Thief:A Bad Boy Romance(12)

 

The preacher’s son, running the town dive bar.

 

Perfect, really, for the family black sheep.

 

And I know most people - most people being our dad - think of that night as the kink in the ladder that threw Rowan off his path. But the truth of it is that the oldest Hammond’s been the black sheep since even before the rest of us were born. Given, the hockey scholarship to Boston University may have been a chance of leaving that moniker behind, but that all changed that night.

 

A lot changed that night.

 

Of course, Rowan also being Silas’s best friend explains why the little shit seems to have neglected to tell me about who I might run into back here in Shelter Harbor. I may have ended up being just some silly young fling for Silas Hart, but he and Row were like brothers up until the end.

 

“The end” being the night of rain and sirens and heartbreak.

 

I clear my head of the memory that I put to bed long before.

 

Because the boy I fell in love with who was almost a sixth sibling here in the Hammond house - the boy my father taught to shave and drive, the boy who my mom used to teach piano to, the boy who seemed to finally be leaving the criminality and zero direction of his home behind…

 

Well, that boy turned out to be exactly who he was always meant to be.

 

A criminal.

 

A liar.

 

A thief who stole my heart.

 

“Ok, dinner’s about ready, gang!” Mom calls from the kitchen. She pokes her head out and frowns. “Oh, shoot, should we wait for Blaine?”

 

I smile as I scoop Carter up, tickling him until he giggles and squirms in my arms. “I can always heat him up a plate later,” I say, tossing a shrieking Carter up and down.

 

My dad chuckles and puts an arm around both Sierra and I, kissing us both on the top of the head like he’s always done as we all head through the house to the backyard.

 

It’s been eight years.

 

Eight years later, I’m not the same person I was, and I honestly don’t even care if Silas is or not.

 

Because I’m past it. I’m taking it off the wall like the goofy prom pictures.

 

And right there as I step out through the kitchen door to picnic table in the backyard surrounded by family, I decide that I will see Silas Hart one more time.

 

And this time, we’re getting a fucking divorce.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

 

 

 

 

Silas

 

 

 

 

I sit on the hood of my truck out at the end of Commercial Street, at the edge of the piers where the town sort of runs out into the edge of the woods. From here, the long stone and evergreen curve of Turner State Park circles out around the harbor itself.

 

The park’s closed after dark, which also means there’s not a soul around down here, which suits me just fucking fine right now.

 

I reach for the pack of smokes in my pocket like some sort of phantom limb syndrome. They’re not there, of course, but the habit of putting my hand on that pocket remains, even thought I gave them up years ago.

 

I gave a lot up years ago.

 

So now I’m home, I guess. Home in a place that isn’t even home anymore - a town that’s forgotten I existed, and a girl who wishes she did.

 

Oh yeah, coming back here was a great fucking plan.

 

Of course what she doesn’t know - what I don’t think anyone knows aside from Rowan is that I’ve been a lot closer to home than Ireland for the last year.

 

Because after five years in Dublin doing everything I always said I wouldn’t get into, I finally threw in the towel and came back to the States.

 

It’s worth mentioning that five years in the Federal statute of limitations on bank jobs.

 

Except I never actually made it home until three days ago. A year before, when I touched down at Logan, I didn’t make it past Boston itself. And so I landed in Southie and then spent three years working up the courage or whatever to make it to Shelter Harbor.

 

Because there was nothing for me here.

 

And yet here I am, and I already know it was a mistake coming

 

back here. I also know my being here puts Rowan in a tough spot. Besides that, there’s the guilt. I mean hell, the guy knows I dated his sister, but he doesn’t know how much deeper it got.

 

None of the Hammonds know how “like family” we all really are.

 

My hand makes one more phantom pass for the cigarettes in my pocket that aren’t there before I shake my head. I bring the same hand up instead, pushing my fingers through my hair as I watch the last of the light fade over the breakers on the other side of the harbor.

 

Fuck it, this was a terrible idea. Because all it’s taken is one run-in with the girl whose heart I broke to know there really isn’t anything left for me here.