Thief: A Bad Boy Romance

by Aubrey Irons

  “Look, Ivy-”

  “On purpose?” My voice squeaks.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  I shake my head, frowning and trying to wrap my head around this. “Blaine, if you didn’t want to come out here, you just had to tell me. I mean, my parents really want to see you, and of course I want to see you, but if you aren’t feeling it, you just have to-”

  “Ivy, I’ve been thinking.”

  I freeze, a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  I swallow the thick lump that forms in my throat. “About?”

  Blaine sighs heavily. “About us.”

  The sinking feeling starts to burn hot.

  “What do you mean?” I almost whisper into the phone.

  “Look, babe-”

  “What are you saying, Blaine?” I suddenly find my volume, and my voice ratchets up in loudness, a buzzing sound starting to ring in my ears.

  “Look, I-” he groans. “Babe, I just don’t know if I’m ready for the life you want.”

  My eyes start to narrow as the anger starts to bloom inside. “And what life is that, exactly?”

  “Ivy, I don’t know, I’m just-” He take a beat. “I’m just not ready to settle down I guess.”

  The floor drops out from under me. And I want to feel crushed, or broken, or hell, even sad.

  But all I feel is anger.

  “Is there another girl.” My voice is edged, my hand gripping the steering wheel of the dark car with a death-grip.

  Blaine clears his throat. “Ivy-“

  “IS THERE,” I belt out. The front door to my parents’ house opens as Sierra pops her head out. She raises her brow at me, but I shake my head, waving her back.

  “Blaine.”

  “I don’t know how you want me to answer that.”

  The sound that comes out of my lips is anything but a laugh - this harsh, cracked sound. “I think you know how I want you to answer that, Blaine.”

  He sighs again. “Ivy, it’s more complicated than that.”

  I slump in the driver’s seat as Sierra slowly makes her way down the front steps, a worried look on her face.

  “No, Blaine, it’s not. Just answer the damn quest-”

  “Yes.”

  The world goes quiet.

  “Yes, there is.”

  It isn’t until I hang up the phone that I let the scream that’s been bottled up in my chest come ripping out. I yell as loud as I can, squeezing my eyes shut and pounding on the steering wheel, only barely aware of my younger sister opening the door and helping me out. She hugs me, stroking my back like I need comforting.

  Except I don’t. I don’t need comforting, not for what I feel inside. Because I’m not sad or heartbroken or anything like that. I’m furious.

  “I need to get out of here,” I mumble out, starting to open her car door again.

  “Hang on,” Sierra looks at me with her lip between her teeth, her face fallen. “Where are you going?”

  “Out. Somewhere.” I shake my head, breathing hard and feeling the blood pounding in my ears. “Anywhere. I don’t know.”

  She shakes her head. “Not in my car you’re not. Not like this.” She gingerly pulls her keys out of my hand, and I scowl at her.

  “Sierra-”

  “Blaine?”

  My scowl deepens as I nod and look away.

  She puts a hand on my arm. “You want some company?”

  “Nope.”

  She closes her mouth and nods. “You do know I’m not going to let you drive like this though, right?”

  “Fine.”

  I turn and start to head back down the driveway on foot.

  “Ivy!”

  “I’m just going for a walk, okay?” I throw back, my sandals flapping against the sidewalk as I stomp down the street.

  I want to break something.

  I need to feel something.

  But most importantly and most immediately, I need a drink.

  “This stupid town is small enough for me to rage-walk to O’Donnell’s anyways,” I mutter out loud to myself as I storm off into the night.

  It’s gorgeous out too, which only pisses me off even more. The smell of salt brine, the warm summer air, the glow of a three-quarter moon illuminating the trees.

  It should be romantic. A night like this is for young love and forgetting about the future in favor of the now. A night like this is for stolen first kisses.

  Because a night like this is when a game of flashlight tag turned into something more - a first kiss, heated, stolen, forbidden, quick and light across my lips and leaving me breathless. And a week after that night, on another night much like this one, is when I confronted him about it. After a week of feeling like I had a wonderful hidden secret but also scared to death of what it meant.

  “You can’t just kiss me like that.”

  He grins, the moon flashing off his teeth and the whites of his eyes. “Sure I can.”

  “I- you-” I have no words, lost when those eyes look into mine, that cool look on his face.

  “You shouldn’t have kissed me.”

  “Why not.”

  “Cause.”

  The weekly Saturday night game of flashlight tag plays out across half a block of back yards, my siblings and a dozen other neighborhood kids from the neighborhood howling and giggling in the late summer night. Silas is “it”, but I know full-well we’re playing an entirely different game, hidden here together behind Ms. Hempstead’s garage.

  I’ve got my back to the dark blue clapboard siding, my hair pulled back in a ponytail and my pulse skipping like crazy in my chest. Silas leans close, one hand on the garage wall behind me.

  “Cause you didn’t like it?”

  “No.”

  He grins. “No you didn’t like it or no-”

  “No, I mean, yes, I liked it.”

  I freeze, caught in my own words before I frown.

  “That’s- that’s not what I meant.”

  Silas just wags his brows at me as he steps closer.

  “Don’t you have other people to go find in this game?” I say quietly.

  “Nope.” He swallows. “Found the only one I need to.”

  I feel that thrill shiver through me. The forbidden, reckless thrill that’s started to come up in the last year or so whenever I’m around him.

  “My dad-”

  “Would kill me if he knew I’d kissed you.”

  I blink. “That doesn’t scare you?”

  “No.”

  It does, I can see that even at a young age. Jacob Hammond is… formidable, even to cocky, fearless kids like Silas Hart.

  “Rowan?”

  He shakes his head. “I can manage your brother.”

  “Manage?”

  He nods. “Yeah, like, make him cool with it all.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it all’?” I swallow thickly, blinking quickly. “It was just one kiss.”

  My first kiss. My only kiss I’ll never be able to forget.

  He moves closer. “Because, Slimy,” He grins at me, so damn cocky, so fearless.

  “I’m not JUST gonna kiss you once.”

  I swallow thickly. “What?”

  I can feel the electricity run through me, the crackling of it snapping through my synapses.

  “I said,” his hand slides to mine, fingers entwining as he pulls me against him, “I’m not gonna be able to stop kissing you.”

  And then he does it again, and after that it’s all over.

  After that he never does stop kissing me.

  Until he does.

  Forever.

  The second I get to O’Donnell’s I regret my decision to come here. I still want a drink, but I want nothing to do with the crowd in there that I can see and hear through the half-frosted window. There’s a game on, and I know damn well I’m going to see at least five people I probably know.

  Nope.

  Instead, old habits take over, and I head around to the back door. I slip inside, ignoring the loud music and cheering from
the bar up front as I dart down the back hallway to Rowan’s tiny office.

  The door shuts behind me. I move to slump into the chair at his desk, and I grin as I pull open the bottom drawer.

  Knew it.

  My brother is exactly the kind of guy who’d keep a bottle of scotch in his desk drawer at work. I make a face at the half-empty bottle of cheap looking stuff. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do the trick right now.

  Fucking Blaine.

  There’s a tumbler on Rowan’s desk that I wipe out with the edge of my shirt, pouring a healthy splash before bringing it to my lips. The amber liquid burns, making my eyes water and my throat ache, but it’s a soothing fire.

  A cleaning one.

  “Is there another girl?”

  “I don’t know how you want me to answer that.”

  I almost want to scream again, right there in the office. I want to smash the glass in my hand against the wall, or break something important just to feel.

  And I want to hurt. I want to feel sadness, and heartbreak, like I know I should in this situation. Because at the moment, I don’t. At the moment, stewing there in that bar office, all I feel is anger.

  I down the rest of the glass, and I’m reaching for the bottle to pour another splash when something across the room catches my eye.

  The lacy, delicate purple bra draped over the armrest of the ratty couch.

  I wrinkle my nose and roll my eyes.

  Jesus, Rowan.

  Or Silas.

  I quickly stuff the idea of him in here with some girl right out of my head.

  But then the anger comes bubbling right back. Because suddenly I’m thinking of Blaine’s other girl, whoever the fuck she is. I don’t own a bra like that.

  Maybe I should have. Maybe he wouldn’t have looked somewhere else if I did.

  The thought is so fucking ridiculous that I cringe at myself, finishing the drink in my hand and quickly refilling it yet again.

  There haven’t been many since Silas, and it’s one of the reasons I hate him. Because there can’t be others, not after that and what that was.

  It’s having the stars and the moon and then being taken to a cheap planetarium.

  And it’s the insecurities too. It’s stupid fucking thoughts like wondering if my fucking bra color would have kept my shitty boyfriend from cheating. It’s the insecurities that come with the man you love leaving without a word, and spending years - literally years - wondering what you did. Wondering why you weren’t worth a phone call or a letter.

  The third glass goes down even easier, and I sink into Rowan’s chair.

  I’ve been in this room before, long ago, when it used to be a storage room. Silas and I broke in through that same back door, swiping two warm beers each out of an open case and giggling like maniacs as we dashed outside and up to the roof to drink our spoils.

  I’m up before I know it, slugging back the drink and feeling the scotch burn through me like a whirlwind. Outside, I climb the old metal stairs to the roof, breathing in the salt air with each step back up to this place of memories.

  You can see the whole town from up here, with O’Donnell’s being up the hill from the harbor. The lights of Main Street - still choked with tourists milling around tourist bars and souvenir shops, or eating ice-cream cones and frozen lemonade down by the park.

  The knick-knack shops.

  The lobster roll places.

  The harbor.

  I can’t actually see it, but I know that his stupid houseboat is down there somewhere.

  This is a bad idea.

  Just…just a really bad one.

  I somehow make my way back down the metal stairs without tripping, and then I’m off.

  Because bad idea or not, I need some damn answers, and I need them right now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Silas

  Cold beer, sea air, the water rocking against the side of the boat.

  “The boat” being that rental I’d been trying to see Doug Conlin about before Ivy elbowed me in the face that day on the docks. Can’t say I was expecting a houseboat, but I’ve gotta say, it suits me just fine. It’s quiet, it’s cheap, you can’t beat the views, and my closest neighbor is old Mr. Conlin himself - five slips down the docks on a forty-footer he’s apparently decided to live on and restore since retiring from his drug store.

  So this is home now, apparently. Home sweet fucking home, where everyone’s either forgotten who I was or wishes they had.

  And yet, as glib as I want to be, and as much as I want to roll my eyes at even the idea of calling this damn town “home”….

  Well, it kind of is, whether I want it to be or not. You don’t get to pick where you’re from, unfortunately, only where you go. And somehow where I went took me right fucking back here. To the same town, and the same girl I left behind.

  I shake my head, sitting with one knee bent up on the roof of the houseboat, looking out over the harbor growing quiet for the night.

  In a funny way, the boat and the beer and the ocean air make me think of Dublin. Well, the same, and yet totally different. It was never this nice out over there, that’s for sure. It was dreary, and cold, and I never really had a moment like this just to be alone in my own head. I was too busy stealing, or pulling jobs, or drowning myself in whiskey, women, and the madness of my own head to let myself take a moment and just be.

  I spent eight years wondering what I’d do if and when I saw her again. And every single smooth, heartfelt, or thought-out thing I ever thought about saying went right out of my head the second I actually did.

  The girl I told “forever.”

  The one who said it back and then let me walk away.

  I take a long, slow pull of my beer as I stare out over the harbor.

  “I need answers.”

  And suddenly, her voice isn’t just in my head, it’s right here and now. I jerk my head around and look down at the dock from my perch.

  Ivy.

  I shake the lingering thoughts from my head as I raise a brow at her.

  “Looking to come aboard?”

  “No.” She shakes her head, her face angry as she jabs a finger at me.

  “No cute talk; no games, Silas. We’re done with that.”

  I frown. “Should I put Monopoly away?”

  “Silas.”

  “Okay, okay.” I hold my hands up as I slowly stand and turn to get a better look at her.

  She’s fury personified, her now golden hair flamed out around her face, her eyes flashing green fire.

  I cross my arms across my chest as I nod. “Come on up.”

  She stumbles as she clambers over the side onto the boat, swearing under her breath in the semi-dark of the twilight.

  “Those heels aren’t going to do you any favors on the ladder.”

  She glares at me as she kicks them off onto the deck of the boat, muttering under her breath as she makes for the ladder up to the roof. I finally relent, kneeling and giving her a hand up as she finishes the last few rungs.

  She brushes her skirt down, furiously pushing hair out of her face.

  “Beer?”

  “Why’d you leave.”

  Oh, we’re having that talk.

  Wonderful.

  “Ivy-“

  “No-no.” She shakes her head, her eyes still blazing as she swallows heavily. “No. Answers, Silas; you owe me that much.”

  I bark out a laugh. “I owe you?” I roll my eyes. “You told me to leave.”

  “The hospital, you asshole!” She yells, far louder than I’d have expected.

  “I asked you to leave the damn hospital, not the fucking country!”

  I hold her gaze. “It’s complicated.”

  “Un-complicate it.”

  I shake my head. “It’s things you don’t want to hear, I can promise you that.”

  “No, I can promise you that it damn well is!” Her chest heaves, her shoulders shuddering as she looks at me in the faint glow of the harbor.

  “Ei
ght years, Silas.” Her hand darts into her tank top and yanks the necklace out, her face tight. “Eight years.”

  She shakes her head, her eyes full of all the sadness I know I put there.

  “Look, you want answers?” I shake my head as I step towards her, commanding her attention.

  “Then ask the questions.”

  She swallows, her face fierce. “Fine. The truck robbery that night.”

  I wince.

  “Why?” Some of the fire seems to go out of her eyes as she retreats. “Why’d you go?” she says, quieter this time.

  “You know why,” I say softly.

  “My brother?”

  I nod. “Couldn’t let him fuck up his life like me.”

  She shakes her had. “Silas, your life wasn’t-”

  “Ivy I was nothing like you and your siblings, and you know that.” She looks up into my eyes, blinking.

  I shrug. “That’s just the way it shook out. Fate, karma, history, whatever you want to call it.

  I step closer to her, and before I can stop myself, I’m reaching out and cupping her chin in my hand. “You know I always had a cloud following me.”

  “What really happened that night?” She looks at me pleadingly, not making a move to step away from my hand on her cheek. I stroke her jaw softly before letting it drop.

  “I mean, I basically know, but what really happened? Dad’s always been vague, and I don’t think Rowan totally remembers.”

  I turn, looking out over the water and the breakers crashing softly on the moon-lit horizon.

  “I got a call from one of Declan’s guys the night of the hit.” The memory of it start to come creeping back, the cold, bony hands of it clawing at me.

  “I had said no to the job, but I found out with that call that Declan had offered it to Rowan.” I can feel the same rage burning up inside that I felt that night.

  “But he didn’t go on the actual job?”

  I shake my head as I turn back to her. “I swapped back in. Declan wanted me anyways, and truth be told, I almost wonder if he offered it to Rowan just to get me to do it.” I look into her big green eyes.

  “I called Rowan and told him to fuck off, and then I…” I trail off.

  “You did the job.”

  I nod and she looks away, swallowing heavily.

  “You know that guard was Jimmy Doyle’s father, Silas,” she says quietly, her voice broken. “We went to school with him.”