Thief (A Bad Boy Romance)(12)
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.
The engine turns and the truck creaks into gear before I turn it around and head back downtown. I’m heading to O’Donnell’s to see Rowan, and then I should just keep on driving until I hit Boston.
I’d also really like to ask him how it is Ivy had no idea I was going to be here.
Chapter Eight
Ivy
“Hey babe.”
Blaine’s ultra-surfer California accent mellows through the phone. He’s actually originally from Ohio, but the blonde, top-knot and tanned surfer look is kind of his thing - it’s his brand. And believe me, I get brands. So, even though I know the voice is fake, I guess I get it to a certain degree. He’s just owning his own image.
The thought of what Silas would say about someone going through life with a carefully cultivated and fake accent enters my head, and I scowl momentarily. For one, because I know his reaction would be so typically childish, and two, that he’s even entering my head at all.
I’ve gone eight years with forgetting Silas Hart as a full-time job. I am not quitting now.
“Hey!” I say brightly into the phone, standing off to the side of the backyard garden watching Stella and Sierra setting dinner. “We’re just about to start dinner! Are you in?”
“Aww damn, sounds so good! It’s just…” he trails off, and I frown.
“What’s up?”
He groans dramatically. “Ivy, promise you won’t be, like, mad at me?”
I furrow my brow. “Blaine, what-”
“I missed the last ferry, babe.”
My face falls. “Oh.”
“Aaaah, shit, I knew you’d be mad!”
I shake my head. “No, I’m not mad, I just-” I look at my toes in the grass. “I just thought you’d be here soon.”
“Yeah, well hey, I just thought I’d crash here for the night and come on up tomorrow.”
I frown again. “Wait, what? You can just take the late train tonight you know, you’ll be here in like ninety min-”
“Uh, yeah it just sounds like this whole big thing though, you know?”
“What?”
No, I don’t know. It’s quite simple, actually. You get on the train, you sit down, you arrive an hour and a half later in Shelter Harbor.
“Blaine-” I sigh, bringing my hand up to run it through my hair. “I just sort of needed you here today.”
He makes a strained sound into the phone. “Babe…”
“What?”
He makes a clicking sound with his tongue and his teeth. “Babe, you know that’s not really my thing. I mean, you gotta do you, you know? Thought we talked about this, Ivy.”
And we did, too. Well, he talked about it, a few weeks back over dinner at Roman’s in Williamsburg. How we need to “maintain our own strong independence as a couple.”
I frown, shaking my head. “Yeah, no, I know we did, I just-”
I just what? I just saw the man who left me shattered and stuttering eight years ago, and I need to forget about him with you? Like I’ve done with every relationship ever since him?
I don’t finish my sentence.
“So, we’re good then?” he says brightly.
“Yeah, yes,” I say quickly.