Thief:A Bad Boy Romance(15)

 

“It was fine,” I say as casually as I can.

 

“Just fine?”

 

“Just fine.” I shrug again. “It was eight years ago, I’m not still hung up on my high school boyfriend like a weirdo.”

 

She wags her brow. “Okay.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

She groans and rolls her eyes. “Fine. So, speaking of boyfriends, how’s Blaine these days?”

 

I slump my shoulders. “What if we picked a new topic entirely.”

 

“That good, huh?”

 

I turn flicking soapy water at my little sister. “Okay dork, how’s your love life?”

 

Her face goes red as she snorts. “Hard pass.”

 

“Oh that good, huh?” I say, mimicking her and tossing my hair exaggeratedly over my shoulder.

 

She gives me a mock scandalized look and starts to dip her hand threateningly into the soapy water of the sink before the clearing of a throat behind us stops her.

 

“Yeah, if you’re just going to flood the place, I can take over.”

 

I turn, grinning at my dad. “Nah, we’ve got it. We’ll try to restrain ourselves.”

 

“Did you bring your own organic free-trade dish soap you can use on those?”

 

Sierra snorts and I turn and stick my tongue out at my dad.

 

He chuckles. “Seriously, your mom and I have this. You two should go see Rowan, I know he’s missing that he wasn’t here tonight.”

 

“Wow, is Reverend Hammond telling his daughters to go to the local dive bar?”

 

This time Dad rolls his eyes as Sierra gasps dramatically. “Such scandal!”

 

Dad folds his arms over his thick chest and raises a brow. “First, it’s not a ‘dive’ bar.”

 

“Dad,” Sierra shakes her head, grinning, “it totally is.”

 

“Not since your brother took over the place,” Dad insists.

 

My sister and I glance at each other, smirking.

 

Okay, it’s slightly less divey than it was. But O’Donnell’s is without question a true local’s spot. No cutesy “quaint New England” crap on the walls, no lobster roll special, no fish and chips, none of that. Guinness, Bud Light, and obviously Sam Adams on draught, and Jamesons - not Bushmills - on the back bar. That’s basically it.

 

“It is not,” Dad mutters with a grin. “Besides, I should know.”

 

“Oh and how’s that?”

 

Sierra laughs. “Did you not know?”

 

I look at her questioningly, but Dad just casually shrugs. “What, I’m an investor now.”

 

I burst out laughing.

 

“The scandal deepens! Should we bring this up at the park dedication?”

 

Dad grins through his beard as he shakes a finger at us. “Get.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

 

 

 

 

Ivy

 

 

 

 

The thought from earlier reiterates itself the second we’re looking up at O’Donnell’s.

 

Slightly less of a dive bar than it was.

 

The barn-red clapboard exterior has a fresh coat of paint - barn-red, of course. The single wide, cloudy window across the front of the building that offers little more than silhouettes is a little less opaque - a little less streaked with grime. Though the same flickering neon Red Sox sign still casts its glow around the frame. The sidewalk outside is a little cleaner - devoid of the remnants of smashed bottles and the mountain of cigarette butts that used to trail like breadcrumbs back through the front door.

 

“Has dad actually been to this place?”

 

Sierra snorts. “What do you think.”

 

“An investor?”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t look at me.”

 

Walking inside is yet another step back in time.

 

This place is exactly the same - the memories of it all coming rushing back the second the lights and the smells and the sound of it all comes wafting over me.

 

To be fair, the floor is less sticky than it was, and you can’t smoke here anymore. Massachusetts laws may have changed long before I left home, but the patrons of O’Donnell’s back then were hold-outs. The last stand at the Alamo, with their God-given right to chain smoke Parliaments and Marlboro Reds in a haze of smoke on the line.

 

Things have obviously changed with Rowan running the place, but you can still get that linger of tobacco that’s seeped into the rafters and the walls.

 

The same jukebox with the same bizarre mix of country, 90’s R&B, and classic rock on blasts through the bar from the corner. The same Sox baseball posters with players that retired forty years ago still adorn the walls at not-quite-right angles. Okay, there might actually be more Red Sox crap in here since our brother took over.