Page 14 of Leather & Lark
Blush crawls into my cheeks. “So I acted like a feckin’ eejitone time. This seems extreme.”
“You put a Covaci in a fucking trunk, Lachlan.”
Shit. I really did.
Leander leans against the counter and folds his arms across his chest. He might be closing in on sixty, but he’s still built like a brute, and his thick biceps strain against the confines of his black sweater. “We talked about this. Like it or not, we’re in the customer service business. You should know what that means, you do it every single day at your studio. If some client comes into Kane Atelier to buy leather saddlebags for their motorcycle or some shit and they piss you off, are you gonna lock them in the fucking closet? Chrissakes, I hope not. Because that would be terriblecustomer service.”
“So, what, I’ve gotta keep doing this indefinitely?”
Leander shrugs. “Unless you magically find a way to fix the damage you caused, yeah. I guess so.”
A suspended moment lingers between us. Leander might feign disappointment in me, but sometimes I wonder if this mistake of mine worked out to his benefit, even if the jobs tapered off like he claims. As though he can see these thoughts turning over in my mind, Leander pivots away before I can read too much into his expression.
“Go on, get out of here,” he says as he cracks open a fresh beer. “Say hi to the boys for me.”
I wait for him to meet my eyes, but he doesn’t.
Without another word, I stride away. The steel door slams shut behind me with a reverberant thud.
I leave Leander behind.
But I know I’ll never really get away.
GUILLOTINE
Lachlan
I buzz the intercom for my brother Rowan’s apartment for the second time and take a step back from the panel to stare up at the brick building toward the third floor. My grip is tight around the bottle of Athrú Keshcorran whiskey as I tamp down the urge to hurtle it at the window. With a curse, I surge forward to jam my finger down on the little black button when a voice crackles over the speaker.
“If you’re selling farts in a jar, I don’t want them.”
My eyes narrow.Fionn.I love our younger brother dearly, but he’s a right little shit.
“You and I both know you order them on the internet in bulk. Let me up, ya gobshite,” I say, pulling the neck of the bottle free of the brown paper bag as I hold it toward the camera above the door. “Unless you don’t want any of this.”
The door buzzes and I step inside.
When I arrive at the third-floor landing, Fionn is there with a devious grin, leaning against the threshold of the open door as hepicks at a bag of trail mix. I can hear music, bits of conversation, and laughter trickling out of the apartment.
“Good to see you, ya little shit,” I say as I wrap my arms around him. He’s an inch taller than me, built of lean, powerful muscle that’s solid beneath my arms. He claps me hard twice on the back as though proving his strength. “How long will you be gracing us with your presence in Boston?”
“Just until Monday.”
“Or you could just stay permanently.”
“Hard pass.”
We part enough to press our foreheads together, something we’ve done since the very first moment I held him in my arms in the hospital room back in Sligo the day he was born. When he takes a step back, Fionn scrutinizes the details of my face with clinical intensity. “You look miserable.”
“And you look like a dickhead with your feckin’ bag of birdseed.”
“Omega fatty acids decrease inflammation and LDL cholesterol,” he says as I pass by to enter Rowan’s apartment, a space that takes up the entirety of the third floor in the narrow building.
“I’m sure they do. They also increase your chance of looking like a dickhead, Dr. Kane.”
Fionn chatters on about fatty acids and brain inflammation as he trails behind me down the hallway that opens to the living space of exposed brick and industrial windows. Our friend Anna casts me a wave from the kitchen, where she’s making a pair of martinis. There’s a small but fierce-looking woman sitting on the couch with a broken leg propped on the coffee table, her black cast adorned with a single gold star sticker. I realize she’s the oneRowan has been texting me about, the injured motorcycle circus performer who’s somehow found herself staying at Fionn’s place in Nebraska and who he says Sloane befriended after a crutch-wielding incident. Fionn introduces her as Rose but seems unwilling to provide any context for their relationship, which I file away for later so I can take the piss out of him. Judging by the snarky smirk on Rose’s lips, she’s thinking the same. Rowan and Sloane’s demonic cat, Winston, sits next to her raised foot, his tail flopping from one side to the other as though he’s contemplating how quickly he could bite off one of her exposed toes. My attention lands next on Sloane, who rises from her chair to approach me with a wary smile.
And then she moves aside and my breath catches as the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen steps into view. Her bright-blue eyes lock on me, her plump lips curved in a sly but warm smile, her glossy, honey-colored waves cascading across her shoulder. I think I should say something, or do something, but I can’t seem to do anything but stare.
