Golden, tan, and blonder than ever. He moved into a penthouse downtown with a girl named Sailor, who’d been hired as his babysitter. I’d seen her a few times, when her mother used to cook for us on special occasions.
Da liked to rule all of us with an iron fist, and Hunter was by far the hardest to tame.
A few days after Hunter and Sailor moved in together, I’d visited him at his penthouse. Sailor was out, and he was taking one of his extras long showers, which I suspected involved a lot of self-pleasuring, seeing as he wasn’t allowed to date anyone since moving back to Boston.
I gave myself a tour around the living room, which looked like it had been staged by a professional before being put on the market for sale. Everything was too neat, too shiny, too modern to look livable. The only hint that people actually lived here was a row of pictures sitting on the mantel by the floor-to-ceiling window. Even before approaching them, I knew they were put there by Sailor, not Hunter.
Hunter never did consider himself to have a true family, and seeing as he’d lived away from the house since age six, I couldn’t exactly blame him.
My curiosity got the better of me, and I walked over to the mantel. The first picture was of the young redheaded woman, which I recognized as Sailor, her face youthful and full of freckles, hugging a middle-aged, dark-haired man and an older replica of herself, whom I recognized as Sparrow.
The second picture was of the redheaded girl at a party with two blonde women her age. They were all laughing, wearing goofy neon sunglasses.
I recognized them as the Penrose sisters. They were on the local news the other day, for shoveling snow outside senior citizens’ houses.
The third …
The third was a picture of Sailor and the Monster.
My monster.
The guy from the carnival.
He stared into the camera, looking grim and serious, while she looked at him like he was the moon. Her spot of light in the endless darkness.
“Yup. That’s her. My ball-busting roommate,” I heard a voice behind me and jumped back with a gasp, slapping a hand over my chest, afraid my heart would accidentally leap out.
I turned around quickly and offered Hunter a polite smile. We were still more acquaintances than siblings.
“She looks beautiful.”
He shrugged, sauntering deeper into the living room with a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else, his blond hair dripping water. “She’s okay.”
“I’m guessing those are her parents.” I pointed at the first picture, playing innocent. He nodded.
“And these two?” I moved to the Penrose sisters, playing dumb. My heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling about these girls. This group. I wanted to be a part of them.
“Persephone and Emmabelle. Her best friends. They’re sisters. Another bucket list dream I can’t fulfill because Sailor is on my case.”
“What do you mean? What do you want to do to them?”
“I want to do them.” He rolled his eyes, looking at me like I was a complete moron.
“And who is this guy?” I asked nonchalantly, pointing at Monster. This was it. My big moment to find out his name. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I found out he was her boyfriend. How could I tell my brother that he was living with a woman who was dating a murderer?
But no. That wasn’t the thing that bothered me the most about the idea of Sailor and Monster being together. It was the fact that he had a girlfriend. That he had moved on. Of course he would. All we shared was a kiss and a theme park ride.
I thought I was going to be sick.
“That’s Sam Brennan.” Hunter ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back. “Her brother. Well, adoptive brother, I guess. Her parents adopted him when she was barely a toddler. A real piece of work and the current number one mobster in Boston. All the gangs and mafia families on the East Coast have a bounty on his head. His chances of reaching an old age are below zero.”
The Monster was a mobster.
No surprises there.
But now he had a name, an identity, a context.
Things were about to become very complicated.
Aisling 18, Sam 26.
“For heaven’s sake, Aisling, what are you doing? They’re here. Hurry up!” Mother chided me, her heels clicking on the marble floor behind me. My mother’s delicate fingers wrapped around my wrist, tugging me.
“Come on, you know I don’t do small talk very well. You’ll need to save me from mingling. Especially with the matriarch. She works for a living. You know I don’t do well with the middle class.”
I followed her to the foyer, a boulder the size of Connecticut settling in the pit of my stomach.