5. Chapter 5
five
“ W hat are you doing?”
Willow nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Doug’s voice behind her. She quickly covered the doodle she’d drawn of a bunny with a fatal gunshot wound in its head in her worn out old notebook.
“Nothing,” she said, hopping up from her stool and following him to the metal table in the back of the brewery, where he sat most days keeping up on the bookkeeping and whatever else he did.
Honestly, he did little around the place anymore. Willow had been running the place for the last few years. Yet she still made the same amount she always had while he raked in more and more every year .
She shook her head. At least there were some advantages. He knew not to piss her off, because he needed her too badly. Also, she took time off whenever she wanted.
It would be nice if he’d let her experiment a little more with new beers, though.
“Doug,” she said, placing her notebook on the table where he’d just sat.
He looked at it, then up at her, already knowing what she was going to ask. “No.”
“Oh, come on,” she said, flipping it open. “I made this one at home in my test tank. It’s a triple IPA, and everyone loved it, and we already have the perfect hops in the storeroom for it.”
“You’re brewing the pilsner today,” he said, staring down at his phone.
“It’s so boring.”
“Boring makes money. Make the pilsner.”
She scowled at him. “You used to be cool.”
“You try being cool with two sons away at university.”
She stayed where she was, wondering whether there was anything she could say to make him change his mind, but she already knew the answer. He was all about the bottom line. He didn’t care about trying new things, making something unique or interesting; he just wanted to make his “bread and butter” beer that he knew would sell, and sell well.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Willow?”
“I’m bored.”
He set his phone down, met her eye. “Look, you’ve been incredibly helpful in improving our recipes. But our locals want the pilsner, and the ale, and the lager. I already let you have four beers a year, one per quarter, and yes, they do well with the tourists. But the locals don’t want Hazy Mango Triple India Pale Ale, or whatever the hell you have written in that book. What you brew at home on your own is up to you, but when you’re here, you need to be making what I tell you. If you can’t do that, then . . .”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
“So, you’re going to . . .” He waited, looking over the rim of his reading glasses at her.
“Make the fucking pilsner.”
He smiled before turning back to his phone. “Good.”
She turned and walked through the old brewery toward the mash tun to get started. When she’d first walked into Tipped Canoe as a naive nineteen-year-old, she thought the place was incredible. Her creativity went wild, and she wanted to make every different beer there ever was. But Doug had quickly shot that dream down, and she ended up in a routine where she’d make what she was told until she wanted to rip her hair out. Then she’d beg him to let her try something new.
Until she got that phone call from Keller’s Pub.
She wondered what it would be like to work for Max. He was probably just as controlling and small-minded as Doug. Maybe worse.
She glanced over her shoulder at Doug, then back at her mash tun. Max was significantly easier on the eyes, at least.
Not that it mattered. But it was hard not to notice.
She wondered what beer they would brew first. She’d have made something awesome and unique. Maybe something that appealed to locals but also felt like something you’d drink on a tropical vacation to go with the greenhouse vibes in that taproom. God, she wished she was in that stunning brewery instead of this one.
She checked over the tun, making sure it was sanitized, then took her malted barley to the crusher to get it in a finer crush. She could do these steps in her sleep at this point.
She’d just turned it on when she felt her phone vibrate. She pulled it from her pocket and didn’t recognize the caller.
But it was a 905 number, and she remembered that was from Mapleton .
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
The deep voice skated through her ear and vibrated down to her spine, the same way it had when she’d first heard it, leaving no doubt in her mind who it was.
“It’s Max. From Keller’s. In Mapleton.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said with a breathy exhale. She mentally slapped herself.
“How do you know?”
She cringed, thankful he hadn’t tried to video call her. “I guess I recognized the grumpy timbre of your voice.”
“Grumpy?” he asked. “I have a smile on my face. I was told you’d pick up on that.”
What?
She let out an exhale that was dangerously close to a laugh. “Are you fake smiling?”
“Yes,” he said in an overbright, definitely fake way.
She held in a laugh. “Do you ever genuinely smile?”
“Occasionally.”
Willow raised an eyebrow in disbelief as she shook her head. “When was the last time you genuinely smiled?”
“Three days ago. I was watching an episode of Friends with my pathetically heartbroken sister. ”
Willow paused, trying to wrap her mind around the idea of him smiling. Not to mention how unexpected it was to hear him say something personal. She’d figured he was a firmly closed book.
“Was it when Ross and Rachel broke up? Did that just warm your bitter heart?”
Max grumbled, and it sounded dangerously close to a chuckle. “That’s more on brand for me than the truth, so let’s go with that.”
Willow laughed loud, then looked back at where Doug still sat staring at his phone, not paying any attention to her, thank God. “No, be honest. What part was it?”
Max’s breathy sigh sent shivers over her skin. “It was when Rachel and Chandler ate cheesecake off the hallway floor.”
Willow laughed. “I remember that part. I love that episode.”
Silence.
“Same.”
More silence.
Awkwardness settled on her. The conversation felt . . . intimate. And wrong. If Shane knew she was talking on the phone with a guy that looked like Max, and laughing, and feeling spinal shivers, he’d lose his shit. Despite that, she silently hoped he’d keep talking so she could bask in the cadence of his voice in her ear.
But she encountered a never-ending silence instead.
“So,” she said, hoping to break the tension. “Did you call just to chat, or . . . ?”
Max cleared his throat. “No. I wanted to discuss a new offer with you.”
Willow’s smile dropped as her heart sank like a stone. She looked around until her eyes landed on her notebook filled with dreams that would never materialize. She wanted to get over it, not revisit it.
“I’m not—”
“Just hear me out,” he said before pausing for an eternity. “Please?”
It couldn’t hurt just to hear what he had to say, could it?
She blew out a breath. “Okay.”