little of both.
“That upsets you?” I ask. I clink the ice around in my empty glass.
Dark gray eyes find mine, nearly knocking me down with their severity. “I don’t know what it does to me, Lydia. This is new to me.”
Heat prickles the palms of my hands, and uncertainty spicier than the bourbon overpowers any expectations I arrived with. The lingering taste of vanilla on my lips turns to silt and pride has me scoping out the nearest exit. Anxiety fastens on to my elbows and knees like bolts and screws, turning tighter and tighter as each second goes by.
“What are you doing?” Talent asks. He moves his chair back to the table. “I recognize that look on your face. Don’t do that. Don’t leave. We just got here.”
“You’re the second person today who’s said I have a look,” I say, surprised I had air in my lungs to speak. “I don’t have a look.”
“The fuck you don’t.” Talent stops when our waitress arrives to deliver our bottle of whisky. She places one glass in front of me and the other in front of Talent. When she retreats, promising to be back to check on us soon, he continues, “The muscles in your jaw tighten and two little creases appear between your eyebrows.”
I laugh out loud. “That’s bullshit.”
Talent pops the top from our bottle and pours us each a finger, smiling and nodding. “I saw it when you bolted from my office and again when you ran from the coffee shop last week.”
“I didn’t run.”
He winks and holds his glass up. “Let’s make a toast.”
Contemplating the drink and how my laugh slackened the onslaught unease unleashed upon me, I take my glass and hold it close to his and say, “I’ll have one drink.”
“You won’t regret it.”
“What should we toast to?” I ask.
“To that motherfucker Phillip Vogel. Without him, I’d never have found you.” Talent lifts his glass. He smirks. “He’s still a dead man.”
Twelve-hundred-dollar whisky goes down as smooth as Talent’s charm. One promised drink turns into three, and I’ve tied my hair up and taken my jacket off as the temperature in the bar rises. Our conversation is mostly one-sided with Talent doing all the talking. He doesn’t mind, even pulling his chair to my side of the table as the bar fills up just like he said it would.
He speaks over the commotion and serves himself twice as many drinks as I’ve had.
“My brother, Wilder, is the responsible son. He’ll take over the business once my dad steps down,” he rambles, going on and on about people I’ll never know and a business I don’t understand.
I hang on to every word, not necessarily to understand what he’s talking about, but to memorize the way his lips move around each syllable and to hear how his tone changes when he’s curious, excited, and happy. He talks with his hands and shoulders, expressing just as much through body language and swagger as his voice.
Talent Ridge is all whisky eyes and whisky smiles. He slides his hand across the back of my chair, and it’s easy to pretend I’m not a prostitute and he doesn’t merely want to pay me for sexual favors. I suppose this is what it’s like to be out with a friend, but it’s hard to place myself in this setting without motives attached. Even if this feels real, I know it’s not.
“Is that why you’re here with me?” I ask once he’s done giving multiple examples as to why Wilder is a better son and brother than he is. “Because you don’t think you’re as good as your older brother? It doesn’t sound like he’d ever be caught dead with an escort in public, but maybe it’s almost expected from you.”
He shakes his head, turning his gaze away bashfully. “It’s not like that, Lydia. He’s not entirely good, and I’m not the defiant son who’s suffocating under my father’s watchful eye. We’re not the normal family everyone seems to think we are. Wilder just happens to follow the rules better than I do.”
“Sounds like my kind of guy,” I say, sliding my empty glass toward the bottle for a refill.
“Now that you mention it, you two are a lot alike in that no-sense-of-humor type of way.” He smirks, serving me another drink.
Jabbing my finger at him, I say, “That’s where you’re wrong. A particularly good sense of humor is a must in my line of work. Some of the most influential men in Grand Haven