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Chapter Seven
Ryan
“Well, lookit you,” Conner says, giving a low, one-note whistle when he looks up from the grill and sees me standing on the back porch. “Haircut. Fresh shave. Clothes that don’t smell like you rolled around in roadkill—lookin’ sharp, O’Connell.” He tips the beer in his hand in my direction. “You smell sharp too.”
I laugh, looking down at the pair of faded jeans and old MIT sweatshirt he brought me months ago in hopes of getting me to wear something other than what he refers to as my cantankerous old coot costume.
“Not half as sharp as you,” I say, arching an eyebrow at his collared shirt and dark wash jeans. “For a second there, I thought I was looking at Cap’n.”
“Shit.” He takes a drink from the bottle in his hand. “Cap’n wishes he looked half as good as me.”
It’s funny because he and Patrick are nearly identical. If it weren’t for the extensive ink work Con’s sporting under his shirt, they could pass for the same person.
“Last time I checked, you weren’t Boston’s most eligible bachelor.” Planting my cane on the step below me while gripping the porch rail with my free hand, I take a step, gritting my teeth when my bended knee screams in response. Con fought hard to save my leg. He pushed the doctors when they said it was hopeless. Refused to let them amputate when they insisted it was their only course of action. I’m pretty sure he got Patrick to sign off on surgeries the Army wouldn’t pay for.
Sometimes, I wish he’d let them take it.
When he doesn’t hit me with a snappy comeback, I look up to find Con watching me. His facial expression hasn’t changed but his body is tense and he’s set his beer aside like he’s ready to spring into action. To help me if I fall or my leg gives out.
“Fuck off, asshole,” I growl at him, planting my cane and taking another excruciating step even though I’m still sucking wind and sweating bullets from the last one. “I can handle a couple of goddamned stairs.” I force myself to take the stairs whenever I can. It takes me almost an hour to climb the three flights between my room and the main lobby and almost every step feels like I’ve got a bag of knives shifting around in my lower leg but I do anyway because like it or not, I’m here. I survived and not about to bitch out now.
“You think I’m worried about you?” he barks back, swiping his beer off the table he has set up next to the grill. “Bitch please—I’m worried about my sweatshirt. It’s one of my favorites.” He purposely looks away from me while he drains his beer. He’s lying. We both know it but hearing him say it takes the sting out of it. “How’d Hen get you here, anyway?”
Grace.
I don’t really remember what she looks like. I remember long hair that shone pale gold in the gallery’s overhead lights. Light-colored eyes that narrowed suspiciously when I offered her a drink. I remember I made her nervous. That she didn’t particularly like me very much. Didn’t feel sorry for me either. Didn’t look at me and see some helpless gimp. Talking to her, for the first time since what happened to me happened, I felt like myself.
That’s what I remember about her.
“She asked. I said yes.” My hand-me-down runners hit the grass and I start my old man shuffle, covering the distance between the porch and where Con is manning the grill. It’s late March and a balmy fifty-three degrees. I’m freezing my ass off in a sweatshirt layered over a long-sleeved shirt and he’s flipping burgers and swigging beers like it’s the middle of summer.
“You sure she didn’t mention that Cari’s little sister would be here?” His question pulls my gaze up and I find him grinning at me.
Fucking Patrick.
“You and Cap’n are a couple of gossipy little bitches, you know that?” I grumble at him, stabbing him with a sharp glare before aiming it at the cooler he has parked next to the table. Flipping the lid open, I rummage through the ice until I find a beer. Pulling it out, I slam the cooler lid closed. “A couple of gossipy little bitches who need a hobby.”
“What do we need hobbies for?” Con says, tossing me a bottle opener. “We have you.”
I laugh in spite of myself while I pop the top of my Trillium. “Take up stamp collecting and leave me the fuck alone.” I toss the opener on the table between us and take a deep pull from my beer. When I lower the bottle, he’s still looking at me. “What?” I bark at him, instantly defensive.
“I dunno.” He gives me a shrug while he moves a few burgers from the grill to the warming rack above it because Hen likes hers medium rare. “You’ve been stuck on Tess for so long, I don’t know what unstuck Ryan is supposed to look like.”
“Yeah,” I grumble at him. “Well, don’t hurt yourself tryin’ to figure it out.” It’s not a denial but it’s not an admission either. “Where’s your brother—he said he was gonna be here.”
“Who knows.” Con gives me another shrug. “Cryin’ in a corner somewhere. Hiding from his fiancé. Pretending he’s too good for the rest of us—you know, the usual.”
I don’t think Declan is doing any of those things but I don’t say so. I let the conversation die while I stand there and wait for Con to pick another subject. Finally he does.
“So?”
I frown at him. “So what?”
“You know what,” he says, still looking at me. “You gonna go for it or not?”
Go for it?
What the fuck is he talking about. He knows as well as I do that Tess is never going to—