling Harper like I should, I’m tapping the name I should’ve deleted as soon as I decided to come to New York.

He’s not going to answer.

I don’t even know why I’m trying to call him.

You miss him, a treacherous voice in my head croons. I shove it away with a groan as heat spreads through my limbs, drowning me in a pleasantly heavy warmth.

This is a bad idea. Way worse than drinking half a bottle of tequila by myself in the dark.

I need to hang up.

The line keeps ringing. Each chime sounds louder, to the point I wince at the next one.

I’m going to hang up as soon as I can convince my hand to move.

More ringing.

I’m about to pull the phone away from my ear when his voice slams into me with the weight of a thousand bricks.

“Camille,” is all he says, and it’s painfully sobering.

I stare at the ceiling as it swirls above me, then squeeze my eyes shut. My heart thumps so hard I can feel it in my throat.

Opening and closing my mouth, I finally manage to force out, “Hi.”

Fuck. Me.

I should’ve hung up the damn phone.

“What are you doing?” His voice is deep, sending a shiver skating over my flushed skin.

WhatamI doing?

Logic seems to launch itself out the window as I pry my eyes back open and blow out a breath, which turns into a whiny sigh-like noise. “I’m sitting on my living room floor, questioning the rug I bought the other day.” I run my fingers over it. “It’s super soft, but I don’t think it really goes with the space, y’know?”

There’s a stretch of silence. Then he asks, “Are you drunk?”

“Camille.” My name acts as a warning. I’m not sure what for. Scratch that. I don’t fucking care what for.

“I’m…” My voice trails off as I run my finger along the edge of the coffee table, completely forgetting what I was going to say. Or maybe I had no idea where that sentence was going from the start. Or this conversation. “I shouldn’t have called you,” I mumble, scrubbing my free hand down my face. “Why? Why do I keep making these bad—no, theseterrible—decisions when it comes to you?”

“I can’t answer that,” he says in a level voice.

“I should go now.”

“If that’s what you want.”

That hits a nerve, and I let out a humorless laugh. “None of this is what I want.”

There’s a soft sigh through the phone. “Camille—”

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