AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Temperatures had taken a dip the day after Thanksgiving, which Nolan had suffered through on Beacon Hill with his mother and Harrison, who after nearly twenty years as Nolan’s stepfather still couldn’t come up with more than ten words to say to Nolan over the course of dinner, even an extended one like Thanksgiving.
Nolan had eaten as fast as was considered acceptable by his mother, stayed long enough for coffee and pie, and had beaten a quick path to the door, trying to ignore the feeling that the expression on his mother’s face was one of relief.
He’d left the house thinking about Bridget, ensconced with her parents in the little house in Southie, the smell of home-cooked food drifting through the air, Bridget’s father watching football with Owen after being kicked out of the kitchen by his wife.
He’d had to check the impulse to show up at the Monaghans’ door, let himself be invited in. It was too soon after his night with Bridget, their relationship too undefined.
It’s real. I’ve always been yours.
“So you and Bridge are back together?” Will asked as they turned onto one of the quiet residential streets. It was already dark, the street lamps illuminating the pavement in staggered orbs of light.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will asked.
“Ask Bridget,” Nolan said.
“I’m asking you.”
“And I’m telling you I don’t know,” Nolan said.
“Is this your way of saying it’s complicated?” Will asked.
Complicated was an understatement. “More or less.”
“Feck me,” Will said. “You love her, she loves you. What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know,” Nolan said. But there was one. He’d felt it between them, not when he’d been inside her, not when he’d owned and occupied her body, let her own and occupy his, but afterwards when she’d said goodbye, her eyes shadowed and sad. “Let’s just focus on the job.”
“Fine.”
“Did you bring the picks?” Nolan asked.
“Of course I brought the picks. Think I’m some kind of fecking amateur?”
“Just making sure,” Nolan said. “We’ll break in the front door.”
“Why not the side?” Will asked.
“The side door goes into the kitchen in all these old houses, and that door is next to the driveway. Seamus probably parks there and enters through the side door, which means there will be a light,” Nolan said. “The front door is shaded by the porch. I doubt he’ll have left a light on there when he doesn’t use it.”
“Sounds like a shot in the dark,” Will said. “How do we know he doesn’t use it?”
“See for yourself."
They’d come to Seamus’s block, his house halfway down the street. The porch was dark, but light seeped down the driveway from the side of the house.
“Fecking asshole,” Will muttered.
Nolan laughed and clapped him on the back. “Don’t be bitter.”
“You cased the place, didn’t you?” Will asked.
“Let’s just say I did my homework.”
It was almost like old times, the two of them walking the street, their conversation quiet as the neighborhood went about its business behind closed doors. Except now there was more to lose. More that had already been lost. He envied the young men they’d been, envied their ignorance about what was to come.
“Let’s cross,” Nolan said when they came to a dark spot between street lamps.
