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“Well, if they didn’t keep trying to get me to talk about the night I literally died over and over, maybe I wouldn’t have accidentally set fire to the bathroom.”
“They ruled it arson, which means it wasn’t accidental.”
“Doesn’t really matter, since you got them to drop the charges.” She smiles sweetly, but it’s the fake kind of sweet—the kind that still sours in my mouth, even five months after my last taste of it.
We drive to the cemetery in silence, her fiddling with the vents on the dash of my car, me popping sunflower seeds because I gave up joints in an effort to be a better influence on her.
It fucking sucks.
Although, it certainly doesn’t suck worse than burying the woman who’d been like a mother to you the last seven years, accepting you as part of her family when you never fully felt like you had one. And as we park and head to the burial site, the morning sun far too bright for such a depressing occasion, the realization that we’re burying Mona Ivers is a sucker punch to my gut, winding me before we’ve even approached the crowd.
What’s left of the Ivers family stands at the open plot, a hole in the ground in front of a massive stone monument, talking to Father O’Shea—if grief could be embodied, it’d be the three of them standing together, pale and dressed in all black, as if Death itself split into three souls and made its home in them.
I approach Kieran and Craig, offering them a handshake; Craig pulls me in for one of those half hugs, patting my back, but my best friend hangs back, his arm wrapped around the shoulders of his fiancée, more sullen than I’ve ever seen him.
Juliet gives me a little smile. I haven’t seen much of the two of them since they moved in together—family dinners at the mansion stopped that day at the church, and with Riley needing constant supervision, I just haven’t been around much. I go to work, I go home, and that’s about it.
“Boyd, we’re really glad you came,” Craig says, clamping down on my shoulder. He smells like scotch and sorrow, and I pull back to keep the scent from bleeding into me.
Nodding slightly in return, I stare straight ahead at the hole in the ground where Mona’s casket sits, desperately trying not to look at the redhead to my left. My heart kicks at my chest, trying to break free and launch itself at her, but my head knows better.
Knows all too well the damage that Fiona Ivers can wreak on a man.
“You gonna stop by for the reception?” Kieran asks, glancing at Riley behind me. “We’re having it back at the church.”
“Still surprised you’re able to step inside one,” Juliet says to him, rubbing her hand over his chest with a soft giggle. He grins, the gesture lighting up his entire face, and kisses the crown of her head, pinching her bicep.
“Who’s the kid?” Kieran asks, before I can answer his first question. He squints at her, as if trying to figure out how he recognizes her face.
“That’s Riley,” I say, hooking my thumb in her direction.
She crosses her arms over her chest, turning to stare at a commotion coming from another plot across the cemetery. Silence is something she’s adopted, too, especially around strangers and especially in public, and the reminder prickles in my stomach, churning like acid.
“Well,” Kieran says after a beat, raising an eyebrow at me. “Riley, see if you can’t get Boyd to bring you by the church, okay? The Montaltos catered, and we all know there’s nothing better than home-cooked Italian comfort food. Except maybe garlic salmon.”
They walk past, clapping me on the shoulder as they go, and I glance at Fiona for the first time since arriving. She’s watching me, her big brown eyes somehow full of warmth despite the misery hidden in them, a thoughtful expression plastered on her perfect face.
My heart stutters, desire and pain coming together to form a ball of fire that lodges in my throat, choking me at the same time it burns. Her fingers flex at her sides, temptation making them shake, but she doesn’t start tapping, just sucks in a deep breath and meets my gaze head-on.
“Boyd.”
The lilt in her voice cracks open the chasm of longing that I sealed inside a vault months ago, just like that—one fucking word and I melt for her all over again, stuck with the painful reality that so much time has passed and nothing at all has really changed.
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste the coppery tang of my blood, and give her a polite nod. “Fiona.”
Riley steps forward, glancing between us with her eyebrows raised. “I’m Riley,” she says, surprising me with the voluntary information. My eyes snap to her as she studies Fiona, a curiosity lighting her blue eyes. “Boyd’s—”
“Sister,” Fiona finishes, giving us a thin smile. “I remember your picture.”
At my sides, my hands tremble so bad I have to stuff them in my pockets to hide it—anger, embarrassment, so much lust all directed toward this one woman melds together inside of me, making it hard to concentrate on anything.
“You’ve seen my picture?” Riley asks, and I don’t miss the slight sense of awe in her tone.
“Just one.” Fiona tucks her hair behind her ears, and Father O’Shea calls out to her from his makeshift podium twenty feet away.
She glances at him, then back at us. “It was nice to meet you, Riley. And Boyd...” She hesitates, chewing on her bottom lip. “You look good. Mom would’ve been glad to see you here.”
And with that, she walks off, leaving the chasm inside me unattended, bleeding profusely just like it was five months ago.
Like it never stopped in the first place.
