Single Malt

by Layla Reyne

  Slower this time but still “No.”

  The faith Walker put in him felt somehow undeserved, and Aidan wanted to earn it. He’d try to do that on this next case together, starting with something simple. Setting his files on the desk, Aidan grabbed a pen and Post-it and scribbled his address on it. “Give me a lift to the airport tomorrow?” Walker nodded and Aidan handed him the slip of paper. “Flight’s at eleven-thirty. We should leave the house by ten.”

  Lifting a hip, Walker pulled out his wallet and tucked the note inside. “Got it.”

  Aidan picked his files back up, along with half of Walker’s stack. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Whiskey.”

  “Irish,” Walker called, and Aidan paused at the opening of the server racks. “Good luck with the party tomorrow. And remember, when all else fails, ponies.”

  He smiled. “Ponies, got it.”

  Chapter Six

  Aidan rocked in the swivel chair at one end of the patio table, watching a gaggle of kids play chase around the big ash tree in the middle of his backyard. Katie, dressed as a fairy princess, was in the lead, a tiara tangled in her headful of strawberry-blond curls. At least half the kids trailing her, his other nieces and nephews, were one shade or other of redheaded. All the kids—Katie, her cousins, a handful of preschool playmates—appeared to be having a good time, laughing and running, grabbing handfuls of chips and cookies and a juice box whenever they needed a break.

  They would have had more room at his parents’ place in Woodside or Grace and Chuck’s in Sunnyvale, but Katie had insisted on having her birthday party here. With Chuck deployed, Grace pregnant, and his mother already keeping Katie several nights a week when Grace worked late, Aidan had agreed to host. He’d give Katie anything she wanted. He shouldn’t play favorites, but given the circumstances of her birth and the promises he’d made at her christening, Katie was the closest thing he had to a daughter of his own. Hosting her party today made his heart light, just as carrying out those promises alone, instead of with his husband, made it heavy.

  He pulled out his phone and flipped through her christening photos—he and Gabe, smiling, happy, wedding bands on their left hands and a tiny cherub-faced baby with red fuzz in their arms. They’d hoped to adopt one day, but now this moment, captured on his phone, would be the closest they’d ever come.

  Two mojitos appeared on the table in front of him, and the chair beside him squeaked as his middle sister, Chloe, fell into it with a huff. “How you doing, Ai?”

  He pocketed the phone and took a sip of the refreshing, minty-lime beverage, more than welcome in the Indian summer heat. “Katie seems to be having a good time, though I’m not sure my yard will survive the stampede.”

  She shifted her chair closer, out of the sun and under the shade of the umbrella. “You should tear up the grass and go native.” She waggled her brows, and Aidan groaned, rubbing his hands over his face, not wanting to get into it with the family environmentalist today. He liked his green lawn, thank you very much. Chloe let him off the hook—only to spear him with a bigger one. “And I didn’t ask about your yard, or Katie. I asked about you.”

  “Go easy, Clo.” Grace hobbled into the chair on his other side and patted her huge belly. “We agreed. Interrogation-free day.”

  “Where is Siobhan?” Aidan asked, reminded of the practicing lawyer among them. The oldest of his three younger sisters was a no-show, even though her three kids were among the tornado tearing up the yard.

  “Board meeting in Chicago,” Chloe answered. “She and Danny flew out this morning.”

  “That explains why Dad’s been on a call since he got here.” Aidan twisted in his chair, waving at his father, who was on the phone in the sunroom Aidan had converted into his home office. His father was still CEO of the family company, but Siobhan was General Counsel and his youngest sibling, Daniel, was COO, responsible for running operations and for presenting to the Board, a task his father had happily relinquished.

  Grace tapped his shoulder. “Mel said you’re flying to Texas tonight?”

  “Houston, then driving down to Galveston. Just for a few days, and I’ll check in regularly.” He ducked his gaze, picking at the mint leaf garnish he’d pulled from his glass. “I don’t want Katie to think—”

  Grace gripped his arm, squeezing tight. “She knows you’re still here, and we’ll make sure she understands you’re coming back. You’ve got to do your job. You need that.”

  “Speaking of work,” Chloe said in her devious, meddling-sister voice. “Tell me about this new partner. Whiskey Walker, did I hear that right?”

  “You heard right.” He picked up his glass, swirled its contents, and took another swallow.

  “Ooh.” Grace lowered her voice, picking up on their sister’s conspiratorial vibe. “I’ve seen him on ESPN. He’s a looker. What’s he like?”

  “What happened to interrogation-free day?”

  “I make exceptions for super-hot athletes.”

  He chuckled. “Former athlete, and you’re both happily married.”

  She eyed him shrewdly. “I wasn’t asking for me.”

  Time to shut down his meddling sisters, for all the reasons he’d shut himself down and put Walker in the friend zone. A good friend and partner, he was learning, but that was all there would be. “One, he’s straight. Two, he’s young, just turned thirty. Three, we work together. Big no-no. And four...” The sudden lump in his throat caught him by surprise but he forced the words out. “It’s not even been a year.”

  “Ai, you need to get back out there,” Chloe said, earnest and stern all at the same time, the perfect high school guidance counselor. “Gabe wouldn’t want you—”

  He cut her off before the lump in his throat blocked words and air completely. “Please, Clo, not today.”

  Before either sister could press further, their mom came outside carrying armfuls of presents, Mel a step behind with a tray of fresh drinks for the grown-ups. She couldn’t cook to save her life, a tragedy given her upbringing, but she could bartend with the best of them.

  Spotting the gifts, Katie let out a shrill, preschooler battle cry of “Presents!” and everyone under the age of ten charged the table. His mom spread out brightly wrapped boxes while his sister-in-law exchanged old glasses for new. Not former. Mel’s title was sealed, no matter that Gabe was no longer with them. Her presence here today was proof of that.

  Shooting Mel a grateful look, he took a sip of the fresh drink, then, owing to Grace’s belly, hefted his goddaughter onto his lap. Holding her steady as she tore through wrapping paper, Aidan let her excitement distract him from thoughts of those missing around the table. But as Katie’s enthusiasm began to wane, her unwrapping not so maniacal, her delight at revealing what was inside each box not so ecstatic, he began to worry if she was overtired or also feeling the loss of her Unka Gabe.

  He hoped he had the perfect gift to cheer her up.

  “Over, Munchkin.” He boosted her up to hand her over the armrest to Chloe.

  She wriggled around to face him and threw her arms around his neck. “No, don’t leave.”

  As if he didn’t already feel guilty enough. Taking her wrists in his hands, he pulled Katie’s arms away from his neck and sat her back on his knees, keeping hold of one hand and straightening her crooked tiara with the other. “I’m not going anywhere, Munchkin. Except to get your present.”

  Like night and day, the little girl’s face went from abject misery to pure joy, a bright smile dimpling her cheeks and lighting her green eyes.

  “You’d like that?”

  She nodded enthusiastically, jarring the tiara sideways again.

  Laughing, Aidan straightened the crown once more and lifted her over the armrest, sitting her in his sister’s lap. “Be good for Aunt Clo, and I’ll be right back.”

  “What’s this one?�
�� Chloe brought another brightly wrapped gift toward them, distracting Katie as he rose from his chair and went inside.

  Aidan skirted through the kitchen and living area and down the hallway to his room. He pulled the gift bag from his dresser drawer, extracted the jewelry box from the tissue paper, and lifted the lid. Until yesterday, he still hadn’t known what to get Katie. Gabe was always the one who’d picked out their goddaughter’s gifts. Last night, though, Walker had given him an idea and the jeweler was happy to oblige, even on a rush basis. Aidan made sure the pony charm on the silver bracelet was positioned just right, closed the lid, and dropped the box back in the gift bag. After taking a moment to run his hand over his and Gabe’s wedding picture on his dresser, he checked the spare room for stray gifts, or kids, and headed back through the house.

  In the sunroom, his father was finally hanging up the phone.

  “Everything okay, Dad?”

  John Talley nodded, his thick silver hair bouncing. “Boarding meeting’s done. Your brother and sister handled it well. Less than a month back for you. Sure I can’t convince you to make a career change?”

  His father had been trying to convince him to make a career change the past fifteen years.

  “Sorry, it’s a G-man’s life for me.”

  “Well—” he pushed up from the chair “—can’t blame an old man for trying. Each one of you kids at the company is one less meeting I have to attend.”

  Aidan laughed, looping an arm through his father’s, tugging him toward the door. “Let’s go, old man. There’s a meeting with your granddaughter you can’t miss.”

  He moved toward the door, but the body linked with his failed to budge. Turning back, Aidan was met by his father’s intense black gaze.

  “These past months have been hard, on all of us. We lost Gabe, and we almost lost you. I don’t know how any of us would have gone on after that, but you have. You’ve had the hardest road of all, and you’ve hung in there. I just wanted to say how proud I am of you.”

  The lump materialized again in Aidan’s throat. His dad was such a big man—in stature, in personality, in success. A loving, doting, stern but attentive husband and father who Aidan idolized. Sure they’d fought, a lot, but there was no one he looked up to more. His father’s words now meant everything.

  “Thanks, Dad,” he choked out hoarsely.

  “You’re welcome, son.”

  Buoyed by his father’s words, Aidan couldn’t wait to get outside and give Katie her gift. Smiling, he pulled his father, arm in arm, outside. As soon as they rounded the corner of the house, Katie looked up from where she sat in her aunt’s lap.

  And burst into tears.

  Aidan rushed to Chloe’s side, dropping the gift bag on the table and pulling Katie into his arms. “What’s wrong, Munchkin?”

  Settling in the swivel chair, he held the little girl close, rocking, as Grace scooted closer and patted her daughter’s back. The other adults were herding the rest of the kids inside with the promise of cake and ice cream.

  He shifted Katie back a little and Grace pushed the strawberry-blond curls off her tear-streaked cheeks. “What’s wrong, baby? Don’t you want to see the gift Uncle Aidan got you?”

  “It’s not what I wanted,” she cried. Tears streamed from her green eyes and snot ran from her pink little nose.

  Aidan was miserable, not sure what he should do. He pulled the gift bag closer and held it out to her, beseeching, “How do you know unless you open it?”

  She gave the bag a passing glance and cried harder. “It’s not Unka Gabe,” she wailed, before launching herself into her mother’s lap, belly be-damned.

  Aidan’s arms and heart were left empty.

  * * *

  Polishing off his second Kentucky Sidecar, Aidan flagged down the bartender for another. Roy raised a brow and aimed a pointed look past him into the dining room. Aidan spun on his barstool, taking in the restaurant.

  Woodside Tavern had been his go-to place for as long as he could remember. From family occasions, to first dates and first jobs, to his and Gabe’s engagement and wedding reception, the outstanding food and elegant décor befitted life’s milestones. At one end of the space, where Aidan sat, was the ornately carved bar with three tiers of liquor stacked against a mirrored backsplash. A private dining room was hidden behind sliding doors at the other end, and in between, the main dining area was filled with white linen-covered tables, plush burgundy chairs and dark leather booths. But despite the Tavern’s rich appearance and humming undercurrent of Silicon Valley power, it still felt like a neighborhood bar.

  A mostly deserted bar, as Roy was not so subtly implying. Only one booth was still occupied, a couple finishing off their soufflé, as wait staff scurried about, readying tables for tomorrow while bouncing to the ambient jazz music that had been turned up.

  “I’ll make it easy,” Aidan said, spinning back around with a plaintive look. “Just the bourbon. Take pity on me, Roy. I’m on a red-eye to Texas in two hours.”

  “You sure that’s all this is?” the bartender asked. “I haven’t seen you like this the past few weeks. My bourbon well wasn’t depleted for a change, until tonight.”

  “Rough day,” was all he answered. Roy had only started working at the Tavern six months ago. He wouldn’t know the significance of today’s date, or the role the Tavern had played in it.

  “You got a ride?” the bartender asked.

  “Right here.”

  Aidan glanced over his shoulder toward the door and the owner of the familiar Southern drawl. He usually favored men in suits—Gabe’s default—but Aidan preferred his new partner like this. Dusty Chucks, weathered Levis, a chambray button-up, sleeves rolled to his elbows. Fuck it, the bourbon said, and Aidan gave Walker the lingering once-over he’d denied himself.

  When he reached the other man’s eyes, thin rings of cobalt circled blown-wide pupils. Aidan chalked it up to the chambray shirt and dim lighting. “I take it Mom sent you,” he said, not waiting for a response as he twirled back around to Roy. “Make it two.”

  “One’s fine.” Walker sidled up on the stool beside him. “Just water for me.”

  Aidan glared. “I wasn’t ordering for you.”

  “Suit yourself. But don’t expect me to hold your hair back in the airplane bathroom.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Your mess, you clean it up. And no way we’d both fit.”

  As soon as Roy set the whiskeys in front of him, Aidan downed the first, praying it’d burn away the image of him and Walker in an airplane bathroom. His partner’s shirt torn wide open, those battered jeans around his ankles, his big hands in Aidan’s hair for an entirely different reason.

  “Your mom told me what happened at the party.”

  Instant fantasy killer.

  “I’m sorry. I know that was rough,” Walker carried on, as Aidan sipped from the second glass. “Kids, they don’t always understand death right away. I didn’t, after my dad died.”

  Aidan knew all about the factory fire that killed Walker’s father. It was mentioned in his personnel file, in his psych evals, and any time he’d been featured on ESPN. The incident had made national headlines, not because of the mile-high flames that burned all night or the popular brand name food processed there, but because the factory owner had chained the exit doors shut, trapping his supposedly thieving workers inside. Out of that came the rags-to-riches story of Whiskey Walker. The scrawny kid whose daddy died in the chicken plant fire, whose uneducated single mother struggled to raise him and his sister, who grew up to be a two-time NCAA champion, tourney MVP, and NBA lottery pick.

  “Hearing your mom tell it and seeing you now...” Aidan could feel the other man’s eyes on him. “I’m even sorrier I said something similar to my mom the first Christmas after Dad died.”

  Aidan glanced up.
“It’s never too late to apologize.”

  “Already ahead of you,” he said with a small smile. “Called her on my way here.”

  “It’s, what, one in the morning in North Carolina? You couldn’t wait ’til morning?”

  “No, I really couldn’t.” Walker’s hand covered his where it lay on the bar, and Aidan was captivated by its size and warmth, by the blanket of comfort it provided. When he withdrew it a moment later, Aidan instantly missed the contact, not realizing until then how desperately he’d needed it after the awful day. But then Walker turned on his stool, propped an elbow on the bar behind him, and their shoulders brushed, renewing the connection. “This is such a cool place.”

  “Been here before?”

  “Once, on a date.”

  Aidan laughed, and Walker twisted, angling toward him. “Something funny?”

  “My first date was here,” he confessed, staring into his bourbon glass. “If you consider a quinceañera after-party with my family and hers a real date.”

  “So you’ve dated both, then—men and women?”

  Aidan’s head jerked up, meeting Walker’s curious eyes. Not the question he’d anticipated. It wasn’t a stretch to say they’d become friends, but he didn’t fancy a gossip about his love life with Walker any more than he had with his sisters. Not today, on his wedding anniversary that wasn’t.

  “When I was younger.” He intended to leave it at that, then the bourbon got the better of him again. “And you?”

  Gaze steady, Walker answered, “Only men.”

  And Aidan’s world tilted, thrown off balance yet again by Jameson Walker. He’d have fallen off his stool too if Walker hadn’t shot out a hand and grasped him by the arm, keeping him upright. “You okay, Irish?”

  “You’re not straight?”

  “Nope.” He dropped his hand and looked away. “Never have been, never will be.”

  Aidan cast his mind back over the past couple weeks. To how those same eyes darkened tonight as Aidan blatantly checked him out. To Walker’s abrupt movements and deflections whenever Aidan flashed him a grin, to his sharp, inhaled breaths if they passed too close, to the blush that colored his cheeks when Aidan favored him with a compliment, and the wounded look when he called him kid. To the way Walker had dropped his voice and described his eyes that first day together in the cave.