I shrug, drying a plate before sticking it up in the cabinets. “Eh, it’s fine.”
It’s not fine, but I’m trying to go five minutes straight without stewing on it.
And failing.
“Look, I’m not trying to cover for him, but he was probably worried you wouldn’t come home if he mentioned it.”
I raise a single brow. “I wouldn’t have.”
“That’s fair.” Sierra leans her head on my shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re home, though.”
I grin.
“Any idea what the fuck he’s doing here? I mean, just Dad’s thing, or is there something else?”
I shrug. “Who the hell knows. He was being really vague about it.”
She makes a face. “Jesus, you guys really talked, huh? Not just like a passing thing?”
I nod.
“How’d that go?”
Horrible, like a stab to the heart. Like everything I’ve been holding back and holding inside and drowning in work and plastic veneer relationships is coming rushing out like blood. Or wonderful, because its so hard to hate the man who stole your heart eight years ago.
“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.