Page 47 of Bourbon and Proof

The small group laughed first, and then my father said, “Thought you two might get along—James here was just telling me all about the last rodeo he rode in.”

“Been a while now, actually. I did a bit of bull riding when I was younger. Never made it too far, but my brother is a helluva rider, and has won a great deal of championships,” he said proudly.

“Then why are you wearing it?” I blurted out, with my father’s attention flicking around to the dwindling crowd.

Judgement and sarcasm were laced in my tone, so when he stared at me without saying a word, it should have thrown out a warning. It was all I needed to know about him. A man who liked to show off other people's hard work and felt threatened as soon as someone challenged him.

Dinner conversation after that lingered around the latest plans for my father’s breeding facility. What started as training and racing had evolved into every facet of horse racing—stallions, mares, fillies, foals, you name it, and my father had a plan on how to capitalize on every step of a horse'slife. It wasn’t anything new, but for Finch & King, it would make them the kind of powerhouse that made a lot of people a lot of money. It was another hour of smiling and pretending to give a shit before I managed a quiet escape.

I shook out my hands and rolled my neck just as I walked into the stable. At least it was cooler here. Summers in Fiasco were always unforgiving, but this was one that felt long-winded, like a self-reflective sermon—no one asked for it. I don’t remember feeling this hot when I was lounging on the porch with the Foxx boys. Even in the late afternoon heat, they were more comfortable than an evening here. It had always been that way, since the first moment I was in their company. Like I’d belonged there, with them.

“Thought you might have run off,” a voice said from the side door. I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Your father thought it might be nice for us to get to know one another a little better.”

My stomach churned at the idea. The long corridor that led to the horse stalls was a lot of steps away, and he was blocking the closest exit.

He laughed to himself, his tongue pushing along the side of his mouth just before he said, “You’re not so good at hiding your feelings.” He held his hand up to his face. “You wear them all over.

“Oh, how nice, a man who proclaims to know what a woman is thinking. So predictable,” I said with as much sass as I could muster, knowing I was alone with him.

“Made an offer your father seems to like.” His eyebrows raised, crinkling his fivehead. He was amusing himself. “What must that be like? Knowing you’re no better than any of these horses. Being negotiated and sold off.” My stomach clenched as he laughed again. “Maybe we can just play for a little while, test each other out first...”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. “You must have missed the part where I’m not interested. So let me spell it out for you and your uneducated ass?—”

I didn’t know how he moved so quickly. His arm cocked back wide and came down hard. I couldn’t brace for it. I hadn’t expected it.

My neck snapped to the side so fast that it was going to feel like whiplash later. Later...there needed to be a later. The momentum of the open-handed slap connecting with my left cheek had me hitting the ground. The dirt felt cool along my cheek. I coughed and dusty dirt swirled into my mouth.

“What was it you were saying again, bitch?” he tutted. “Something about my ass, was it?” His overzealous belt buckle was far too close, hovering over me.

Get up, Hadley.

“I didn’t want to have to do that,” Switcher said with that same muted smile as he wiped his brow and tossed his hat on the workbench just to the left. “I can’t go havin’ you thinkin’ it’s okay to speak to me that way, sweetheart. Where I’m from, women know when to shut their mouths.”

My eyes instantly watered, and my breath caught in my throat.

The shock of a slap across the face should have left me speechless. It was my mouth that caused this pinprick to get pissed off to begin with. The point of it was to shut me up. Silence and a healthy fear have served me well, apparently, but now what? Violence wasn’t a language I knew. I was tough by most standards, but being shoved around and looked at the way he was looking at me wasn’t in my typical wheelhouse. I imagined most women felt that way—never ready, until they had to be.

I pushed up on my hands and scurried back up and on my feet in seconds. This wasn’t going to be my sad story. Or apreview of my life. I touched my cheek that was now warm, feeling higher near my eyebrow where it throbbed, and I must have hit something sharp, because there was blood on my hand when I pulled it away. I blinked back the tears that threatened to escape when I said with a saccharine smile, “Ah yes, where you’re from—the land of overcompensating for mediocrity and massive mommy issues, I bet.”

He blinked, trying to digest the words.

I took a deep breath before adding, “I should have known better just by looking at you...”

He ran his tongue over his teeth. His tooth was chipped, and where most people had two front teeth, Switcher had one front and center. Maybe someone had broken his jaw and it was never set right. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but I was good at pinpointing imperfections. They were what made people memorable. Vulnerable. Human. But the abusive womanizer with a fivehead was not the kind of person I had any interest in remembering.

There were benefits to being best friends with a man—gender roles never registered. I’d barnacled myself to Lincoln Foxx, but the payoff was that he’d done the same. Taking out our frustrations on the world meant riding fast and punching things instead of gossiping and shopping. It was the unspoken agreement Lincoln and I always had—if you needed to cry, do it while punching something. Or swinging an axe. Or slinging rocks at things that would shatter. My best friend was the one thing my father and Switcher never accounted for. He and his brothers and grandfather did something that I hadn’t even realized until this moment: Turned me more into a Foxx than a Finch.

Shifting my eyes to the left, I remembered how many steps it was from the archway of the farthest horse stall to the double doors that led out to the open fields of paddocks. My car wasparked not far from there, and the keys were in the cup holder. Switcher had an easy 100 pounds on me, but the look on the idiot's face gave nothing away, other than the fact that remorse was nowhere in sight. This fueled him. He looked proud of his choices tonight, which meant I would never feel bad about mine.

The clanking of his oversized belt buckle was as loud and motivating as the bugle that started the Kentucky fucking Derby. I couldn’t hesitate, or second guess, I could only make it hurt. And then, run.

A fire alarm jolts me, and I clasp my chest, sitting up fast. The breeze is pleasant up here in the late spring months, before the humidity settles into the rooftop. I came to my apartment to pack a few things to bring to Ace’s. I couldn’t keep sleeping in his shirts and, eventually, I’d want the rest of the things that keep me feeling good—makeup, perfume, baseball jerseys, boots and heels. The sound of pages flapping in the breeze has me glancing at my little black book that must have fallen. It’s still open on the page where I had been listing out all the summertime things that made me smile.Firecracker ice-pops, the smell of coconut sunscreen, watching lightning bugs wander in the dark.I had been replaying the rules in my mind, and the idea of marriage jogged enough of my memories to knock me back to a night I try my hardest to forget.

The door to my roof deck swings open with the breeze. The weather is always ornery in spring, and today the wind moved throughout Fiasco like it has something to say. There isn’t much up here yet. The winter igloo that had been here, I took down to prep for the lounge chairs, minibar, and plunge pool that I usually set up for summer. I lean along the edge, the chest-height bricks making it so this space isn’t dangerous, even if I’m tipsy. Up here, that's been pretty often. The fire station standsacross the street and is the gut-check reminder that I need to talk with Hawk. Too much has happened, and he needs a heads-up.

I swallow the dread of having to do it, but I press the bell that connects from here to the fire station. A fun detail that I branded my Pool Boy Bell. It was how Chief Hawkins and I ended up flirting our way into bed together. I press the bell two more times, but it’s one of the new recruits that comes out of the station’s side door. I call out, “Hey, is Chief there?”

He looks around and then up at me. “Nah, he’s out of town with his brother for a family thing. Should be back in a few days. Want me to tell him you’re looking for him?”

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