He shakes his head as he pushes past me. “Shit, guess we shoulda brought a fuckin casserole, huh boys?”
The two goons smirk at me.
“That’s all, Silas,” he says dramatically. “Just welcome home.”
My mouth stays shut this time, and Declan just gives me a final shake of his head before the three of them turn and start to go.
“Oh, Silas,” he turns. “Things haven’t changed, while you were gone.” His eyes narrow at me. “I still run this town, and kid?” He grins. “I still own you.”
“The fuck you do.”
Try me.
“I did what you asked, Declan. I worked for your fucking people over there for five damn years.”
“Beats jail, wouldn’t you say?” He pulls another cigarette out of his pack and jams it in his mouth.
He’s the only person in the world I’d actively wish cancer on.
“The statute of limitations is up,” I growl. “I did my time for you, but I’m done now.”
Five years. After five years, they can’t prosecute. That was the whole arrangement. Dodge the heat, and do jobs for the Irish Kings instead of Bubba or Curly in Walpole prison.
Declan puffs smoke through his nose as his eyes drag back to mine.
“Federal,” he says with a small little grin. “Federal is five years for grand theft.”
He flashes his teeth, his whole damn face smiling like he can’t wait to drop the other shoe on me.
“But Massachusetts state limitations is ten.”
I can feel my teeth grinding as he ashes his cigarette onto the floor of my boat.
“Walpole, now that s fun little place, I hear.”
He winks before he sticks the cigarette in his mouth and turns on his heel.
“Welcome home, nephew,” he calls over his shoulder as the three of them march back down the docks.
Chapter Seventeen
Ivy
I can’t believe I kissed him.
And I did. I kissed him.
That was no stolen kiss - nothing hidden in the shadows behind Ms. Hempstead’s garage. That was two people coming together for what they needed - magnetic attraction, like it always was with the two of us.
That was stupid.
It was stupid for me to be alone with him, to go there at all, really. So why did I? What, because I was sad about Blaine doing what I’m fairly certain deep down I always knew he’d do? What he’d probably done before he finally admitted it? I mean, I was sad, but I wasn’t heartbroken.
I can’t be heartbroken.
There’ve been three real relationships now, since Silas. Three that fell apart, because there was never anything of substance there, nothing that shook me to my core. Nothing that gripped me, or scared me.
And I hate that that’s his legacy on me, all these years later.
Every breakup hurts of course, but none of them ever really hurt - not in that way where you don’t know if you’ll live. Not in the way that brings you to your knees and crushes you under the weight of it.
And how could they?
Because it’s not just that Silas went away and left me with a broken shattered heart, it’s that he left and stole it with him. You can’t get heartbroken after that, with no heart left to break.
I’m mulling it over on the bench in my parent’s backyard, under the red leaves of the Japanese maple tree. It occurs to me that I used to press my lips to Silas’s on this very bench late at night after sneaking out the backdoor. But then, there’s not a lot of places in this stupid town where I didn’t do that.
Stupid, dumb, young love.
“How’re you doing?”
I glance up to see Sierra ducking under the canopy of branches with a sympathetic look on her face.
“Ugh.”
I shake my head and look away. I’m not ready to go there yet with anyone - not ready to tell her where I went last night.
Or who I went there with.
“Wanna talk about it?”
I give her a wry, sideways smile. “Not really.”
“Can I bribe you?”
She brings her hand from behind her back, a plate with two white-bread, peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches cut on the diagonal on them.
I grin in spite of myself.
It’s exactly the type of lunch we used to munch on out here on this bench, and I know she knows that.
She smiles and plops down next to me, grabbing a sandwich and passing me the plate.
“Nosey,” I mutter, taking a bite of PB&J.
“I know.” She arches a brow. “So, where’d you go?”
“O’Donnell’s.”
“No, I know that part.”
I raise a brow and she rolls her eyes.
“You dipped into Rowan’s stash. He noticed.”
I laugh and pull a face. “His ‘stash’ is disgusting cheap shit. Tell him if he’s going to go through the trouble of a ‘stash’, he should at least make it the good stuff.”