He shrugs. “You’re a hard man to read sometimes.”
I roll my eyes. “Same story, different day.”
“Well…” He walks over to the desk and pulls out two glasses and a bottle of Blanton’s.
“Why not?”
He pours me two ounces neat then slides the glass across the desk. I sit in the chair across from him and can feel the words on the tip of my tongue. I want to let him in, but I’ve kept him out for so long. I’m scared that once I remove one brick, the entire wall will fall like dominoes and that’s not something I’m ready for, or will ever be ready for.
“This is good.” I hold up the glass.
“I know. One of my favorites.”
“Hey,” I pause, taking another sip. “Did you ever get all the tops?”
“Tops?”
“Of the Blanton’s bottles? I know when I left for my tour, you had just started trying to collect them all.”
“Oh. Yea. No. I never did. I think I had B, A, N, and T. I kept trying to find the other letters, but had the hardest time. All the N’s I was finding were the first one.”
“Shame.”
“Yea. I could have hung it on my wall up here or something.”
“It would look nice. Where are the tops now?”
“I don’t know. Probably in some storage case stuffed in a bedroom closet.” He laughs. “I see what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“Getting me to talk about bourbon, so I’ll stop trying to pry into you.”
Busted.
“Hey.” He knocks back the rest of his drink. “How about you take the rest of the night?”
“It’s almost eleven. You still have three hours.”
“I know. It’s fine. I have Knox here.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
He laughs and knows I’m kidding. Knox is like my little brother. When he came to the house, he stuck to us like glue. To me especially. It was probably my outgoing, open personality that said please talk to me. No matter how rude I was to him, or how many times I tried to push him away, he always stayed around. One time, in school, some kids were making fun of me and my brother. Callum wasn’t there, but Knox was. He stepped up in those guys' faces and ripped them a new one. He was at least an entire head shorter than their shortest guy, but he didn’t care.Nobody messes with his brother.
Little shit stain got under my skin then, so I took him under my wing. I think it was all part of his master plan and he’s playing some long game. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to fall, but it hasn’t yet. He annoys the piss out of me most hours of most days, but he’s the most loyal jackhole there is and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Oh stop. He’s really been stepping up lately. He was never a bad business partner, but I can tell he wants to take a more active role in all of our business dealings.”
“You going to let him run Allure?”
“Well, Sammie has to accept our offer.”
“It’s a very attractive offer. It’s going to make us a lot less liquid for the next several years, on top of making it difficult to invest in anything.”
“I know.”
“But Everlee wants it,” I mock, repeating his words back to him.
