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Six
Cari
I didn’t hear himknock. Probably because he didn’t. Conner isn’t really the knocking type, he just lets himself in. Wherever he pleases, whenever he feels like it. One of the several hundred things I envy about him. I look over to find him leaning against the door jam, trying not to look impressed with the work I’ve managed to put in on the room, despite the fact I’m working sixty-hours a week with this brother.
“Come on,” he says, giving me an impatient clap of his hands. “It’s quittin’ time Cap’n.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“You’d rather I call you Boogey Nights?”
I bend over to load paint onto my roller, barely sparing him a glance. “I fucking hate you sometimes, you know that?”
“Cap’n it is.” Conner grins at me, pleased with himself for getting a rise out of me. “You gonna come downstairs at some point or are you too busy to drink beer with your favorite cousin?”
I look over my shoulder, pushing the paint roller upward, as close to the ceiling as I can get.
“Declan’s working?” I say, laying the roller in its paint tray to step back so I can admire my work. I’ve been renovating the apartment over Gilroy’s for the past few years and this bedroom is the last piece of the puzzle.
“Fuck you,” Conner says, laughing despite his harsh words, casting his gaze around the room. “Looks pretty good in here, man,” he concedes with an approving nod. “When you moving in?”
I’ve been living here while I work on the place but I’ve been camped out in the room down the hall, which is cramped and dim—nothing like the room we’re in now.
“As soon as the paint dries,” I say with a grin, taking a long, appraising look of my own. I’d expanded the space, knocking down the wall between this room and looked like what used to be our grandmother’s sewing room, adding another hundred square feet of space. Now there’s plenty of light and space for my drafting table and the king-sized bed I’d bought at a flea market a few weeks ago.
“Well, come on then,” he says, giving his hands an impatient clap. “Tess is whipping my ass at pool. I need back-up and it’s hot as balls up here.”
“Alright,” I say, lifting the hem of my shirt to wipe sweat off my face. I’d been putting off opening the vents that lead up from the bar. My uncle Paddy—Con and Declan’s dad—rents the place to me, utilities included, but I don’t like the idea of jacking up Gilroy’s electric bill just so I don’t have to sweat. I pick up the roller and disposable paint tray off the drop-cloth covered floor and tossed it in the trash. “Cari show up?” I say as casually as I can but Conner isn’t buying it.
“Legs?” he says, using the nickname he gave Cari the night he met her. The smile on his face says he used it just to piss me off. “No—although, I’ve been up here with you for about fifty-seven years, so who knows? She might’ve shown, met the love of her life, gotten married, had kids and died by now.”
“Okay, okay…” I push past him on my way down the hall, “Get out of here so I can shower,” I tell him as I strip off my shirt, heading down the hall to the bathroom.
“You don’t want me to wash your back, Cap’n?” Conner calls after me, grinning so wide I can hear it in his voice.
“Fuck off,” I say, just before I slam the door.
“Are you guys twins?”
I’m about three pints in, building a good buzz, when she finally asks. I knew it was coming—they always ask—but even though genetically, my cousins and I are siblings, the idea of Conner and me sharing a womb still makes me laugh.
“No.” If she’d asked Conner, he would’ve given her some bullshit answer like he made me with one of those 3D printers or that I’m a sentient robot he build his freshman year at MIT. “We’re cousins.” I say, draining my pint. “Our identical twin fathers married identical twin sisters. Stir that together and you get us.” I look at Conner, standing on the other side of the pool table, head ducked so he can talk to Tess. Looking at Conner is like looking in a mirror. Or it would be if I stopped shaving, cutting my hair and giving a shit about my general appearance. Same dark hair. Same green eyes. Same everything… right down to our dimples. Well, almost everything. His jawline is a little leaner. I’m an inch and a half taller. His left arm is completely sleeved out with tattoos, with more splashed across his chest and back. We’re not truly identical but we look enough alike to give people pause.
The girl bounces a look between Con and me before landing on me with a smile. “You’re way hotter.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Despite his worn jeans, three-day beard and IDGAF attitude, Conner is the heavy hitter between the two of us. In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to look around Gilroy’s and find a girl he hasn’t had under him. Me? Well, let’s just say it’s been a while.
I clear my throat. “You want to break?” We’re playing pool—Con, Tess and some girl he sweet talked into being my partner. I think her name is Sara. I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings by asking.
“You do it,” she says, laying a hand on my bicep, fingers digging in just enough to let me know she’s interested in more than playing pool. “I’m good at a lot of things but pool isn’t one of them.”
I give her a non-committal smile, leaning over the table, positioning my cue in front of the balls Con just racked, giving them a serious crack that scatters balls across the felt. She’s cute but I’m not really feeling it.
That’s when I see Cari through the window, standing on the sidewalk outside the bar on her cell. She’s still wearing those red heels, only this time she’s wearing a dress that makes me glad I’m hunched over a pool table. Tight black lace, barely this side of decent with whisper thin straps that leave her shoulders and back bare. As usual, the sight of her makes me hard.
It takes me a second to realize she’s arguing with someone, mouth moving rapidly, voice raised so I can hear the hum of it through the glass. Ending the call in what looked like mid-sentence, she jams the cell into her bag and disappears around the corner, heading toward the front door of the pub.
“There’s Cari,” Tess says, fitting her fingers into her mouth to give a short whistle to get her attention. As soon as she sees us, Cari smiles and points, signaling she’s making a trip to the bar before she heads our way.