The Thief

by Kate McCarthy

  Ace folds her arms, shaking her head for emphasis. “No.”

  “Get out, Ace!” I shout, my body vibrating with frustration.

  Her lip quivers, tears pricking her eyes. It makes me ache all over. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Go!” I bellow, my arm thrusting outward to point at the stairs. “Leave!”

  “Kelly—” Casey starts.

  “You don’t get to speak!” I yell at him, beginning to unravel like a pulled thread. “You weren’t invited up here. Both of you just fuckin’ go!”

  I can hear myself yelling like a maniac, but I can’t stop. Ace picked at my wounds and now it hurts too much. My throat is raw and my stomach is pitching as if I’m on a rollercoaster ride that won’t let me off. I don’t want either of them here to witness it.

  I need to get on my bike and ride it out.

  “Fine,” Ace says quietly, her eyes dark and sad. She collects her phone and keys from the bed. My eyes track her every movement, grief splitting me open, because I’m the one making her go, and I know she won’t come back. It leaves me hollow.

  She makes her way down the stairs, disappearing out of sight, and my eyes cut to my brother. “You sonofabitch.”

  “Me?” Casey nails me with a savage glare. “Did you not just see that? You just shoved that girl from your life like you do everyone else who gets too close.”

  “What I do is none of your business!”

  “Yeah?” His brows rise and his snide expression enrages me. Like a wounded beast, I duck and charge, knocking him off his feet. He slams into the wall by the side of the stairs, his head smacking backward.

  I stumble back a step, and he comes at me, fist slamming into my face with a crack. Pain explodes. I grab the neckline of his shirt and yank. We both go down, wrestling on the floor. My vision blurs. Blood fills my eye. The metallic stench is thick and vile, and makes my heart race with sickening memories.

  “Stop,” I growl, shoving him away, breathing heavy. “I’m not my father. I won’t fight with you this way.”

  Casey shifts to a seated position on the floor, leaning himself against the side of the bed. He holds a hand to the back of his head, grimacing. “You started it.”

  I wipe at my brow, blood smearing across my palm. “No, you started it the moment you walked up those stairs and stuck your nose in my business.”

  “Christ, we’re fucking mature,” Casey mutters, swiping a hand down his face. “Mum would be pissed if she could see us right now.” After a long moment of silence he snorts. “Do you remember whenever we fought, how she’d send us to the old folks’ home down the end of the street for our punishment?”

  “Yeah.” I forgot about that. Somehow all the good memories got lost along the way. “You always got stuck playing “The White Cliffs of Dover” on their musty old piano, and you were shit at it, but they were all so bad of hearin’ they didn’t even notice.”

  Casey chuckles and it’s an odd sound, because it’s the first time in years that we’ve actually talked rather than argued. “And you had to read those Mills and Boon novels to old Mrs. Stapleton with the moustache because she was losing her sight.”

  I shudder. If the guys at school had found out about that, they would have plastered my locker door with pictures of dicks. “She always slipped me cookies after, though.”

  The bell at the front counter of Rehab peals down the hallway and up the stairs, startling the both of us out of the memory.

  “Oh fuck,” Casey mutters. “That’s why I came up here. That dude, Richard, is here to collect the EH Holden you were working on.” He scans my face. My eye is swelling, and I can feel blood crusting on my face and in my beard. “So yeah, I better handle that one.”

  21

  Kelly

  My head throbs as I lie in bed early the next morning. I press my fingers against the tender area around my eye, wincing. It reminds me how much I messed up yesterday. Bitterness and anger spew from my lips every time the touchy subject of my past is broached. Time might have dulled the edges down to a worn blade, but it still cuts. I don’t know how to let it go, but I do know I can’t go on like this. Carrying all this hate around is fuckin’ exhausting.

  My phone beeps. I glance at the screen with surprise. It’s Ace. The thumping of my heart increases as I read the message.

  Arcadia: Come pick me up. Bring your bike. And a hammer.

  My chest expands as I breathe in, exhaling slowly with relief. I feel a stupid smile forming on my face as I waste no time replying.

  Me: Be there soon

  The heavy weight I was carrying lifts when just moments before it was crushing me into the bed. I honestly thought she was done with me after yesterday. I wouldn’t have blamed her, but knowing that it takes a lot more than that to rattle her cage gives me hope.

  I set my phone aside and after a nice hot shower, I dress in jeans, boots, and a tee. With her cryptic message, I decide to just throw my whole tool belt in my saddle bag before sticking my head in Fox’s door. His head is tipped back. It’s hanging half off the bed and he’s snoring—not loud enough to bring down the roof, but he’s definitely sawing a few logs. I grab the pillow from the floor by the door and peg it at his head.

  He stirs and mumbles, “Fuck off.”

  “Goin’ out,” I say.

  Fox rolls over, facing away from me with a growl. “So fuckin’ go already.”

  “I’ll leave you to get your sleep, princess.”

  He turns his head, cracking one eye open to glare. Then they both fly open and he rises up on one elbow. “What happened to your face?”

  “Casey happened.”

  Fox rolls his eyes and flops back down on the bed. “Fuck’s sake,” he mutters, over it in much the same way I am.

  I leave him to get his beauty sleep. The ride to Ace’s house eases the throbbing in my head a little, though I imagine the ibuprofen I took before heading out helped too. It’s a beautiful Saturday. No clouds, just endless blue sky and less chill in the air as we near the end of winter. I pull in the drive and idle the engine, thinking it best not to go inside in case Mason is home. One confrontation in twenty-fours is pretty much my limit.

  Ace jogs down the porch steps at my arrival. She’s wearing worn jeans and old boots like me and a tight tee that reads: My car is hotter than your car. She reaches the bike and I tug my helmet off. After setting it on the handlebar, I switch off the engine because what I have to say can’t be shouted in her face.

  The silence is deafening as Ace sees my eye. Her expression turns sad.

  “I owe you an apology,” I mutter gruffly before she asks me about it. I reach out and take her hand, giving it a squeeze before letting go. That she’s allowing me to do this bodes well for me.

  “You do.”

  I exhale deeply, hating that I’ve upset her. “I’m sorry.”

  Her chin lifts. “I’m not leaving you.”

  My brow wrinkles. “Sorry?”

  “Yesterday, when you yelled at me to leave. I might have gone, but only because you needed alone time to cool off. I’m not going to leave you.”

  I shake my head. “They’re some pretty words, babe, but you can’t promise shit like that.”

  Her eyes narrow, not liking my response. “I can if I mean it.”

  “Okay.” I hold my palms up as if surrendering. I know the ice between us is thin right now. No good can come of me skating across it.

  “You should come inside so I can fix your face. It’s a mess.”

  My gaze flicks to the house beyond her.

  “Mason went out drinking last night with two of his friends,” she tells me. “I just checked on him five minutes ago and almost passed out from the alcohol fumes. I left him a barf bowl and got the hell out of there.”

  “Ouch,” I mutter, swinging my leg off the bike while Ace starts toward the porch steps. I snag her hand and she stumbles to a halt. “Come here, babe. Need a proper greeting.”

  Ace shifts closer and tilts her head, lea
ning up and kissing me on the lips.

  “We okay?”

  She nods. “We’re okay.”

  Once inside, I perch on the back of the couch while she comes at me with a first aid kit. After dipping a cotton bud in some betadine, she steps between my spread legs and touches it to the split on my brow. It stings like a motherfucker, but only for a moment because she leans in, blowing gently against the wound to ease it. I study her face as she tends to me. There are a few freckles on her nose, uncovered by makeup. Her lashes are long and dark. She’s wearing mascara. And her lips are slick with peach gloss because I can taste it from her kiss.

  “What are you staring it?” she mutters, drawing back to dab a bit more.

  “You.”

  Her breath puffs gently against my cheek as she goes about her task. “Why?”

  “Because you’re right there. And I can.”

  She snorts. Dab, dab.

  “How am I lookin’?”

  “Like a guy who’s going to get a nasty scar if he doesn’t get a couple of stitches in this cut.”

  I shrug as Ace draws back, gets a fresh cotton bud, and adds more betadine. She comes at me again. Dab, dab. She pulls back to inspect. Dab.

  “Chicks dig scars.”

  Ace snorts again, moving out from between my thighs. “Maybe. It depends.”

  “On what?” I ask, watching as she rummages around in her little kit. Finding a package of butterfly strips, she takes out two and steps close again.

  She gently places one on my brow and pauses to admire her handiwork. She puts the second one on with care as she speaks. “On how said scar was acquired. If you were pushing a little old lady out of the way of an oncoming car and it hit you instead, then yeah, a girl would dig that scar, provided you lived, of course. But if you were out being a drunken idiot with your friends, spewed the contents of your stomach everywhere, then proceeded to slip in it and crack your head open, then that’s just a permanent reminder that you’re a dick.”

  I laugh. Her eyes drop to mine and she laughs along with me.

  “But this…” her brows arch in question as her laughter slowly dies off “…I’m assuming came from Casey?”

  “You assume right.”

  “And is he just as banged up as you?”

  “Worse.” As if I’d admit to anything less than that.

  Ace packs up the first aid kit. “So you punched it out and now all is forgiven.”

  “Pfft. Hardly.”

  She pauses to look at me. “You know it’s not your brother you want forgiveness from, right?”

  “Ace.” My brows snap together and it pulls on the tape. I hiss. “He left.”

  “Yeah, he did,” she says softly, tucking the little kit beneath her armpit, “but so did your mother. You’re angry at her because she died, and you’re blaming Casey instead because she isn’t here and you have to blame someone, right?”

  I wrap my arms around her middle and pull her close, resting my head against her belly. I’m unable to refute her words, but they turn my stomach. “What kind of sick fuck blames a dead person?”

  “I’m sure she was a beautiful person inside and out, and that you loved her very much, but it doesn’t make you a bad person for being mad at her. It shouldn’t have been up to Casey to get you out. He was young too, and he tried, right? You said he came back, but he was too late? What was stopping her from taking you and leaving?”

  My arms tighten. She loved him. My father. And what kind of person loves the man who beats on her and her kids? Christ. Ace is right. I’m angry at her. So fuckin’ angry. She brought us into that shit storm life and rather than get us out of it, she died and left me to deal with the fall out alone.

  “She was a great mum,” is all I say on the matter and push it from my head.

  After a forty-minute drive, we pull up outside an older-style house in the outer suburb of Merrylands. It’s white weatherboard with a red tiled roof and lush gardens. I’m surprised to see Racer emerge from the front door at our arrival. He’s dressed in a white singlet and an old pair of navy work pants, coffee mug in hand. Ace had only given me an address and asked me if I could handle a little hard work today. Naturally, I said yes while flexing my biceps to prove my point, and now we’re at her grandfather’s house.

  I switch off the engine, still wondering what we’re doing here. He walks over as Ace removes her open-faced helmet and climbs off the bike, setting it on the back.

  “Racer,” she exclaims and gives him a hug.

  He returns it with one arm, his brows rising as I remove my own helmet and he sees my face. My black eye and cut brow are shit timing. First her grandfather this morning then family dinner tomorrow. It won’t help Ace’s cause in getting Mason to accept my presence in her life. It’s only going to make it that much harder. Another reason why I’m an idiot.

  “Nice shiner,” Racer comments when Ace lets him go.

  I shrug. “Brothers.”

  He nods. “Yep. I never had one of those, but I raised two boys. Thought the damn kids would kill each other the way they went at it sometimes.”

  His understanding is sharp relief, so I climb off the bike and retrieve my tool belt. “I believe we have some work to do today?” I raise my brows in question to both of them.

  “Racer is having a greenhouse built in his backyard. I thought we could help. And …” she says, rummaging around in her bag. She plucks out a bottle of whiskey. I wince. It’s the cheap stuff from her house. “I brought you this.”

  He grins with delight. “You’re up to something. Helping me with the greenhouse. Buying me whiskey. What’s going on?”

  “I’m glad you asked.” Ace links her arm in his, and they start toward the house. “I’m bringing Kelly to family dinner tomorrow night—”

  “You guys go ahead. I’ll be in in a minute,” I call out.

  Ace waves to indicate she heard me and continues chattering with her grandfather as they walk inside the house. The screen door slaps behind them as I set the tool belt down over the seat of my bike and pull out my phone. Calling up my messages, I send through a quick text.

  Me: Need you on a job today.

  I include the address and hit send. A reply comes almost instantly.

  Hammer: Be right there.

  When Ace told me to bring a hammer, she should have told me which one, because this one will be a damn sight more helpful, and being a Saturday, I know his only plans today were to hang out at the clubhouse. Tucking my phone away, I retrieve my tools and head inside. It’s definitely an older house. The walls are panelled with pale pine slats, and linoleum lines the floor of the little kitchen. It’s clean and tidy, and a thousand pictures decorate the wall in the living area beyond.

  “Hello?”

  Curious, I start toward the pictures when I’m caught by the sight of Racer tucking his whiskey bottle into a blond timber cabinet in the corner of the living room. He’s adding it to a large collection of identical bottles, all of them unopened and gathering dust.

  He sees me and starts. Then he puts a finger to his lips, warning me to keep quiet. I almost chuckle. Old Racer finds the whiskey just as nasty as I do, yet rather than hurt his granddaughter’s feelings, he feigns delight and then hides them away. “Pretend you never saw me do this.”

  “Saw what?”

  He chuckles and shuts the cupboard, following behind me as I walk over to the pictures. There are family photos and photos of a young Ace and Mason, and another kid I don’t know, maybe their cousin? There’s a school picture of Ace, hair in pigtails and two front teeth missing, a crazy smile on her face. Pictures of her around fifteen years old at the wheel of a dusty banged-up rally car. There are framed articles published in Wheels magazine. I look closer. The by-line says Jonah Jones.

  I turn to him, incredulous. “Your name is Jonah Jones?”

  He nods. “Great name, huh?”

  “I follow your column in the magazine. Had no idea you were the infamous Racer Jones.”

&n
bsp; “Not many people do. I’ve lived a somewhat nefarious life. And while it’s been one hell of a fun ride, I don’t like to advertise it. Especially for Arcadia,” he says, scratching at his chin as he looks at all the photos alongside me. “She’s working hard for a respectable future.” Racer turns and gives me a sharp look. “I won’t have you ruining that for her.”

  “I have no plans on doin’ that.”

  “Good to know.” He claps me on the back and starts for the kitchen. “Coffee?”

  “Please,” I call back, taking one last look at Ace’s school picture before I turn and follow. “Oh, and if you have builders coming for your greenhouse, you can call them off. You’ve got me and Ace now, and I’ve got a friend on the way. He’s a builder by trade and his work is top notch.”

  He nods, his expression pleased. “Well, I appreciate that, Kelly. Thank you.”

  Ace steps inside from the back door, stomping her old boots against the mat while Racer spoons ground coffee into a plunger. “It’s a great spot for the greenhouse, Grandad,” she says. “You’ll get lots of morning and midday sun.”

  “And you’ll get lots of vegetables,” he replies, adding hot water.

  “Ahh, this is just your secret plan to make me more healthy,” she teases.

  He gives us both a stern look. “It wouldn’t kill you young kids to eat a vegetable or two.”

  We drink our coffee, and Racer shows me the greenhouse site and plans. And after Hammer arrives, we drink more coffee, review the site and plans again, and then we get stuck in. The frame is cut and up by midday. We mostly use nail guns, though Racer uses his old-school hammer. I took a turn at banging nails into wood and found it more labour-intensive but so much more satisfying.

  We pause for a lunch break after Ace orders pizza delivery, and that afternoon I staple in the green mesh covering while Hammer builds raised vegetable beds made of Cyprus sleepers.

  At the end of the day, we’re all tired and sweaty and covered in dirt, but it feels good. The hard, physical labour has chased away the events of yesterday.

  Racer and I sit on the back steps of his house, with Ace cross-legged on the grass and Hammer leaning against the outdoor cladding, beers in hand, as we talk and survey our work.