Page 15 of Bourbon and Secrets

“Lark, that’s theentiresoftball team. Not a few friends,” I say as calmly as my brain will allow. “Can you pick two?”

She exhales heavily and tilts her head like the question is ridiculous. “Dad...”

Clearly the wrong question—leave it to a pre-teen to have you second guessing the kind of parent you actually are.

“My softball friends are really my best friends, but if I invite some of them, then I have to invite all of them. So that would be somewhere around twenty–ish.”

“This is not winning me over. What happened to fifteen? I liked that number better.”

She rolls her eyes, but instead of letting her fall down the rabbit hole of catching an attitude from this my-dad-is-so-lame moment, I open the top of the ice cream tub and try to throw her off her game.

“Come, tell me if this is poison before I try it. You’re younger, you’re more likely to survive.”

A small smile cracks out.

Got her.

She digs into the new container, taking out a massive hunk of the chocolate peanut butter swirl.

Almost exactly as the ice cream hits Lark’s mouth, Lily runs into the kitchen, sliding a solid three feet in her fuzzy socks until she ricochets an arm length from the counter. “Dad, please, please, please, can I have ice cream?”

“You have an Oreo in your hand.”

She plops it in her mouth and then holds up her now empty hands. With her cheeks filled while she chews, she gives me a double thumbs up. I stifle a laugh because it’s exactly what I would have done at her age.

Lark digs in for another spoonful and says, “Then fifteen for the party is okay?”

I’m being hustled by my own kid. “You swindled me, didn’t you?”

Over a mouthful of ice cream, she smiles. “I learned from the best.”

“Mhmmm, I see how it is.” Licking my spoon, I drop it in the sink. “Bedtime tonight is nine o’clock,” I tell them while I grab the sprinkles from the top cabinet. “You both had a busy week. I don’t want to come home and you’re still awake.”

“When are you coming home?” Lark asks as she clinks spoons with her sister.

“Late. And definitely after nine.”

“Are you going on a date?” Lily pipes up. The question has me pausing, because they’ve never asked me that before. I’ll get an occasional update about a friend’s mom asking if I’m still single, but they make barf faces and never really say much else.

I clear my throat. “Nope, just meeting a new friend.”

And that's the truth. I haven’t been interested in dating. Flirting, drinks, and some casual encounters are the extent. I’d already had the parts of life that allowed for more. The falling in love, marrying, kids, and then slowly falling out of love. And even after that, it didn’t end well. Hell, anyone who knows my last name doesn’t want that either. It’s foolish, but it feels too real to ignore the fact that just about any woman who fell in love with a Foxx ended up dying. With the exception of my new sister-in-law, Laney, who barely escaped a massive fire, a rickhouse explosion, and a serial killer. My hope is that she paid her penance to carry our last name and avoid the curse.

My girls don’t need to know why there won’t be anyone coming into their lives. It just isn’t something I want.

“What new friend?” Grant asks as he walks through the living room and toward the kitchen.

“Uncle Grant!” Lily shouts and jumps up on the couch, catapulting herself onto his back.

“Never gets old,” he says with a smile, as Lark gives him a high-five and knuckles.

“I’m assuming you’re heading to Midnight Proof at some point?”

I look around for my other boot. “Yeah, why?”

“Hadley roped Laney into bartending with her tonight.” He gives me a look that I know very well—he’s not thrilled about it. “Keep an eye on my wife, please.”

My brother has always been possessive of the people in his life, but he took that up a notch after Laney came waltzing into his world. It feels good to see my kid brother in love and happyagain. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever get to witness it. We’d had a handful of tough years—the Foxx family. It messed Grant up in a way I understood, because I was experiencing it too.

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