I roll my eyes. “Yeah, man, I just had a thing to take care of.”
“That ‘thing’ involve you jumping in the fucking harbor?” He chuckles at his own joke before elbowing the big guy accompanying him — appropriately known around town as Big Gus — in the ribs, prompting him to chuckle along.
Richard nods at my soaking wet clothes.
“Burst pipe.”
“I’m sure. You know tomorrow’s the first.”
I swallow, eyeing Big Gus standing next to him and wondering how well I’ll run a bar with my knee in a cast. Strangely enough, Gus is an old-school regular at O’Donnell’s. Off the job, the guy chases five shots of Jameson with five Sam Adams pints, loves putting Aerosmith on the jukebox, and will even actively talk Red Sox with me at the bar.
On the job, the guy is one mean motherfucker who could probably break me over his fucking knee.
“I know tomorrow’s the first, Rich.”
“Which means I’m sure my money will be waiting for Gus here when he stops by.”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” he mimics, smiling.
Loan sharks are bad enough to deal with without them being twenty-four-year-old douchebags with an obnoxious sense of humor.
“There a reason you’re stalking me out on the street like this, Rich?”
“Felt like a walk. I like walking don’t you, Hammond?”
I spread my hands. “There’s no need for dramatics, man.”
Rich smiles at me, the predatory kind of smile only a predator like him can flash. It’s the kind of smile that says he knows I’m twisting in the wind here.
O’Donnell’s came cheap when I bought it from the Gerritson family after old Tom Gerritson who’d owned it for decades finally kicked the bucket. Cheap, but not free. My dad helped, but I wasn’t about to go crying to my folks about just how little savings I had. Live in Shelter Harbor long enough — even if you’ve got the famous Hammond last name — and you get to know enough people that even the bad ones start to make themselves known.
Rich is the definition of bad people. Young, ambitious, and just enough of a connection to the Southie Boston crime world to be dangerous.
And I went and borrowed eighty-fucking-thousand dollars from him.
Not my best move, but it got me the bar.
“Look, man, why don’t you stop by tomorrow too, huh? We’ll have some drinks, and-”
“I don’t give a shit about your bar, Rowan.” Rich pulls a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, elbowing Gus into lighting it for him in this eye rolling way like he’s the godfather or something.
“I don’t give a shit about your bar, I don’t give a shit about whatever shit beer you want to pour me, and I don’t give nearly enough of a shit to hang out with you and pretend we’re buddies, okay?”
I clear my throat. “Right.”
“I just want the money.”
“It’ll be there.”
“Wonderful. I’m thrilled. You’re doing what you’re supposed to do. You want a fucking medal?”
“Sure, you got one?”
Rich narrows his eyes at me. “Gus, give the man his prize.”
Thanks, mouth.
Gus’s fist knocks me square in the jaw, knocking me to my ass. I groan as I go down, stars blinking in front of my eyes as my head spins.
“We done here?”
I spit, my fists clenching and my jaw tightening as I start to get up, when Gus leans close.
“Stay the fuck down,” he mutters.
Reason gets the best of me, and I sit on the curb.
“I said we done here?”
“Yeah, yeah we’re done here,” I mutter.
I hang on the curb, wishing to God I still fucking smoked until they’re long gone. Eventually, I pull my ass up, and swear and shuffle my way back to the bar in soaking wet jeans.
And you’d think wet clothes, a run in with my loan shark, and punch to the face would put a damper on the inappropriate thoughts of Evangeline Ellis’s perfect tits through her wet, see-through white shirt.
You’d be wrong.
Chapter Seven
Evangeline
“Dinner was fantastic, Irene, thank you."
Mrs. Hammond — Rowan’s mother — smiles warmly at my father as he eases back in his chair. “Oh, of course, Leonard. We’re just so glad you all could come up and help Jacob out with this whole thing.”
She’s warm, and homey in a way where I find myself thinking she’d fit right in with the southern ladies from back home.
“More scalloped potatoes?”
My father shakes his head and rubs his torso. “Oh, please, no, I don’t think I could manage.”
Jacob Hammond chuckles, reaching over to pat my father on the shoulder as he glances at my mother. “You know, Ruth, this guy used to pack it away back in seminary school.”