by Aubrey Irons
“I’ve been having this thing where I feel like the rest of the world is moving on with their lives and I’m just stuck in this rut I’ve dug for myself. You know? Like, for instance, this grad program I’m in at Boston University. I worked really hard to get here, and I’m supposed to love what I do, but I’ve just been avoiding it. Does that make any sense?”
He nods.
“I haven’t even been going to class, actually, and I think I’m going to fail out. And then I have this whole big family, and I’m supposed to be the good one, you know? Like, I have two older sisters and two brothers. Ivy quit college to run this lifestyle blog, which was the dumbest thing ever. And Stella dropped out too when she got pregnant by some douchebag who then took off. And Rowan is just-”
I laugh, shaking my head and slugging back a big sip of whiskey.
“For whatever reason. Rowan is just the family fuck up. I mean, he pulled all this shit when he was a kid, and he’s constantly not living up to my dad’s eyes, and he owns a dive bar. Then there’s Kyle, my little brother, but he’s the anomaly. He was always the smart genius of the family, so he’s doing fine. But the thing is, all of them are doing fine now! Better than fine, they’re doing great now. Ivy’s a freaking internet star, and she found her true love with her old boyfriend. And Stella’s kicking ass as this amazing single mom, and she’s an awesome nurse too. And fucking Rowan is even finally winning at life. He’s married and got a kid on the way, and his stupid dive bar is killing it.”
I break only long enough to slug back more whiskey.
“So then there’s me. And I’m supposed to have it all figured out, but I don’t know if I’m in the right place and I don’t know if I like what I’m trying to be. I’ve been pushing my friends and family away, and finding out Jayson, who was already the lamest, crappiest boyfriend ever, was cheating on me, I guess it was the last straw. I went to his practice space to talk, but when no one was there, and I saw the gas, and I was drinking and…”
I finally just trail off, realizing that besides my prattling on, the room is silent. I glance up, and I realize I’ve been talking like a crazy person for five straight minutes.
Connor whistles slowly. “Wow.”
I look down, scowling. “Yeah, sorry.”
“No, that was good.”
“You think I’m a crazy person now, don’t you.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t.”
I roll my eyes. “C’mon, I know how you see me.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Crazy privileged girl having a quarter life crisis?”
“Believe me, I’ve seen a lot worse.”
I take a big drink. “You ever burned down a garage?”
“Two. And an apartment building, an underground gambling spot, and three cars.” He frowns. “Four cars.”
I blink in surprise - and maybe a little fear - as he shrugs.
“Trust me, princess, you’re not going to find judgment here on burning down some shitty hipster’s shitty band’s practice space.”
I smile. “Thanks for letting me vent.”
“Sláinte.” He clinks his glass to mine.
We finish our drinks, and when I yawn, he does the same.
He’s grabbing a pillow and a blanket and laying them out on the couch, and for a stupid, silly minute, I want to ask him to come to bed with me. But I push that away.
That’s not what this is - not with someone like me and someone like him. What happened earlier blew my mind and is by far and away the best sex I’ve ever had, but it’s not more than that. And quarter life crisis or not, I know that.
We’re two very different people trapped by this, and that’s all this is.
I’ve slipped the pair of his boxers on again, and I’m pulling on the undershirt when I glance over at him.
“Do you mind if I turn my phone on?”
He gives me a long look before he nods. “Yeah, sure.”
The phone stays dark in my hands when I try.
“Do you have a charger?”
Connor looks up and frowns. “For that?” He shakes his head. “Don’t think so.”
I pick up my bag from the other night and paw through it, making a face. “Damn, I know I had one in here.”
“Might have fallen out in the car.”
In the car on the night he took me, but neither of us actually has to say that out loud.
“Mind if I go get it?” I shrug. “I just want to check in and see how everyone’s doing.”
Connor sucks at the insides of his cheeks, mulling it over as he eyes me.
“Look, I’m not going to run. This is the safest place, right?”
He nods.
“Plus this place comes with a great shower, and pasta, and decent sex.”
Connor grins. “Decent, huh?”
“It’s okay.”
He laughs and shakes his head as he walks to a hook on the wall and turns, tossing me the keys.
“No joy rides.”
“I’d have to actually learn to drive stick first.”
“Let’s not make tonight the night you fuck up my clutch then.”
I wink as I twirl the keys in my hand and step past him for the elevator.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sierra
“Hey.”
“Hey Si-Si,” my older brother Rowan chuckles on the other end of the line, using the nickname I kind of hate but also sort of love. “How’s finding yourself.”
“Heard that, did you.”
“Oh, you know us Hammonds. Word travels faster than high school gossip with this crew.”
I grin.
“Hey, Sierra!”
I can hear Eva, Rowan’s wife in the background.
“Eva says hi.”
“Yeah, I can hear her. HI EVA!” I yell into the phone. “Tell her I-”
“Yeah, no, she heard you. Now I can’t, cause my fuckin’ ears are ringing.”
I grin. “How’s the Grand Canyon?”
“Grand. How’s avoiding my question?”
I sigh, sinking back into the leather bucket seat of Connor’s jet-black Charger, the phone cord plugged into the adaptor of his dash cigarette lighter.
How’s finding myself.
Oh, wonderful. I’ve found myself having the best sex of my life with a murderer and now I’m in hiding with him after witnessing the Ukrainian mob commit murder. What are you having for dinner tonight?
“It’s good,” I lie.
“Everything all right?”
“Yep.”
“C’mon talk to me Si-Si.”
I smile even though he uses the dumb nickname again.
“This have anything to do with that Jayson douche?”
I frown. “How’d you-”
“Dude, there are no secrets in this fucking family. How have you not picked up on that in twenty-three years? I heard about him from Eva.”
I grumble.
“Cause, like, Ivy told Eva,” I crack up at Rowan’s sing-song mock valley-girl voice. “And I heard that Ivy talked to Stella, who talked to you, and OH-EM-GEE, you would not believe-”
“Okay, shut up.”
Rowan chuckles. I’m silent and he sighs.
“There’s, uh, there’s something else.”
My brow worries. “What?”
He clears his throat. “You know anything about a garage full of music shit going up in flames?”
My heart jumps into my throat. “Uh-”
“Shit,” Rowan swears. “Jesus, Sierra, you don’t fuck around do you?”
“It was-” I close my eyes, sucking in air. “Jayson called you?”
“No, the Boston Police called me. Well, they called Dad first, but he was snoozing out by the pool, so they called Ivy.”
My hand goes to my mouth.
“Don’t worry, I deleted the voicemail on Dad’s phone.”
“I can explain.”
“You don’t have to, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am.”
“Well, out of curiosity, what the fuck happened?”
I slump deeper into the bucket seat, letting the dark interior of the muscle car envelope me. “There was another girl.”
“Motherfucker,” he growls. “You need someone to go kick Jayson’s balls in?”
No ‘cause someone already beat the shit out of him and threatened his balls with a knife.
“I’m fine, Rowan. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself.”
“You’re still my kid sister, you know.”
I sigh again, smiling this time. “It’s really fine.”
“That guy was a fucking asshole. Wait didn’t he spell his name with a fucking ‘Y’?”
“Yep.”
“I think we’re calling you guys splitting a net win.”
I laugh.
“So what else is going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
He clears his throat. “Sierra, you’re not exactly the ‘just calling’ type.”
“Sure, I am.”
“Oh yeah? When in the last, like, six months have you ‘just called’?”
I frown. “I’ve had a lot of stuff going on.”
“Which I’d love to hear about, you know.”
“I know, I know.” I sigh, that feeling of being the new family screw up coming bubbling up inside. “I’ve been off the grid a little, I know.”
This feels good, even if I’m not saying anything. It feels cathartic, opening up a little to family, even though there’s so much I haven’t and can’t tell him or any of my siblings.
Not now. Not yet.
“What’s going on with you, Si-Si? Just the Jayson thing, or something else?”
“It’s… school. I dunno.”
“What about school.”
“I don’t know, Row. You didn’t go to college and you’re doing fine, Ivy dropped out and is killing it. Stella dropped out and is kicking ass as a nurse-”
“Okay, stop, seriously. I own a dive bar, Sierra.”
“Well, but don’t you like owning a dive bar?”
“Love it.”
“Well?”
“But that’s not you and you know it. And Ivy took a fuckin’ gamble with that lifestyle blog. She got lucky with that. In a million other scenarios, she’s living at home in her old bedroom at Mom and Dad’s waitressing for cash. And Stella had help, in case you forget Mom and Dad basically half-parenting Carter while Stella got her shit together.”
Rowan sighs, and I can picture him in whatever hotel the whole family is shacked up in out west, pinching his brow. Maybe a beer in his hand as he stands by the pool.
“You’re the standard Si-Si. You’re what the rest of us try and be. You and Kyle, obviously.”
I groan. “I don’t want to be that, though.”
“I know. No one chooses that. Well, maybe Kyle.”
I grin.
“So you’re confused? Having a midlife crisis?”
“Maybe a quarter-life one,” I say glumly, toying with the phone cord before running my hands over the leather wheel of the car. For a minute, even though it’s true that I don’t know a thing about driving stick, I wonder what it would feel like to just turn on the engine, put the car in drive, and just go.
“Join the club, dude. That’s like every Tuesday for me.”
I smile.
“The thing is, you power through it. It gets better. It always does.”
“Thanks, Row,” I say quietly in the stillness of the car, the last of the driving-into-the-sunset daydream fading away.
“Any time. So what else is going on with you?”
“Oh, complexities galore.”
My mind goes to Connor, and my body tingles all over again at the very recent memory of the things he does to me. The way he talks to me. The way he stirs some sort of darkness inside of me that makes me shiver.
“Feel like sharing?”
Not in a million years.
“Nah. You go have fun with everyone.”
“Eh, early night over here. Dad’s pretending he’s not sleeping down by the pool again, Mom’s had one glass of wine, so, you know, she’s half in the bag.”
I laugh, grinning, but also feeling the pang of something like sadness.
“Look, whatever it is, I’ve got some advice.”
“Shoot.”
“Stop thinking so much, Sierra.”
I frown, and I can hear my brother chuckle over the phone.
“I’m serious, and you know what I’m talking about. You think too much. You analyze the fuck out of everything until you’ve seen every angle, but while you’ve been weighing how best to approach it, whatever it is passes on.”
I scowl in the darkness of the car.
“C’mon,” Rowan says, as if reading my mind through the phone. “Spill it. What else is going on with you?”
I sigh, chewing my lip and breathing in the air of the car. It smells like Connor in here, and there’s something about his scent enveloping me like this that sends that shiver through me all over again. It also makes me feel like a complete dork, like I’m in grade school writing his name across my notebook.
“There’s this guy-”
“Ooookay, yeah that’s my cue.”
“Oh c’mon! You said you wanted to hear-”
“Yep, I don’t need to hear about my little sister’s love life. That’s Ivy and Stella territory.”
I roll my eyes as Rowan chuckles.
“Just tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“He a good guy?”
I’m quiet.
“Well, is he better than Jayson? As low as that bar is fucking set?”
“Yes,” I laugh.
“He keeping you safe? Out of trouble?”
Yes. Maybe?
“I think so.”
“Well, all right then. Tell him I’ll fuck him up if he pulls anything with you.”
I grin at the thought. As tough a nut as my big brother is, Connor’s just another world of toughness.
“Thanks, Row,” I say quietly.
“For?”
“For answering.”
There’s another pause.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I am now, yeah.”
“Chin up, Si-Si.”
Maybe I do think too much.
I put the phone down after saying my goodbyes to my brother, and I lean back in the big leather bucket seat.
Maybe I need simple. And as silly as I feel for even thinking it, I’m not sure the man upstairs can in any way be described as simple.
I roll my eyes. Yeah, it’s a ridiculous thought to even go there with Connor, despite the things he’s just done to me and made me feel.
Sex is sex, and that’s that. I’m a big girl, and I understand how this works, and I get that the two of us coming together like that is just the power of mutual attraction in a stressful environment.
A hot, broken, beautiful distraction.
The knock on the side window has me shrieking as I nearly jump out of my skin. I scream at the man standing next to the car in the dark parking garage, and I’m scrambling across the stick shift to the other side of the car as fast as I can scramble, when I freeze.
He’s holding a badge in his hand, and he taps it against the glass again.
“Why don’t you step out of the car, Ms. Hammond.”
Something cold shivers through me and the pit of my stomach drops out inside.
He knows my name.
The real insane thing is that twenty-four hours ago, seeing a man with a badge here at Connor’s place would have had me shrieking for joy.
So why does it shoot fear through me now?
“Out of the car, if you would,” he says again, his voice slightly muffled through the closed door.
I take a shaky breath, feeling my heart still racing as I slowly open the passenger side of the car and pull myself out.
The man smiles thinly at me over the top of the Charger, and he raise
s his badge again. This time, I notice the letters on it.
F.B.I.
“I’m agent Marlow, Ms. Hammond, and I thought we might have a chat.”
He’s older, maybe in his forties, with graying hair, a sallow, lined look to his face, and piggish-looking eyes set back in his head. And a mustache, which generally creeps me out.
Believe me when I say us being alone in the basement parking garage of a basically abandoned factory building makes that creep-factor about a million times worse. I swallow the lump that forms in my throat, my mouth dry. Goosebumps breaking out across my skin.
I’ve never been in trouble. Not ever. I’ve never even had a speeding ticket.
That was before I burned a garage down.
I think about running before I realize how stupid that would be, and instead, I nod slowly, biting my lip.
“You know why I’m here?”
“I-” I bite back the tears. “It was an accident,” I say softly.
It’s such a lame thing to say.
Agent Marlow smiles thinly again. “I’m sure it was. You know, arson is no joke, kid.”
I look at the floor of the garage, feeling it sink out from under me.
“But that ain’t why I’m here.”
I look up at him sharply.
“Here’s the thing, Ms. Hammond,” he says quietly, stepping around the car towards me. I shiver, but I don’t run, my feet glued to the floor.
“I don’t know how you got mixed up with Connor Roarke, but you need to untangle yourself from that.”
“I’m not tangled,” I say quietly.
“Oh no?”
“No, we’re- we’re just friends.”
“Friends who wear each other’s boxer-briefs and undershirts?”
I turn red as I drop my eyes to the ground.
“You have any idea who he is?”
“I told you, we’re just-”
“Right, you’re just friends,” Agent Marlow spits. “Let me tell you about your friend, Ms. Hammond.”
He reaches into his trench coat and pulls out a manila folder, which he slaps onto the hood of the car in front of me.
“Have a look.”
“I- no, thanks.”
“It wasn’t a request.”
I shiver as my eyes dart to his dark brown ones, narrowed menacingly at me. Slowly, I open the folder and glance down.
My hand flies to my mouth, and I shove the folder away.
