Chapter 32

Faye

“You realize you’re staring, right?” I ask my sister as I come down the front stairs and catch a glimpse of her standing and staring out the front, fixated on our very shirtless neighbor throwing hay bales from the back of a trailer.

“Yeah, I’m aware,” she says, and a twinge of pride has me smirking, knowing that I’ve had my hands all over that very delicious looking chest. “I know what he’s doing, but what’s with the hay? They have a dog, not horses.”

“A cow,” I tell her, watching on with embarrassingly full attention. “Where’s his shirt? It was just above freezing this morning.”

She glances at me with a baffled look. “Where are they going to house a cow? There’s not a barn on their property for that.”

I sip my black coffee. “He’s one-fourth owner of the largest bourbon brand in the world; I have a feeling if he wants to build a barn, he will.”

Nodding, she chuckles. “I can’t believe you’re sleeping with him.”

It feels like so much more than just sleeping with him. Sighing, I give her a side-eye glance. “We don’t do much sleeping. And why is that so hard to believe?”

Maggie barks out a laugh, and then shifts to fully look at me. “Faye, you’re this independent badass. And he’s a...dad.”

Okay, that’s not what I was expecting her to say.

“He’s old. Like, a decade older than you,” she says and squints like that’s the grossest thing in the world.

“He’s thirty-eight. I’m thirty. That’s not gross.”

As her gaze travels back to the front window, she says, “I mean, he’s good looking, that's very obvious. It’s like a thick-fit dad bod he’s working with.” She tilts her head to the side. “He does have that I’ll-take-care-of-you-vibe about him, though, too. And you’re...”

I wrap my hands around my mug, shifting my stance, and try not to be instantly triggered that she’s going to say something offensive. “And I’m what?”

Focused on our neighbor just beyond the screened-in porch and yard, she says, “You always take care of everyone else. You were the one who always stepped up, especially when mom couldn’t when we were little.”

My chest warms, and I feel a sense of relief that I can’t figure out how to process. But she keeps going. “I could see why you’d want to take a break from having to be that way and feel what it’s like to be on the receiving end of it.”

Eyes blurry and throat thickening with emotion, I turn my head slowly to look at her. It feels like the simplest observation, but when someone sees you and says it out loud, it’s validating. And hearing it from Maggie feels like we owe each other more than what we’ve been giving and receiving for a long time now.

“We could probably offer the barn to them since it’s barely used,” Maggie suggests. “Mom left this place to both of us, so if you think it’s a good idea, then so do I.”

I blink, not knowing how to process this, because this feels like a version of how we used to be. Sisters and friends in a way that wasn’t wholesome like an after-school special, but love and care in the small moments. Friendship that lingered in the familiarity of each other’s favorites—cake for dinner, impromptu dance parties, and an over-appreciation for Practical Magic . Our relationship was one of the most important things in the world to me when I was younger. I just had never stopped to recognize it or call it out. It was something that I felt lucky to have, and then I felt punished when I didn’t. I welcomed the punishment—for my choices, for what I helped bury and the lines I allowed to blur. And all of it had been for the wrong person—all of it was wrong.

My voice sounds raspy when I say, “Maggie?”

She stares out the window, eyes glassy, almost afraid to look at me. “Yeah?” she says as her chin wobbles.

“I’m sorry I stopped,” I tell her.

Her eyebrows pinched, she turns to me, questioning what I’m saying.

“I stopped taking care of you. I left you, and Mom.” I swallow the lump that’s rising—a tide of apologetic emotion that needs to surface and crash. I had my reasons at the time, but I should have found a better way.

A tear escapes, and she immediately bats it away as she shakes her head.

Before she can argue with me, I make her a promise. “I’m not leaving now. I can’t change the past, but I promise you, I won’t leave you again.”

She looks at me in a way that feels like she’s holding something back. It’s like she wants to say more, but instead she tilts her head forward, resting her forehead on my shoulder. She hadn’t done it in a long time. Maggie never loved getting hugs—physical touch wasn’t her favorite unless it was on her terms. And when she needed comfort, she opted for a shoulder to rest her head on while she rummaged through her thoughts. She loops her pointer finger with mine and whispers, “I missed this. Missed you.”

I look up, trying to keep more tears from streaking down my face. “Me too,” I whisper. We stay like that for another minute, letting this moment sink in as we watch Lincoln toss hay bales from behind the front porch windows.

Taking a deep breath, she wipes her face and smiles before moving through the front door and heading up the stairs. “I’m borrowing that showgirl fan with the pink fluffy feathers,” she says.

“Wait, what?” I ask, processing what she just said.

“I have a date later,” she calls out.

I hold up my finger and turn toward the stairs. “First of all, fuck no, you’re not!” I shout on a clipped laugh.

She ignores me and keeps walking. When she almost hits the top landing, she stops to look back at me. “I’d like to come to one of your shows. At Midnight Proof. If that’s okay?”

My stomach swoops with excitement, abandoning the request for my feather fan prop. It might even be nerves rooting around at the idea she’ll finally see something I’m proud of doing. It’s a part of me that feels equally vulnerable and empowered.

I swallow roughly, smiling up at her. “Yeah, that would be more than okay.”

She takes the rest of the steps two at a time and disappears from sight. The door to the bathroom shuts, and the shower turns on. When I move back out onto the porch, I feel relieved —the weight of losing her was something I didn’t even realize I carried.

Looking out the window, I watch Lincoln laugh as the owner of the trailer says something to him, and I can’t help but smile at the sight. His gloved hands grip around the bail string as it’s hoisted across the trailer hooked to his truck, forearms flexing and biceps straining as he lifts it. He’s been the perfect distraction.

As the trailer pulls out of his driveway and down our road, I open the screened-in door of the porch. The air is a pinch cooler than I was expecting, the earthy smell of hay mixed with the sweetness in the Fiasco air acting as a nice late morning pick-me-up.

My phone buzzes in my hand.

FOXX

You enjoying the show?

I look up and, sure enough, he’s looking right at me with his phone in hand. Jesus, this man is delicious. Like he’s trying to tempt me even more, he takes his glasses off and wipes his forehead before he puts them back on.

FAYE

You showing off?

FOXX

There’s this girl I’m trying to impress. You think it’s working?

FAYE

Maybe a little. Where’re Lark and Lily?

FOXX

Inside, traumatizing Kit with a sweater. Why?

Pushing my phone into my back pocket, I step a little closer to the porch stairs, angling my body so he can see me a bit better from his angle. This isn’t the usual attire I’d wear for a show, but the effect will still be the same. I unzip the hoodie I had thrown on after my shower and give him a perfect view, just like he’s been giving me. He’s far enough away that I can’t make out his facial expression, but I can see him hold his phone up to his ear just as mine vibrates in my pocket.

His voice on the other end is so low and deep, I swear I can feel the rumble through the line. “You’re entirely too comfortable showing me those perfect tits whenever I’m thinking about them.”

“I show plenty of people my tits. But you showed me yours, so...”

“Yeah, well, none of those people get to taste those beautiful things,” he hums out, and my body heats in response. “They don’t get to see your nipples go from delicate soft pink to hard and flushed darker with the simple flick of my tongue.” Moving his free arm above his head, he rests it on top of his backwards hat. “I’m going to need those for dessert later.”

Before I can say anything else, the roar of an old muscle car engine comes flying up the road. The speed at which it turns into Lincoln’s driveway almost makes the color less noticeable.

“Hadley,” he says, and I can see him shaking his head. “She’s not allowed to drive my kids anywhere. Now you know why.”

Chuckling at that, I don’t rush to cover myself up, the two sides of the hoodie moving over enough to cover what’s needed.

“I’ll see you later?” he asks, just as she throws her door open.

I can hear her voice through the phone. “You're hauling hay? What is this? Some kind of fantasy farmer draft I didn’t know about?” She follows his line of sight right toward me. I only hear the next few words before he hangs up. “Oh my gosh, you two are obsessed?—”

I bark out a laugh. She’s not wrong. I’ve quickly become obsessed with the way I feel when I’m around him. And Hadley has no problem calling him out on it.

Music from inside echoes out here. Biggie Smalls lays down his reality—it might have been all a dream, but the lyrics are too good to forget. And it has me smiling.

When I head back in, Maggie is wearing the same nostalgic smile as she struts down the stairs. A towel wrapped tightly around her hair, she smiles, and it’s wordless communication about what comes next. The music plays loudly over the speakers installed throughout the house and I meet her rhythm in the center of the hall. Save the Last Dance -style moves roll into the middle of the street “Top That” dance-off from Teen Witch. We’re both laughing as she says, “Mom could not handle your rap phase. She never understood how Biggie or Tupac were just as iconic as Stevie or Carly.”

I laugh harder at the memory. “Oh, I remember. I don’t think she ever got as riled up about anything as much as she would when she talked about music or horses.”

Maggie smiles, lowering the volume as we both catch our breath. “Did you catch any good concerts while you traveled the world?”

“It wasn’t the world, by any stretch.”

“It was away from here. Places I’ve never been, never seen—anywhere outside Fiasco feels kind of like the world to me.”

She moves into the kitchen and fills two glasses of water. Passing one to me as I follow, she says, “Then tell me about some of the places you’ve been.”

“You’ve been to Nashville, right?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

She nods. “Spring break right before graduation. A few of us drove down for a week.”

Maggie kept school local, since University of Kentucky had an equine program and computer programming. She was talented and had an eye for both. Mom had been adamant that she wasn’t going into the horse training business for Finch & King. It was a point of contention between them.

“I also did some private investigating work that brought me all over. Louisiana for a little while, and then up to the Pacific Northwest around Bend, and then Seattle. I spent a good part of a year in New York doing work on a case where the woman had been murdered, but the client was adamant she hadn’t.”

She smiles, looking down first when she says, “Like I said, badass.” And the compliment pulls a sense of pride forward. She stares back out the window, changing the subject when she says, “What’s New York like?”

“Loud. Busy. Different from how it is in stories and the movies. The lights of Times Square are overwhelming, just like the crowds there. The tree at Christmas time in Rockefeller Center is just a tree. But for some reason, surrounded by buildings and an ice rink, it feels more like Christmas than anywhere else.”

“Mom missed you at Christmas. I think not seeing you that time of year really was the hardest for her.”

My chest aches, making me want to break down and cry, because it was one of the hardest parts for me too.

The chiming ringtone of her phone interrupts the conversation. “Shit,” she says with an exhale as she types furiously away at the screen and then pockets it. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Everything okay?” I hope that she’ll tell me, but I don’t expect her to.

Grabbing her bag, she opens the front door, and says, “It will be.”

As I watch her pull out of the driveway, in my truck, I know that something needs to break here. I hate that she was forced to carry the truth of what happened that night. And that the only option she had was to stay quiet. I left her with that instead of talking to her and leaning on her the way she needed the same from me. The lashing out, gambling, all of it makes more sense to me now.

What choices exist when the end never changes?

Maggie's endings have been people leaving her. Not anymore. There’s no way I’m going anywhere knowing there are still loose ends. And knowing that Waz King isn’t just a creep, but a murderer, a manipulator, and the source of what broke my family apart. That isn’t going to be the end of our story. The thing that I did best is find out little secrets that have the power to fuck people over—and Waz has plenty.