Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (25)
You have no fucking idea who I am or what I know about consequences, she’d said as she submerged her pain beneath fury.
Her words echo through my mind as Sloane and I slow to a halt and stand before my disintegrating younger brother. The music fades into the final bars of the song.
“You okay, pretty boy?” Sloane whispers to Rowan as he replaces his damp handkerchief with a fresh one.
“You look …” Rowan trails off and clears his throat to try again. It’s an admirable attempt, but his voice remains little more than a gravelly whisper when he says, “You look so beautiful, Blackbird.”
“You kind of cleaned up okay yourself. Though I’m a bit disappointed you’re not in a velveteen dragon onesie.”
“It could use a wash,” he squeaks out.
Rose cackles off to the side and buries her grin in her bouquet. Fionn grumbles something unintelligible about sports as a blush creeps from beneath his collar. Lark joins the bridal party now that the song has finished. She’s beaming. Tears dampen her cheeks as she takes Sloane’s flowers alongside her own. And by Christ it takes me a long moment to realize that Conor just asked who was giving the bride away and it’s up to me to respond. Sloane catches the delay, of course. Her pinch on my arm is what pulls me away from trying to decode Lark, a woman who can ram some poor bloke into a lake with zero remorse, yet cries so hard at her best friend’s wedding that one of her fake lash clusters falls off. Seriously. That fucker slides right down her cheek and she swipes it into her hand, not giving two shits about anything but Sloane and Rowan.
I set Sloane’s hand in Rowan’s and try to keep my attention on my brother as he sniffles his way through his vows. Maybe there’s a sting in my nose when Conor declares them legally wed by the laws of Massachusetts. Maybe it burns a little in my throat when Rowan frames Sloane’s face between his palms and just stares at her, making sure she knows this is the most monumental event in his life.
“You’d better kiss me, pretty boy. You’re not my husband until you do,” Sloane whispers as a single tear breaches her lashes and slides toward her lips.
Rowan does kiss her, of course. He slides an arm across her back and dips her as the small audience cheers. Lark is the loudest of all.
We have a few drinks at Leytonstone Inn, where Lark’s aunt Ethel has arranged for canapés and cases of champagne, far more food and alcohol than could ever be consumed by such a small group of people, even with three rowdy Irish brothers in the mix. When everyone is sufficiently buzzed, we file into chauffeured vans and head to town. We wind up at a tavern down the road, an unfussy place filled with seaside knickknacks and wood paneling and jovial locals. A dinner of barbecue ribs and fries and beer is served with napkins printed with a logo of a melting ice cream cone and the words BUTCHER & BLACKBIRD ANNUAL AUGUST SHOWDOWN. The surprise detail makes Sloane first laugh and then cry as Rowan presses a kiss to her cheek. When the DJ starts the music and declares it’s time for a first dance, we surround my brother and his wife, and though I try not to let it show, I marvel at how far he’s come from the reckless kid who was always on my heels or making trouble for me to fix. Somehow, watching Rowan now, with his life right where it needs to be, mine feels a little empty, even though I couldn’t be happier for him. And though I mull that over as I watch, I can’t settle on a reason why.
“Asshat,” Fionn says, interrupting my thoughts as he stops next to me at the edge of the dance floor, which is filled with a combination of our little wedding party and locals who have been swept along in our celebrations.
“Doctor Doily.” I smirk when he shoots me a side-eye that’s equal parts menacing and pleading. I give a nod toward the small crowd. “Nice craic this, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Though you might have more fun if you weren’t such a dick and asked the maid of honor for a little spin on the dance floor.”
“Ahh. The bride put you up to this?”
Fionn scoffs. Rolls his eyes. “I’m a doctor, you wanker. Observational skills are kind of my thing.”
“So are crochet and a shocking inability to say no to dumb shit.”
“Stop deflecting from the issue at hand.”
“Oh, so you mean there’s a point to this conversation?”
“Damn straight there is. And the point is this: What the fuck is your problem with Lark Montague?”
Something unnamed and unexpected tightens in my chest. “What do you mean?”
Fionn grins and lets my question linger as he pulls a long sip of his beer. It takes more concentration than it should to not look to where I last saw Lark talking to the DJ and flipping through his music options. She was splashing her sunlit smile all over him, and the fucker was basking in it like he was trying to catch a feckin’ tan. Not that I was paying that much attention.
“You think you’d have learned how to be a bit smoother, seeing as how you’ve spent the last decade going through the women of Boston faster than you change your fucking socks,” Fionn finally says.
My blood heats and I tap one of my rings on my glass as I take a drink, resisting the urge to swallow the whole lot, ice and all. “I don’t know what you’re feckin’ on about.”
“I’ve been watching you look at her all day. One minute you’re glowering, the next you’re staring at her like a lost kitten, then you’re glaring at her like she ripped the head off your teddy bear.”