Beautiful Beast

by Aubrey Irons

  The wall is of course less a few pictures too - there’s one of Carter stuffing Jello in his mouth where I know a horribly awkward picture of Silas and I at prom once hung.

  Where that’s gone to I can’t even imagine.

  Nor do I need to.

  “There she is!” My dad comes bursting out from his study, a big grin on his silver-bearded face, his still-thick hair combed back and to the side like it’s been for as long as I’ve been alive.

  “There’s my big shot!”

  He’s been calling me that since the first blog took off, and he chuckles deeply, his broad-chested frame booming as he brings me in for a big hug, squeezing me tight. He steps back, beaming like the king of a castle - ever the reverend at a pulpit watching over his flock.

  He gives another squeeze before he puts an arm around our mom, and I can’t help but grin at the two of them - exactly the same. Maybe a bit grayer, a bit softer around the edges than they once were. But 40 years, five children, and more memories than I can imagine later, they’re still happy.

  Still as in love as the day they got married.

  There’s a shriek at the top of the stairs, before Sierra comes tumbling down in her usual whirlwind state. My little sister half jumps into me, shrieking again into my ear as she holds me tight.

  “Well don’t knock her over, honey!” Mom chuckles, leaning her head against Dad’s chest.

  “What? I see more of her on the stupid internet than I do in real life.”

  I pull a face as Sierra sticks her tongue out at me. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.” Her eyes drop to my shoulder bag and her demeanor suddenly shifts. “God, where did you get that bag, I love it.”

  “Now where’s that boy of yours?” Mom raises her brows and looks past me, as if Blaine’s hiding on the front porch.

  My mom loves Blaine, and I think it’s for two very main reasons. For one, he makes me happy. But for two, he is nothing like the boy who I know broke her heart almost as much as mine. Sunny, cheery, golden-haired Blaine is nothing like the boy who always had a cloud over his right shoulder he could never shake.

  Hell, even my dad seems totally enamored with him, which is no easy feat. But I know that part of that is that this man who his daughter is wrapped up in is from the right family, the strong family, without the baggage and the darkness that came with the one long before.

  Dad clears his throat as mom bustles back into the kitchen with Stella in tow. “Rowan’s short-staffed right now, so he’s still at work.”

  Work being O’Donnell’s, the townie bar up the hill from the piers. Back in high school, we used to steal warm beers off the loading dock out back and drink them on the roof. Now our older brother owns and runs the place.

  The preacher’s son, running the town dive bar.

  Perfect, really, for the family black sheep.

  And I know most people - most people being our dad - think of that night as the kink in the ladder that threw Rowan off his path. But the truth of it is that the oldest Hammond’s been the black sheep since even before the rest of us were born. Given, the hockey scholarship to Boston University may have been a chance of leaving that moniker behind, but that all changed that night.

  A lot changed that night.

  Of course, Rowan also being Silas’s best friend explains why the little shit seems to have neglected to tell me about who I might run into back here in Shelter Harbor. I may have ended up being just some silly young fling for Silas Hart, but he and Row were like brothers up until the end.

  “The end” being the night of rain and sirens and heartbreak.

  I clear my head of the memory that I put to bed long before.

  Because the boy I fell in love with who was almost a sixth sibling here in the Hammond house - the boy my father taught to shave and drive, the boy who my mom used to teach piano to, the boy who seemed to finally be leaving the criminality and zero direction of his home behind…

  Well, that boy turned out to be exactly who he was always meant to be.

  A criminal.

  A liar.

  A thief who stole my heart.

  “Ok, dinner’s about ready, gang!” Mom calls from the kitchen. She pokes her head out and frowns. “Oh, shoot, should we wait for Blaine?”

  I smile as I scoop Carter up, tickling him until he giggles and squirms in my arms. “I can always heat him up a plate later,” I say, tossing a shrieking Carter up and down.

  My dad chuckles and puts an arm around both Sierra and I, kissing us both on the top of the head like he’s always done as we all head through the house to the backyard.

  It’s been eight years.

  Eight years later, I’m not the same person I was, and I honestly don’t even care if Silas is or not.

  Because I’m past it. I’m taking it off the wall like the goofy prom pictures.

  And right there as I step out through the kitchen door to picnic table in the backyard surrounded by family, I decide that I will see Silas Hart one more time.

  And this time, we’re getting a fucking divorce.

  Chapter 7

  Silas

  Six Years Ago

  Dublin

  “Who’re you writing to?”

  I quickly shut the notebook.

  “No one,” I mutter, shooting a dark look at Seamus as I stuff it back into my pack.

  He raises a single brow at me as he takes a sip from his flask. “Didn’t look like no one.”

  “It’s just shit, man,” I shrug, playing it cool. “Just thoughts, ideas, you know, shit to remember later.”

  “Grandiose plans, is that it? Deep thoughts on the nature of the human condition?”

  Seamus grins at me, and I fix him with another glare. “Calm down.”

  “A regular fuckin Ernest Hemingway are ya?”

  I ignore him as I start to stand.

  “The fuck you think you’re going?”

  “Me and my deep thoughts are going to go find another place to do recon on this place.”

  Seamus reaches out and tugs the strap of my backpack. “Alright, alright. Relax, boy-o.”

  I glance back at him to see him roll his eyes.

  “Here, a peace offering.” He hands me the flask. “Sit.”

  I take another beat before I finally drop the bag and sit back down.

  “Shit, you’re such a classic American.” Seamus shakes his head as I take a pull of his whiskey. “You’d be a better thief if you weren’t such a hothead, you know.”

  “And you’d be a better leprechaun if you actually had a pot of gold, but you don’t see me hanging that over your head.”

  My short, stocky, Irish compatriot grins a toothy smile. “Who says I don’t?”

  “If you did would we be here freezing our asses off?”

  Seamus laughs. “Fuck no.”

  I grin, taking the whiskey back from him and turning to glance across the street.

  “Here” is the empty rooftop across the street from the O’Toole mansion – a lavish old-style town house in central Dublin. Also, the target of our hit tomorrow, after the Russian Faberge Eggs Mrs. Grace O’Toole recently purchased at auction with her late husband’s fortunes arrive to guild her mantel.

  Seamus and I are on recon tonight, taking last minute stock of guard schedules and looking for any yet-unseen surprises in the security before the hit.

  This is life in Dublin for me.

  This is pulling jobs for Nolan Callahan, who heads up the Dublin chapter of the Dark Saints – which is basically the Corleone family of the Irish mob. If you missed that Godfather reference, it means they’re the top of the chain when it comes to generally below the level dealings in the Irish crime world.

  When the storm of that night back home in Shelter Harbor blew in like a tempest, this is the shore I washed up on.

  Dublin, working for the Saints.

  Missing her.

  Missing her like I’ve been missing her for the last two years since I got here. Missing her and thinkin
g about what she might be doing, what direction her life’s taken since that night.

  Me? Well, I became everything everyone always assumed I’d be - a professional low life. A thief. Shattering the trust and the love of the only family and the only girl that ever mattered.

  In two years, I know she’s gotten older, and wiser. So have I. In two years, I’m sure she’s smart enough to have realized by now what a fucking mistake ever getting involved with me was.

  I know she’s moved on, too. Thanks to the internet and fucking Facebook, I know she found someone else when she went away to college, after I vanished from her life to come over here to Ireland. And I thought that’d hurt less as time went on, but it really only cuts deeper every time I think about it over here.

  Here, in my purgatory.

  My penance.

  My prison – the payback for that night when it all went to shit. The night I let her down, and her family own, and the future I might have had with her slipped through my fingers, because of mistakes I made.

  “So, what’s her name?”

  I glance back at Seamus. “I thought we were dropping it.”

  “I was, until you got that sour look on your face, ya wee brooding little poet.”

  I start to frown again when he grins. “Aye, there it is.”

  As annoying as Seamus can be, he’s got this annoyingly infectious ability to make people smile. Even scowling, brooding, missing home, full of regrets people like me.

  “She got a name?”

  I start to shake my head.

  “Oh, right, right. Can’t tell old Seamus. I might find out you’ve actually got ticking heart in that chest, yeah? You can share my whiskey but God forbid we have an honest discussion. “Please,” he holds his hands up. “Please, by all means, go back to your sad bastard poetry of whatever the fuck you were writi-”

  “Her name is Ivy.”

  His mouth snaps shut, and he nods.

  “This Ivy mean a lot to you I take it?”

  I don’t answer him; I just glance back at the O’Toole house. He nudges me with the whiskey flask, and I turn and take it.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Life’s a long story, boy-o,” he shrugs. “Look, it’s not like Mrs. O’Toole is suddenly going to start throwing a wild party down there. Go ahead and finish your damn love letter, I’ll take watch.”

  I shake my head. “Nah, it’s fine.”

  “Oh, did I interrupt your muse?”

  I roll my eyes. “No, just not a love letter.”

  “So it is deep thoughts on human condition.”

  I smile and shake my head. Something catches my eye, and I turn to see the guards out by the front door making their scheduled change-over. I nod at Seamus, who makes a note of it in his little notebook.

  “Think we’ll have any surprises tomorrow?”

  He shakes his head. “I doubt it. This’ll be a simple in-and-out.” He pulls out a pack of smokes, sticks one in his mouth and lights it, and then hands the matches and the pack to me. The match flares before I cup it with my hand, pulling gently on the cigarette as the nicotine hits my system, calming me down.

  “Who the hell spends 2 million on gilded eggs?”

  Seamus smirks as he takes a drag and lets the smoke out slowly. “People who won’t be keeping them for very long, that’s who.”

  I grin and glance back at tomorrow’s target as I smoke the cigarette.

  “So you’re really not gonna tell me about this love letter are you.”

  “It’s not a love letter.”

  “And I’m not a short, drunk little Irish bastar-”

  “It’s an apology.”

  Present

  Shelter Harbor

  I sit on the hood of my truck out at the end of Commercial Street, at the edge of the piers where the town sort of runs out into the edge of the woods. From here, the long stone and evergreen curve of Turner State Park circles out around the harbor itself.

  The park’s closed after dark, which also means there’s not a soul around down here, which suits me just fucking fine right now.

  I reach for the pack of smokes in my pocket like some sort of phantom limb syndrome. They’re not there, of course, but the habit of putting my hand on that pocket remains, even though I gave them up years ago.

  I gave a lot up years ago.

  So now I’m home, I guess. Home in a place that isn’t even home anymore - a town that’s forgotten I existed, and a girl who wishes she did.

  Oh yeah, coming back here was a great fucking plan.

  Of course what she doesn’t know - what I don’t think anyone knows aside from Rowan is that I’ve been a lot closer to home than Ireland for the last year.

  Because after five years in Dublin doing everything I always said I wouldn’t get into, I finally threw in the towel and came back to the States.

  It’s worth mentioning that five years in the Federal statute of limitations on bank jobs.

  Except I never actually made it home until three days ago. When I touched down at Logan, I never made it past Boston itself. And so I landed in Southie and then spent three years working up the courage or whatever to make it to Shelter Harbor.

  Because there was nothing for me here.

  And yet here I am, and I already know it was a mistake coming

  back here. I also know my being here puts Rowan in a tough spot. Besides that, there’s the guilt. I mean hell, the guy knows I dated his sister, but he doesn’t know how much deeper it got.

  None of the Hammonds know how “like family” we all really are.

  My hand makes one more phantom pass for the cigarettes in my pocket that aren’t there before I shake my head. I bring the same hand up instead, pushing my fingers through my hair as I watch the last of the light fade over the breakers on the other side of the harbor.

  Fuck it, this was a terrible idea. Because all it’s taken is one run-in with the girl whose heart I broke to know there really isn’t anything left for me here.

  The engine turns and the truck creaks into gear before I turn it around and head back downtown. I’m heading to O’Donnell’s to see Rowan, and then I should just keep on driving until I hit Boston.

  I’d also really like to ask him how it is Ivy had no idea I was going to be here.

  Chapter 8

  Ivy

  Six Years Ago

  New York City

  “Here, you need this.”

  I laugh, a brittle, broken sound as Lindsey pours me a gigantic sized serving of boxed wine into a coffee cup and passes it my way.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You will be fine after we get nice and drunk off of this shitty wine and watch Gilmore Girls until three in the morning.”

  I smile at my roommate and sigh as I take the wine from her hand. “Okay, okay. Fine.”

  “I wore you down, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  She pours herself her own biggie-sized mug of wine and clinks it to mine. “And fuck Derek. Seriously, fuck that guy. Grow a pair of balls, right?”

  I frown into my mug. “It’s not really his fault.”

  Lindsey rolls her eyes and drags me to the crappy, threadbare IKEA couch in our living room. Actually, most of our furniture is crappy, threadbare IKEA stuff. The apartment in general is a shit-hole, in a shit-hole neighborhood with shitty neighbors and we probably pay entirely too much for it, because it’s New York.

  But it’s our first place off campus, and to us, it’s a palace, and worthy every freaking penny.

  “How exactly is it not his fault for getting all emo and dumping you over something like that?”

  I sigh. “I mean, I get how he could be mad at that.”

  “Yeah well, like I said, grow a pair and man up,” Lindsey spits out.

  “I shouldn’t have written it.”

  “He shouldn’t have read your diary.”

  I look down into my wine. “It’s kind of like I was cheating.”

  Lindsey snorts
. “Uh, no, it’s not. Not at all.”

  “Emotionally cheating?”

  “So you wrote a letter to that ex of yours, big deal! And it’s not like you were even actually writing him a letter, it was in your diary. That’s like, private stuff. And besides, everyone does that.”

  I look up at my friend with a wry smile. “Do you write ten-page journal-letters to your exes?”

  Lindsay pauses and I roll my eyes. “See? It’s weird.”

  She smiles. “At least you’re not drunk dialing him or obsessively writing and then erasing text messages to him over and over again like everyone else does.”

  “Yeah, I can’t do that, though.”

  “Right, because he’s…where again? Living off the grid?”

  “No, just, off my grid. He’s in Europe, I think.”

  “Sounds glamorous.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, in any case, you weren’t cheating. Derek had no right to read your private stuff like that.”

  He didn’t, but that doesn’t absolve me of the crime, and I know that. I’m also not that surprised at this happening eventually. Because deep down, I knew it would come to this.

  It always does.

  This is me doing what I do best – sabotaging my own happiness. Sidelining my relationships as soon as they get to be anything even remotely serious. I compare. I evaluate. I try and stack them up against the man who ripped my heart out and ran away with it. And the worst part is, it’s not even a fair fight, because no one will ever compare to him.

  And I know that.

  “Silas.”

  I flinch at his name, shaking from my thoughts and darting my eyes back to Lindsey.

  “What?”

  “I said when exactly was the last time you talked to Silas?”

  “The night we broke up.”

  I’ve never given her the whole story - her or anyone, actually. Part of it is because I don’t know the whole story, but it’s also too painful to bring up the details.