Thief (A Bad Boy Romance)(44)
“Just stay away from my family.”
My mom is still looking at Silas like she wants to either cry or hug him - maybe both. Dad puts an arm over her shoulders though as he turns. “Let’s go.” His eyes drop meaningfully to me, his look stern.
I look back at Silas for a moment, wanting to say something, but knowing I can’t.
“Good to see you, man,” Rowan mumbles, nodding stiffly at Silas as my dad glowers at him.
Silas’s eyes dart to mine, holding them just for a second before he nods, turns, and walks away.
My sisters and Carter and our parents start to walk back to the cars. Rowan blows air out through his lips.
“Well, fuck. That went well,” he growls.
I shake my head. “Dad’s never going to forgive him, is he?”
“For that night?” Rowan frowns and looks at his feet.
“Maybe? Probably not?” He sighs. “I don’t know, Ivy.”
“Even though he knows Silas was only there that night stopping you from doing the job.”
“Jacob Hammond and his convictions,” Rowan mutters. “You know Dad. In his eyes, Silas fucked up my path, even though I never wanted that path anyways. I’ve told him a hundred different ways what happened that night, and what could have gone so much worse if Silas hadn’t been there.”
“He just doesn’t care?”
“He just sees Silas as the root of it all. I mean, Dad had a certain idea for all of us growing up, and a plan he thought we’d all follow. But then I’m busted stealing that six-pack, you’re dating Silas Hart, Stella’s off talking fuckin’ marriage with that asshat Mitch.” He shrugs. “That night was just the culmination of a lot of shit, Ivy.”
“And Silas got the full brunt of it.”
Rowan snorts. “Oh, believe me, I took a fucking sermon from Dad in that hospital bed. If I wasn’t his own flesh and blood, I’d be as gone as Silas, trust me.”
“Silas was basically his flesh and blood,” I say heatedly, my face darkening as I think of the unfairness of it all.
My brother nods. “I know, Ivy.” He meets my eyes. “No one said it was fair, it’s just the way things shook out.”
He frowns. “How is it, by the way? Seeing Silas, I mean.”
I swallow the heat from my face as I casually reach for my phone as a sort of cover. “Oh, fine,” I shrug. “I mean, you know, the past is the past. We were kids back then.”
“You loved him back then,” Rowan says quietly.
I look up from my phone, swallowing the pain and the memories that threaten to come tearing out as I put on a forced smile.
“It was a long time ago, Row.”
He nods before he glances at his watch. “Hey, I’ve got a bar that needs opening.” He looks up at me with a grin. “Feel like helping?”
“Does it come with a free drink?”
My older brother laughs as he puts his arm around my shoulders. “Today, Slimy, it comes with three.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ivy
“You shouldn’t be here.”
He sees me coming this time, sitting on the roof of his boat and watching me as I come down the docks towards him.
“I should be wherever I want to be, actually.”
He shakes his head, his jaw tight. “Not here.”
I ignore what he’s said as I step over the side of the boat. “Silas, what my dad said-”
“What your dad said is fucking true.” His words come sharp as he climbs down from the roof until he’s standing right in front of me. “I can’t be near you, Ivy,” he says icily. “I can’t be near you or anyone like you, it’s why I fucking left in the first place!”
It’s only then, in the shadows cast from lights further down the piers that I see how strained he looks. His face is drawn, his eyes burning into mine as he slowly shakes his head. He looks hurt - broken from all those years ago.
“I’m not your ‘bad boy’, Ivy,” he says quietly. “I’m not your walk on the wild side or whatever. I’m just bad. That’s it. My world and your world shouldn’t ever mix.” His chest rises and falls slowly as his eyes lock onto mine.
“Done yet?”
He glares at me. “What?”
“I said are you done yet, with all your shitty excuses.”
Maybe it’s seeing the hurt in his face, and being reminded of that knocked-down-but-not-broken boy I fell in love with all those years ago. Maybe it’s being so close to him after being apart for so long - the proximity of pheromones my body remembers.
Or maybe it’s that I’m just confused, and scared, and looking for something to grasp onto in the storm of my life. And come hell or whatever happened in the past, he’s always been the lighthouse in that storm.