Page 19 of Skin Deep

Chapter6

Harrison

Ilifted my worn and tattered list, the butterfly ring against the writing. Unlike the paper, the writing was as bold as the day I’d written it, and the ring as shiny as the day I finished paying it off.

The items on my list were fucking mocking me, like the bird flying around this old pub, calling me names. If he knew how close he was to becoming stuffed, he wouldn’t keep getting close enough for me to snatch.

I had no energy to snatch anything, though. I’d never felt loss like this. Not even when I was told I’d never play baseball again. This was being told that I’d never be able to play in the game of life.

Get a decent job.Yeah, I’d done that. I’d worked almost every day for years at the stadium, while in school.

Finish school while working decent job—make good grades a priority.Been there, done that. Referenceget a decent job.

Buy ring.It sat on the edge of my pinky, too small to fit anywhere else. The girl I bought it for? Yeah, she fell in love with another man. A man who was in with my boss, Cash Kelly. She was marrying him in Italy in just a few days. A summer wedding in Sicily. I’d lost my chance with her because I took too long to prepare for a life that I knew she deserved.

Get a good paying job right out of law school—reference good grades.Maybe I had made a deal with the devil, but I still lost the woman I’d done it all for. I was getting valuable experience working with Mr. Shannon, knowledge new grads would sell a finger for, and making more money than I knew what to do with. But the point of it all disappeared when she agreed to marry another man.

Buy house.Done. I bought the house she grew up in, next to ours, on Staten Island. It still had the butterfly she painted on the wall as a kid. It was the perfect family home, but it would never be perfect, because she would never live in it with me.

The last two items on my list—ask her to marry meandlive—were as dead to me as playing ball.

Then there was the situation with my sister, Keely, and my boss, Cash Fucking Kelly. I was so blinded by my want for Mari that I never saw the truth behind his golden offer. He wanted my sister—for reasons other than love. He enticed me to work for him so he could get to her. Maybe it was a show of good faith or simply wanting me close, but he used me as a pawn. He threatened to kill me if she didn’t agree to marry him.

All of this because I fell in love.

Right girl, but she had the wrong man. A man who would never truly understand her worth. He’d do what many like him had done before: destroy the goodness that not even the mean streets of New York could kill inside of her. He’d treat love as a disease and infect her with it.

I was supposed to be an antidote in her life. Her one call.

Newman landed on my forehead. “Ass.” He squawked, then made a ticking noise with his beak.

The energy to move him was nonexistent. I was sprawled across the bar, staring up at the crumbling ceiling. The perfect backdrop for the list and the ring.

“When did you start enjoying bird ass?” Declan said, looking down at me.

My brothers were in town. They refused to leave after they found out Keely was engaged to my boss. She didn’t want me to tell them the truth, but they knew something was up. We were discussing it while we sat in Ginger’s, the pub that Lachlan had always wanted to buy. His dream bar—a piece of shit place with boarded up windows and floors so dirty our shoes needed to be wiped on the sidewalk after we walked out. Except Lachlan and Owen were down the street, checking out a bar that Oran Craig had invested in.

By invested, I mean he owned my brother, not really the bar.

Lachlan went to him with a proposition when he wasn’t seeing results fast enough. He wanted Oran to invest in Ginger’s, become a silent partner. But the Craigs wanted a more modern-day setting. Lachlan agreed. If he didn’t give the Craig’s their share, on time, with interest, my brother’s life would be on the line. He used himself as collateral. But the Craigs were known to kill off family members first, to make a point. Something Lachlan didn’t even consider, or worry about.

Declan dangled a beer over my face. A bead of water ran down the glass and fell onto my nose. “You worrying me, bro,” he said. “I’ve never seen you allow Newman to rub his ass feathers on your face before.”

I set the list down along with the ring and took the beer from him. I didn’t open it, though. I balanced it on my chest.

“Go meet up with Lach and Owen,” I said. “Someone needs to keep them in line.”

“Yeah? If I leave here, who’s going to keep you in line?”

As I was about to respond, the door opened, and Lachlan and Owen stepped inside. Laughing. Newman flew to Lachlan’s shoulder, and I turned my narrowed eyes toward them, silently sending a message.Shut the fuck up.It was like they were laughing at the death of my dreams. It was a funeral that I was awake to see. At least if they laughed at my actual funeral, it would’ve been remembering the good times. They were being disrespectful of everything I’d lost.

What pissed me off even more was that Lachlan was having a grand time, despite the shit he, also us by default, were in with the Craig deal.

“Shh,” Declan said, taking a drink of his beer. “Laughing is not allowed here.”

“Oh, I forgot,” Lachlan said, rubbing a finger up and down Newman’s chest. “We’re all supposed to be in mourning.”

Declan and Owen moved closer to each other, out of our way. Newman flew from Lachlan’s shoulder to Declan’s.

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