Page 25 of Bourbon and Lies

A massive crack of lightning makes me jump, and a yelp escapes me as the thunder follows. It sounds more like a beast waking than the mingling of warm and cold air. I know logically, it’s just a noise, but my heart beats wildly. I can’t catch my breath, and I’m feeling lightheaded.What the hell is wrong with me?Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to take a deep breath, but it can’t get past my throat. I brace my hands on my knees. I refuse to pass out. I’ve never felt panic before. I faced a monster who stared right back and didn’t stumble. I wasn’t going to let thunder and lightning knock me around.

“Close your mouth and breathe through your nose,” a deep voice says softly to my right.Grant.I don’t want to think aboutanyone seeing me like this, but I don’t have much of a choice other than to listen to him. I give it a try, but the air still won’t move past my throat. It has my eyes blurring with tears.

“I need you to relax, and then purse your lips like you’re going to whistle, Laney. Breathe out.” He smiles. “Tawney can smell those peppermints in your fist. So let’s take a deep breath, and then you can be her favorite person today.” Reaching out, he pushes a piece of hair back behind my ear. “Do it again, in through your nose. And out through your lips.” His fingers trail down my hair to my shoulder and then farther down to my arm. It’s a distraction that I don’t think he intended, but in the wake of his fingertips, he leaves goosebumps. And I start to relax.

When a snort over my shoulder blows hair across my face, I laugh lightly. It eases my heart rate. The next breath pulls in deeper, and the next comes easier. My eyes clear. I watch Grant as he watches me, inches from each other. No judgment or scowl anywhere, just kindness. Maybe even a sense of familiarity, I’m not sure, but it makes me feel less alone than I have in a while. I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand this moment of peace between us, and I want it to stay this way.

My limbs are shaky, a sheen of sweat coating my skin, but the worst part is over with, I think. He’s gotten me through it.

“It was early in the morning when I would struggle most. It had me stuck in my house, in my bed, for longer than I’d care to admit.” He keeps talking and sharing as he gets up from being crouched in front of me to rub a hard-bristled brush along Tawney’s body. I like hearing him talk to me like this, but I already miss the comfort of his touch. “She won’t bite,” he says with a smirk. “Just nibble, if you don’t give her one of those.” He tilts his chin toward my closed fist.

I open a red-and-white candy and hold it out to her. It disappears in seconds. I laugh when she snorts and nudges my hand for more. Instead, I glide my hand along her head. Her bigblack eyes look into mine, and it’s like we exchange something. Another laugh escapes me, this one filled with hope. Like if I don’t laugh, those tears from moments ago will fall. This entire situation has my emotions all over the place.

When I look away from the massive horse in front of me, Grant’s hazel eyes study me, searching for a reason for my strange reaction. Maybe even why he shared any of himself with me. Maybe both. I know he wants to know more about me in return, but I heard Bea—keep the truth close.The silence lingering has me wondering if I’m not cooperating. He shared something with me, and I can’t reciprocate.

His jaw tenses, and I can see the muscle tic. I can’t tell what he’s thinking or if he remembers he’s been ignoring me this past week.

“She’s impressive,” I say, trying to lighten whatever just happened. But he doesn’t let me escape that easily.

He searches my face, his eyes landing on my lips, before he says in a low gravel, “She is. Impressive. Strong. So fucking beautiful.”

Chapter 13

Laney

“This Manhattan isthe best I’ve ever had.” I shed the black leather jacket I borrowed. Hadley demanded that I wear this very low-cut black dress, because “my tits will look impeccable in it.” I couldn’t say no after that and, really, they do. It’s the best I’ve felt about myself in a while.

Grant looked at my lips and then I swear his voice dropped an octave when he said,“So fucking beautiful.”I nearly passed out again. I would have let him kiss me. Truthfully, I would have let him do a treasure-trove of things to me after the way he talked to me in the stables and made sure I was okay. It only took his horse to kick her stall that had him snapping out of whatever trance he was under. He pulled back so fast, I’m not even sure he said goodbye. Maybe I had blacked out and dreamt the whole thing. If it hadn’t been for Julep walking next to me on the way back to the cottage, I would have second guessed if it actually happened.

Hadley texted that she was kidnapping me tonight, and I let her. Getting away from the Foxx distillery and anyone with the last name Foxx for the night sounded like a great escape. I needed a breather from the heaviness of the day, that thunderstorm, and the stables.

As soon as we walked into the front of the small French bakery and toward the back hallway along the kitchen, I knew this place was going to be impressive. Most speakeasies are a throwback to the prohibition era, when alcohol was illegal and any establishment that wanted to serve it had to be hidden in plain sight. In Fiasco, Midnight Proof can be found down a flight of stairs in the back of Crescent de Lune.

The black-painted walls that greeted us as we were buzzed in set the mood for the kind of place this was going to be. I haven’t seen anywhere as impressive as Midnight Proof, and I’ve been to plenty of places in New York City that held year-long waitlists. No, Midnight Proof is a clash of the late 1920s Gatsby-style with a ceiling that replicates the starry night sky and the live music of a three-piece jazz band as its soundtrack.

For the past couple of hours, the mix of tourists and locals has kept the room buzzing. Low conversations and laughter just a notch louder than the band. Hadley greeted everyone with either a beaming smile or a two-cheeked kiss. “It’s a tie between the sour-cherry smash and this one for me. Here, give me one second.” She walks to the far end behind the bar and shakes up a dirty martini for an older man who’s been shamelessly checking her out since we arrived. He wasn’t the only one. Hadley had fans—men and women who looked for excuses to get her attention. She was magnetic and her charm bled all over this place.

Whispering couples fill the intimate pink velvet booths peppered around the edges of the room. Toward the center are larger plush couches and low coffee tables between them forbigger groups. And around the sprawling bar, small couplings of friends gather out for the night or singles look to find a person to drink and flirt with. Between the crowd, the rich jewel tones, and the warm lighting, Midnight Proof makes you feel like you’re the main character of a sexy evening you’ve randomly stumbled into.

“Looks like you have a fan,” I say, smiling at my new friend. Her long black hair flows into pretty waves, offsetting her light blue eyes. Not a single person here would refute the simple fact that Hadley Finch is stunning.

She’s easy to be around too. “I never take customers home, but that one is making it really hard to remember why.”

“Does it have anything to do with one of those unnaturally attractive Foxx brothers?”

She smiles as she reaches below the bar in front of me, ignoring the comment. “Okay, this is my favorite new liqueur.” Holding up a bottle, she starts pouring it into two shot glasses.

I hold up my hand. “I’m already tipsy. I can’t.”

“Sip on it, don’t take it as a shot. It’s a pistachio cream liqueur. If you sip it alongside an espresso martini, it’s absolute heaven.” With a tilt of her head, she smiles at me. “Next time for the espresso martini.” She clinks her glass with mine and takes a small sip. “Can I say something if you promise not to take it the wrong way?”

My smile falters. Nothing good ever comes from a preamble like that. “That has to be the worst way to start a conversation, Hadley. And I’m almost drunk, so I can’t be certain how well my filter is working.” Although lately, I haven’t been filtering much, with the exception of what brought me to Fiasco.

She nods and looks at me as if she’s about to tell me something awful. Little does she know, awful things and I are well acquainted.

“They’re my family,” Hadley says, leaning on the bar. “I’ve been a part of the Foxx family since I refused to stop following Lincoln home as a middle schooler. They couldn’t get rid of me if they tried. Luckily, they never did. Those men just folded me into their lives. I love them.” She sips her light green liqueur, and I do the same, savoring the sweet, nutty flavor. “So if you’re here to make any kind of trouble for them, then this is me kindly asking you not to.”

I smirk, eyes narrowing on her playfully. “Asking?”