Page 92 of The Fallen Man

“Good!” Better now that he was back. “Really good! Jessica got five of her photos in a gallery, which is really big! She’s over the moon. They even took that one of me on the beer kegs.”

“Beer kegs?” he repeated, smiling but confused.

“We were waiting for a venue to open up, but we still needed to unload, so I was taking a wee little nap on top of the pony kegs and while the van went back for a second load and she took a picture. Which sounds ridiculous, but because it’s Jessica it looks amazing. I can’t wait until they’re hanging so I can go see them.”

“Which gallery is it?”

“The Three Bridges. And they charge an arm and a leg for everything there. Hopefully they sell. They might ask her for more if they do.”

“We’ll have to go see them,” he said smiling. “What else happened this week? What’s the occasion for the drink?”

“Oh! Angela wants me to come up with the signature event for an event they’re doing. Which, I’m kind of proud of because I’veonly ever slid it in under the radar. This is the first time she’s actually asked me to come up with one and present it to the client. And they’re charging the client for it, which I think is kind of crazy, but Vince said it was a specialized service and none of the other catering companies were offering it. How about that? I bet you didn’t know I was special.”

Jackson chuckled. “I did actually.” She smiled at him because she knew even though she’d been joking, he was serious.

“But the biggest news, you’ll never guess.”

She paused to concentrate on floating the Frangelico across the top of the bourbon.

“Guess, what?”

She put the drink on a tray so she wouldn’t warm the glass with her fingers and brought it over to him. “I booked the Roggario New Year’s show.”

“What?”

“Therunwayshow. I’ve been doing all their fittings and they’ve been dithering over the last slot and finally Roggario was like,I’m not having any more of this shit, they all suck! And then Chase, his boyfriend, was likemake Kate do it, you know the dresses will fit. So now I’m doing it.”

“No way!” He was beaming.

“Yeah! I mean, it’s a little like being picked for teams because I was the only one left, but I’ll take it!”

“I’m going to sit in the front row.”

“Can you really?”

“Yeah, Nika tries to get me to go to this shit all the time. You just call up and tell them you want to sit in the front.”

She blinked at him. That was really not how it worked. Unless you had shit tons of money. Did he really have shit tons of money? She knew he had money. But she was assuming it was some sort of Russian mob money. She didn’t think it was tons of money. Tons of money people wouldn’t be with her. Well, maybehis cousins or sister had the tons? She had been at the House of Amery, so that was probably the case.

“OK, well, don’t stare directly at me if you do. If I make eye contact I’ll probably trip.”

“Got it,” he said reaching for his drink, with a wide smile.

“OK,” she said, sitting on the ottoman to watch him drink it and biting a nail. “Tell me what you think. Be really honest.”

He took a sip and closed his eyes. “Fuck me.”

“You like it?”

“God, yes. What did you do to make bourbon better? Bourbon can’t get better.”

“I told the guys at work about it and they didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Fuck them,” he said, taking another sip. “Seriously, what is it?”

“It’s brown butter infused bourbon with a hazel nut liquor over the top.”

“Brown butter? How do you do that?”