Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk #3) - Samantha Young Page 0,39

preening in the bathroom mirror as he reached for his bottle of cologne.

“Don’t,” I warned him.

He whipped around. “Don’t what?”

“Put more cologne on.”

Dermot gestured with the bottle. “Too much?”

“Yes. Unless you want to suffocate the poor girl.”

He flashed me a wide grin. “I like this one so that would be a no.”

“You like them all,” I teased.

“But this one is spicy. I like her smart mouth.” He stepped out of the bathroom. “She reminds me of you, without the icky sister factor.”

“It’s still icky,” I grumbled, even though I thought it was kind of sweet. “Also, I think the police academy would frown on you using the word icky at your age. You ever going to grow up, Derm?” I followed him downstairs.

Darragh and Davina had both moved out, but Dermot couldn’t afford to yet. As a scholarship student at MassArt (Massachusetts College of Art & Design), I couldn’t afford student housing, and as a student at a beauty academy in the city, my nineteen-year-old sister Dillon definitely still lived at home too.

“It’s all relative,” Dermot answered breezily. “I’ll be mature as a cop.”

I snickered. “But not out of the uniform?”

“Now where would the fun in that be?”

“In what?” Davina asked from the couch. She’d come over for dinner, and Dillon had talked her into being a guinea pig for the night. She had one eye entirely made up with makeup and the other not. It was very Clockwork Orange.

“Nothing.” Dermot grabbed his jacket and keys. “Mom, I’m out!” he yelled through to the kitchen.

She called back to him to wait, but he darted out the door and was gone by the time she walked into the sitting room. Mom frowned. “Where did he go?”

“Date,” I answered succinctly. “Speaking of …” I pulled my cell out of the back pocket of my jeans and checked it.

Nothing.

Gary was supposed to be picking me up in five minutes for date night, and he usually texted to let me know he was on his way.

“He owes your dad and me grocery money,” Mom grumbled. “Who is he spending it on this time?”

“Abigail,” Dillon answered. “I think.”

“Addison,” I corrected. “Her name is Addison.”

Mom curled her lip. “She sounds stuck-up.”

I grunted, used to her judging my brother’s girlfriends before she’d even met them. Mom was the total cliché who believed no girl deserved her sons. My phone beeped, and I flipped it open, only for my heart to sink.

Sorry, doll. Gotta cancel. Workin’ late. Call you later.

“Great.” I sat down on the stairs with a heavy sigh.

“What is it?” Mom asked.

She was frowning down at me in concern, so I made the stupid mistake of giving her the truth. “Gary canceled our date for tonight.”

She shook her head. “I told you he was a loser.”

Indignation rushed through me. “He’s working late.”

“So he says.”

“Mom,” Davina warned from the couch.

Mom ignored her, glaring down at me. “What is this guy doing with his life, huh? A mechanic in his uncle’s garage. Oh, there’s a career.”

“He’s still young,” I argued through gritted teeth. “He’s got time to decide.”

“In the meantime, he gets you knocked up, and your dad and I are lumbered with two kids raising a kid because one’s a mechanic who doesn’t make a lot of money, and the other is smart-assing around a fuckin’ art college.”

Oh, here we go.

“Mom …” Dillon sighed in frustration.

I stood up and glowered at my mother. “Why do you always do this when Dad isn’t around to hear it?” Dad was working night shift.

Anger pinched my mom’s pretty face. “Because he mollycoddles you. That’s how you ended up at fuckin’ art school in the first place. What are you going to do with that degree, huh? Because if you think you can waste a perfectly good scholarship on art school, come out with nothing for it, and end up staying with us, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I’ll get a job,” I seethed.

“Doing what?”

“A jewelry designer,” I announced. I’d been loving my silversmithing classes and was leaning more and more toward jewelry design. However, I hadn’t wanted to admit that to my mom yet in case I failed. I was always blurting shit out around her I didn’t mean to.

She scoffed. “A jewelry designer? Oh my God, your head is so far up your ass in dreamland. Do you know how many people succeed as jewelry designers?”

I clenched my fists at my sides. “I’ll be one of them.”

“Why? Because you’re special? It takes more than a little creativity to make a