Thief (A Bad Boy Romance)(38)

“Silas-”

I turn back to see her eyes wild and hot, her lips parted like she’s about to say something.

But she doesn’t.”

“Dude, you out here?”

Her whole face changes as she shakes her head. “Go!” she whispers urgently.

I lock my eyes with her for one more final second before I whirl away and head for the stairs.





Chapter Twenty





Silas




I clear my throat as I climb down the rickety metal stairs from the roof down to the ally behind O’Donnell’s.

“Hey.”

Rowan glances up and grins as he shakes my head. “Stealing my beer again?”

“Same old, same old, man.” I wink. “Old habits.”

I’m doing my damnedest to keep causal, trying to ignore the roaring of my pulse in my ears, the lingering sounds of her moans in my head. I can still feel her skin in my fingertips. I can still taste her on my tongue.

Rowan eyes me. “Listen, man. Speaking of same old, same old.”

I swallow thickly as he shakes his head.

“Look, you and I are good, you know that right?”

I nod. I do know that. He’s the only one that ever got what happened that night, since he was there. And if he hated me for what happened, I’d be okay with that, because I know the crash and the fallout from that was better than bringing him into what that night turned into.

I might have derailed his life, but I made sure it didn’t end that night.

“What happened…” he trails off and looks away. “It happened. I’m okay with it, you know.”

“I couldn’t let you come that night, Rowan.”

He gives me a wry smile. “I know.” He shrugs. “Dude, hockey wasn’t my thing anyways.”

I raise a brow. “Buddy, you were all-state.”

He smirks and takes a sip from the beer in his hand. “There’s no bad blood there, you have to know that.”

I nod, clinking my beer against his when he raises it my way. “I know that.”

“But.”

He looks at me sharply.

“Look, you being back here in Shelter Harbor isn’t easy either.”

Yeah, no shit.

“Lot’s changed, Silas.”

“I know.”

He looks at me sharply. “Do you? Look, what you did for me is enough for me to even look past what you did to my sister.”

We lock eyes for a moment, the unspoken staying that way. He doesn’t know about the marriage, obviously. But he knows what we meant to each other, and he knows that I hurt her when I left. The whole damn Hammond family knows that.

“You might be back, and I might have asked you to come back.” He levels his eyes at me. “Make sure stealing beers from the cooler here is the only habit you pick back up.”

“Jesus, Rowan,” I growl. “I don’t do shit like that anymore.” I square my jaw at my friend. “Like you said, a lot’s changed.”

“I know, buddy, but you need to know that I stuck my neck out vouching for you to come here for this.” He points at me. “Stay away from Declan and all that shit, alright?”

I narrow my eyes at him and he put his hands up as he grins. “Hey, that’s it. Had to say it, but that’s the last I’ll say on that.”

I nod. “So we’re good?”

“Yeah,” he grins. “We’re good.”

I turn to head back inside the bar when he stops me.

“Oh, and Silas?”

“Yeah?”

His eyes narrow slightly. “It’d probably be best if you stayed the fuck away from my sister, too.”

Oops.





Chapter Twenty-One





Ivy




The house is utterly silent and sleeping when I wake up abruptly a few nights later.

I frown as I glance at the greenish-blue light of my old alarm clock, still sitting on my bedside table. I’m about to close my eyes again, when there’s a sharp knocking sound against my bedroom window.

I blink, sitting up a little more in bed. I’m awake now, but it’s not like I was really sleeping all that peacefully before anyways.

Because I’m still thinking of the night before.

I’m still reeling from that kiss that brought me right back to where I’d been years before. The one that turned back the clock and dragged me right back to the girl I was back then. And suddenly, for the first time in forever, a night like that had been perfect.

Until the reality of what I’d just allowed to happen knocked the wind from me. It was hearing Silas and Rowan talking about that night from where I was still hiding up on the roof. It was remembering and suddenly reliving that night that lifted the veil of the now away from it all.

And that’s when I realized I was making the same stumbling, stupid decisions I’d made years ago, as if nothing had changed.