Chapter 29

Faye

He searches my face. The most I know is that Olivia died the same night that I kissed and blackmailed him. It was the only thing that Fiasco had talked about those following days after I buried a body—Olivia Foxx collapsing in her kitchen of a brain aneurysm. She was too young, too full of life, and all of it happened without warning. That’s what death always felt like to me.

I hate that night for so many reasons, and I hate it even more for how much it hurt him.

“Do you know the first time I saw you, you were demolishing a peach?” he asks as he brushes his fingers across his face to show exactly what he means by demolish.

I bark out a laugh and settle in next to him.

“You either didn’t give a shit or it was just that good. And I remember thinking that I wanted to be like that. Messy and not giving a single shit about the cleanup...Don’t take that wrong. It was not dirty or sexual in any way. I was just impressed.” He reaches out and runs a finger along the knuckles of my hand. A simple touch in a place that shouldn’t matter, but the sweetness of it made me want him all over again. “It was the first farmers’ market of the summer and a few weeks before I ran into you in that cornfield.”

“I remember that farmers’ market.” I smile fondly. “And those peaches. That was a couple weeks shy from my move back home from Frankfort. I came to celebrate Maggie’s twentieth birthday. We demolished the peach cobbler my mom made from those peaches. Then we fell asleep on the porch after far too many shots.”

His smile doesn’t reach the corners of his eyes or pull out his dimples. “My life back then felt really...” He stares at the path he keeps drawing along my skin. “It wasn’t all bad. I just hadn’t ever failed at anything the way I failed at the one thing I promised I’d do.”

I shift my body closer, but it’s not close enough for him, so he grabs under my thighs and drapes me on top of him. We let a little bit of silence settle between us.

“What did you promise?” I ask. As I run my fingers from the front of his hairline and back, his eyes close.

“That I’d love my wife. Through everything. I would love her. And I didn’t do that. Not well enough, at least.”

My brow furrows at that.

“She slept with someone else,” he admits, and my fingers stop their motion. “Maybe more than just one; she wasn’t clear about that. Only that she was moving on with her life. And that meant without me.”

I hadn’t expected him to say that. Anyone who knew Lincoln and Olivia Foxx would have told you they were in love and happy.

His eyes meet my sad ones, and he moves my hand so I keep doing what I had been. When I see the comfort it gives him, something about it gives me comfort too.

“We had been short with each other. A lot. After Lark was born, it felt like she hated me. Neither of us did anything right, according to the other. There were blips of us being happy, but—” Shaking his head, he draws small lines across the top of my hand and around my wrist. “I thought it was just a bad patch. That we needed to grow through it. But I backed off. Started working longer hours. I didn’t make us a priority. I did the things I knew I could do right—making bourbon, being a dad, building out our business. But in hindsight, it was the wrong call. She said, ‘This is broken. We’re broken. And I have no desire to fix it. I stopped loving you a long time ago.’ I’ll never forget it, because it was one of the last things she said to me. ”

I tip his chin up to look at me, my heart in my throat. “Lincoln, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Nobody knows, other than Hadley, and now you.” He sucks in a breath. “It felt wrong to air that to the world when she had died so unexpectedly. She was so young, and it tears me up that she left this world unhappy with her life. I hate that. But I was so fucking mad at her and at myself for having to pretend I was the loving husband in mourning. I wasn’t; I was still angry with her. And I hate that my girls have to miss her.”

“If I knew?—”

But he cuts me off, “I fucking hated that you pushed me that night, putting me in another impossible situation.” His eyes glaze over with tears he blinks back. “Things between us had been over—she wanted a clean break and then she died. And I’ve been paralyzed by what that meant for a long time.”

I rest my forehead on his and hold him a little tighter. “I’m so sorry.”

He leans into me when he says, “I can’t lose any more people, Faye. Women do not survive after loving one of us. Grant lost Del’s daughter, Fiona, Griz lost my nana, then Shelby. Ace won’t go anywhere near a relationship, casual or otherwise...”

“Grant and Laney?” I ask.

“I’m nervous that one day I’ll get a call that she’s gone too.” He drags his hand through his hair, pushing out a harsh breath. “And I feel like a hypocrite because I told my brother to stop holding back, but now that I found...” His eyes lock onto mine, and I know what he’s thinking.

“Don’t do that to yourself,” I say, stopping him. “You are so many things to so many people. A dad, a grandson, brother, friend—and that’s just in your personal life. Those are a lot of places where you need to step up and be the strong one. I’ve been trying to step up and be that my entire life. It’s hard every single day. And you do it so effortlessly too.” I run my fingers along his hairline and down toward the back of his neck. “There’s nothing hypocritical about loving the people in your life. You can worry about what will happen or you can choose to enjoy people while they’re with you.”

Nodding subtly, he leans into the way I’m touching him. There are parts of this man that feel so much like me, but the way he can make the people around him feel so good and cared for without it seeming like much effort at all has me not wanting to leave his side. And as we lie together, I let myself do exactly what I just told him and enjoy what I have with Lincoln Foxx while I can.

The thunder turns into a low rumble. A constant hum that never seems to end.

I blink my eyes open, and a wet nose surrounded by black and brown fur rests on the edge of the bed, inches from my face. “Good morning, Kit.” Growls turn into whines as her tail thwaps on the hardwood floor below her. “Where’s Lincoln?” I whisper.

She jumps onto the bed as an answer, which would be more of an issue if Lincoln was sleeping next to me. The drapes have been pulled shut, but they still let in enough light to let me know the day has begun. Our clothes from last night are still thrown around the floor and I am very naked under these sheets. Dropping my head back to the pillow, I pet Kit as I remember last night and how it feels to be wrapped up in Lincoln. I can't stop the smile I have, looking up at the vaulted ceiling and noticing the colors of the wooden beams. I’m relieved to be in here and not in a room he’d shared with his wife. He’s already had so many firsts in his life that I haven’t had yet—love, marriage, building a family. It’s a dangerous thought spiral to run down if I let myself.

Kit lets out another growl. “Yes, I need to get up. How did you get in here anyway?”

I spend a minute combing my fingers through my hair and washing the leftover makeup off my face. After tossing on a white Foxx Bourbon t-shirt, I swish with the mouthwash on the counter and listen at the door for a moment, but the only thing I can hear is a teakettle whistling and the sound of something being fried in a pan.

There’s plenty I left unsaid last night, but a part of me feels so good. Happy .

I didn’t tell him the details that Maggie shared with me. What she saw. I couldn’t put him or his girls in any more danger, and if he knew more, I felt like I would be. He’s the kind of man to stop at nothing to protect the ones he loves and, selfishly, I’m not ready for him to either push me away, or worse, do something he shouldn’t, like confront Waz.

“What does that mean, ‘she’s your friend’?” Lily asks. I stop short. I hadn’t heard anyone. Shit. “She’s my friend too, right?”

Lark pipes in, “Yeah, but Dad is going to suck face with her too.”

I slap my hand over my mouth, trying to hold in my laugh.

“Ew, why? Do you mean kiss her?” Lily says. “Dad, is she a kissing friend like Jordan?”

Lincoln says, “Yes—Wait, who the fuck is Jordan?”

“Curse purse,” the girls say in unison.

I inch forward to see if there’s an easy path out of here. Nope. Instead, I watch Lincoln in a pair of those thin cotton pants, black this time, hanging low on his hips. He’s in a cut-off shirt and a black baseball hat turned backwards as he serves out scrambled eggs from a pan. I swallow and feel my cheeks heat instantly at the sight.

“It’s been me and you two for a while now. And I’m not saying that’s going to change, but I like Faye. I’d like to spend more time with her, and I want to make sure you’re both okay with that,” he says.

“What if we weren’t?” Lark asks.

I lean against the hallway wall and struggle to hear his response. “Then I would have to see if she’d wait for me until you were.”

It isn’t the answer I was expecting and part of me wants to throw my fist up in the air while the other is terrified that he’s serious.

“Well, I think she’s amazing. And I think you should kiss her as much as you want, Dad,” Lily says as she chews on something.

A fork clatters against the plate like someone dropped it, and I quickly try to decide if I should listen to any more. This isn’t meant for me to hear. This is for them.

“Lark, you saw the beauty mark. It’s not a coincidence,” Lily says, and then whispers something else I can’t make out.

The tapping of nails hitting the hardwood gets louder as Kit turns the corner and is headed right for me, barking like she’s tattling on my presence. I raise my finger in front of my lips as if the dog has any idea what that means. Instead, she sits in front of me and starts whining.

“Good morning,” Lincoln says with a smile, peering into the hall.

“Hi,” I whisper, eyes wide as I gesture to his girls. “Should I crawl out the window or something?”

He holds out his hand and then leans in to grab mine. “Come on. I can’t keep this a secret from them.”

And just hearing it makes me realize that I’m completely in over my head with a man like this. But instead of holding back and pushing him away, I hold on to him.

“Look who I found creeping in the hallway with Kit,” he says.

The dog barks at hearing her name. Lily waves, and Lark says, “Hi, Faye.”

It’s a better response than I was expecting after listening to that exchange. “Hi, girls. Thanks for letting me crash your breakfast party.”

Lincoln kisses the top of my head and ushers me over to the end of the counter. He tosses a dish towel over his shoulder and grabs the pan of eggs. “Alright, I’ve got scrambled eggs. Those two ate all the bacon, but...” He turns and grabs a bowl. “Avocado. Here’s the hot sauce. And we have strawberries and some figs as well.”

And while I’m wildly impressed by any kind of breakfast being made for me, it's actually the coffee mug and pint glass in front of me that catches me by surprise.

“And I didn’t know how you were feeling this morning, so I did a black coffee, hot—like mine. And an iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk and cinnamon.” Grabbing a straw from the drawer in front of him, he puts it in the iced coffee cup. “I had to call my sister-in-law to ask what the hell something iced and sweet was, and we came up with this.”

Is he serious?

“Are you okay?” Lily asks from my side. “Dad, is she okay?”

I’m having an internal hip-hop dance party regarding the gesture her father just made. It feels too nice to be surprised by someone like this. I focus on the blue eyes watching me behind his black-rimmed glasses and get distracted by the dimples that peek out as a knowing smile takes over his face. He knows he did good.

“Which one are you feeling today?”

“Black would have been just fine, but I’m thinking I could go for something sweet.” I take a sip, and he gives me a wink. I eat the breakfast he made for all of us, feeling oddly comfortable, and he chats with Lily about her newest playlist.

“Those blow-up disco balls look like fun. Are you guys having a party?” I ask as I look across the room and see a pile of decorations in their packages, from confetti poppers to glitter streamers.

“My birthday is this weekend, but tonight is my sleepover party,” Lark answers. “It’s my first one and Dad went all out. He even said yes to individual tents for all of us.”

It’s impossible not to smile at her excitement. And the fact that she’s telling me about it.

“I got special pajamas for it too,” Lily shares, but Lark shuts that down.

“Dad, does Lily really have to be here for the whole thing? It’s not fair. I just want to have my friends and not her.”

Lily pushes her plate forward and crosses her arms. “You’re my big sister, why can’t I be excited about your birthday?” Hopping off her chair with a huff, she storms upstairs.

Lincoln looks at his oldest with the definition of a “dad glare,” and then glances at me as I’m taking a bite of sliced fig.

“Lark,” he grits out. “That really was mean. I told you I was going to keep her busy for most of the party so you had time with your friends, but you can’t say that to her. She thinks you’re the coolest person to ever exist.”

Lark tilts her head back and lets out a dramatic sigh. “Fine.”

“I wouldn’t mind some company later today. If Lily’s free, I was thinking it might be nice to have a tour around Fiasco from a local.”

Before Lincoln can even answer whether that’s a good idea, Lily comes charging down the stairs, practically running Lark over in the process. “Yes, I’ll do it. Can I go with Faye, Dad? Please. Please.”

He points at Lily, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “We’re going to talk about Jordan.”

She gives him a wide-eyed look and shakes her head. “Faye, please tell my dad that I’m nine. I do not have kissing friends...yet.”

I laugh out, “I am just an observer here.” Then when he turns around, still listening, I stage-whisper to her, “But I’m not against hearing all about it.”