Free A Deal With the Devil by Abby Matisse Page A

she drew in a long, calming breath and blurted out, “My brother called.” In the uncomfortably long silence that followed, Amanda experienced the first dull throbs of a headache.
    “What did he want?” Kate’s voice sounded wary.
    Amanda’s grip on the phone tightened. She should’ve kept her mouth shut. But she hadn’t, so she forced herself to say, “Twenty thousand.”
    Kate gasped. “ Dollars ?”
    “No nickels,” Amanda said with an exaggerated sigh. “Of course , dollars.”
    After an inordinately long pause, Kate started in, her uncharacteristically sarcastic tone making her words all the more effective. “So, after you issued your authoritative no, which of course you always do with your bother, then what happened?”
    The dull throbbing ache in her temples bloomed into sharp, stabbing pain which settled behind her eyes. She needed to lie down. Amanda shifted the frozen peas from her ankle to her forehead and then rested her head on the arm of the sofa as she contemplated which body part hurt worse.
    “I did tell him no,” Amanda said. But her voice sounded decidedly more tentative as she added, “Sort of.”
    “Sort of,” Kate repeated.
    Amanda pressed the peas against her forehead and burrowed further into the cushions as she said, “I said no, but . . . well, you know how he is.”
    “Yes. I do know.” Kate’s tone signaled the return of the steel magnolia. “And I know how you are.”
    “How I am.”
    “Yes. You’re usually all independent and tough—or at least, you pretend to be. But when it comes to your brother, you’re confused and wishy-washy,” Kate said, sounding exasperated. “I don’t get how someone as practical and responsible as you can be so incredibly naïve where your brother’s concerned.”
    Probably for the same reason she bought every over-hyped cosmetics product she ran across. Like the Tahiti in a Bottle crap upstairs. When she thought of the amount she’d paid for the over-priced shower gel, her blood pressure rose. Still, she wasn’t going to give Kate the satisfaction of thinking she was right. “I’m not confused or wishy-washy.”
    “Oh, please. You’re talking to me and this brother thing has gone on for a very long time.”
    “What brother thing?” She made a silent vow to never confide to Kate about her brother ever, ever again. It wasn’t worth it. Well, she probably would, but not for a very long time.
    “Your brother wants money, or anything else, and he gets it—no matter the cost to you.” Kate kicked the know-it-all tone up a notch as she added, “I’ll bet you’ve got that raggedy old notebook and pen out right now, trying to figure out a way to find the money to give him.”
    Amanda frowned and glanced from the notebook to the pen. She pulled the phone away from her ear and stuck out her tongue and then pretended to pound the device into the sofa cushions. She should have known she’d get the lecture; she’d certainly heard it often enough.
    When she put the phone back to her ear, she caught Kate mid diatribe, her sermon progressing in its normal track as Kate was saying, “…and the real problem is you continually ask yourself the wrong question. You try to figure out what your parents would do to support Rob. But the truth is, at this stage of the game, your parents wouldn’t help him.”
    Amanda felt compelled to jump in. “If my parents hadn’t died—”
    Kate’s voice grew louder. “If your parents hadn’t died, they’d give your brother the kick in the patootie he needs and maybe he’d finally grow up.”
    She paused and then said, “I’m guessing patootie is Alabaman for ass.”
    “Not funny. You know I’m right.”
    Amanda knew no such thing. “You’re wrong. My parents would support Rob’s dreams, which is all I’m doing,” Amanda said.
    Kate made an exasperated sound. “You’re not supporting Rob’s dreams.”
    “Yes I am. Listen, I’ll admit I’m not a model parent, but I’m doing the best