Chapter Nine
Seth
Pushing the door open, I walk into RED with Cary. We’ve been discussing what needs to happen next with the B it’ll only ruin the day before it starts. “That’s the plan.”
Cary stops walking, grabbing my arm to bring me to a halt as well.
“What?” I ask.
“You good?” It’s getting easier to look at him, especially with Ripley in the same room. There’s sincerity in his eyes. No matter our complicated, unrequited past he’s not even aware of, I know without a shadow of a doubt my best friend cares about me. It’s written all over his face.
“Of course. Just eager to do what I can to help you guys make this a success.” My voice doesn’t waver, but he doesn’t seem entirely convinced either. Looking over his shoulder, I realize Ripley isn’t behind the bar anymore.
“You sure? Everything alright at home?”
A part of me is glad—for the first time in my life—he thinks this has to do with my family and not working with his fiancé’s best friend. “I’m sure. Shit at home is normal.”
He knows all about my upbringing. He’s aware of why I refuse to miss a “family brunch” at my father’s home.
Twenty years later, I’m the only one of his children he’s laid a finger on, but I don’t trust him to never do it again, especially not with Amelia and Eloise.
Liam is his golden child, so he’d never hit him the way he hit me, but I can’t be certain with the twins.
It makes me feel like less of a man to know I’m the only one he hates so much he chose to knock me around when I wasn’t old enough to stick up for myself.
Before Cary can comment more, Thea finds us, saving me from further interrogation. “Hi, boys,” she says before pushing up on her tiptoes to place a kiss on Cary’s cheek.
“Hey, baby,” he says, and I realize my heart doesn’t crack at the sound of it. It doesn’t hurt to hear anymore.
“Seth, Ripley is waiting for you in the distillery. They have a couple of tastings this afternoon, so he’s setting up.”
My brows furrow. “They?”
“Oh, yeah, he and Brooks host the tastings together when Brooks is available. They have a whole thing.” She elongates the word “whole” like I’m supposed to know what it means.
“The customers love it. They aren’t able to do it as often since Brooks is tattooing at Mark of Mason, but I swear we have regulars who sign up for tastings just because they’re both listed as the bartenders.
Then they act like they’ve never heard the spiels before.
It’s actually adorable.” She laughs, and I feel like I’m missing some kind of inside joke.
“Gotcha,” I say, trying not to sound too cold. I’m not annoyed with her, just the situation. “I’ll just… head back then.” Without waiting for either of them to reply, I head toward the swinging doors that’ll bring me one step closer to Ripley.
I’ve never felt such a magnetic pull to someone.
Before, when we would spend a couple days together then only talk on the phone or through texts for months, I didn’t feel it like this.
Being in the same town as him but unable to openly touch him or stare at him is slowly killing me.
Not that I have a right to touch him, not after the shit I pulled last year.
“Ripley?” I call walking through the doors.
“Back here,” he yells.
I follow his voice, finding him moving barrels around on the other side.
His biceps bulge as he shimmies the large barrel where he wants it, drawing my eyes to his tattoos.
A band of thorns wraps around his upper arm, and a spilled bourbon glass on his forearm accentuates the prominent veins.
The sight is almost enough to bring me to my knees for him.
I want to say something, comment on it the way I would before, but I stop myself.
I need to keep it professional. The second I let this get personal, I’ll only hurt us both.
“Hey. Thea told me you were setting up for a tasting. Anything I can do to help?”
He looks at me, still leaning over the barrel, swiping his hair away from his face, and pushing his glasses up his nose. “In that suit? Doubtful,” he says, looking me up and down with a smirk as his hair flops back in his face.
I grit my teeth, trying not to scowl. “It’s called business attire.”
Standing up to his full stature, six inches taller than myself and enough for me to need to crane my neck to meet his eyes, he huffs a laugh.
“We’re a bit more casual around here,” he remarks, flicking the end of my tie.
How casual they are is obvious from the slightly cropped RED T-shirt he’s wearing with loose fitting jeans and layered silver chains glinting with the light from above.
“Maybe too casual,” I deadpan as I look him up and down now.
Ripley smiles, brightening the space around us, a full laugh leaves his lips, and it’s so fucking beautiful, I want to cry.
His laugh is boisterous, quite possibly my favorite sound.
Hearing it here, as it reverberates off of the barrels surrounding us, his eyes squinted, shoulders shaking, I realize it’s the first real laugh I’ve heard from him since I stepped foot in this town.
“Right. Well, at least lose the tie, Seth. Maybe even the jacket. You’ll fit in better.” He turns to walk away, saying over his shoulder, “You coming? I have four more barrels to move.”
“Fuck me,” I mumble under my breath, shedding my jacket and tie like he suggested. I wasn’t aware I’d be doing manual labor today.
Thirty minutes later, once all four barrels are in place where Ripley wanted them, I’m wishing I’d worn shorts and a T-shirt, not that I’d ever admit it to him. We’re both panting from exertion, my mind flashing to the times we’d been together doing other strenuous activities.
With a smug look on his face, he says, “Aren’t you glad I convinced you to strip a little?”
I have no idea how to act around him. One minute he’s mad at me for what happened in November, the next he’s flirting with me.
It’s almost as if he’s East one second and Ripley the next, two separate entities with two sets of feelings.
And I get it, I do. We spent years in a bubble, diving deep into each other’s lives but leaving out the surface-level details.
It’s the opposite of most, making it harder to navigate now that the bubble’s burst.
Needing to change the subject, I grab my tie, looping it around my neck. “Maybe you could give me a proper tour, show me where everything is and how the place runs on a day-to-day basis,” I suggest.
He watches intently as I finish knotting the tie around my neck, his gaze locked on my fingers. I know he’s thinking about the first time we met and all the times after where ties were involved. Finally, he snaps out of it, his throat moving on a hard swallow as he meets my eyes again.
“Sure thing, Seth. Follow me.”
He takes me through every room, describing the process in painfully thorough detail.
If it was anyone else, I may have found it condescending.
I don’t know a ton about bourbon, but I do know some, I’ve been to a handful of tastings.
But seeing him so passionate about it, listening to him come alive when he speaks sparks something inside of me.
I hate how intriguing I find him. I hate how attracted I am to him. I hate the way being around him makes me want more with him.
Just as he’s telling me about the newest yeast strains he’s experimenting with to get more floral notes, his hand grazes against mine, sending a shiver down my spine.
His words stop mid-sentence with the contact, and his eyes find my own.
We’re locked in a trance, staring into each other’s souls.
There’s so much I want to say, so much I want to admit, and I almost do.
Then Brooks walks in, snapping us both back to reality, back to being Seth and Ripley and not West and East.
“Hey, man. You ready? Anything I need to do to get us set up?” he asks as he walks past us, placing his helmet in the back room.
“Nah, Seth and I handled it before I gave him a tour. Bar’s almost set too.”
“Perfect, less work for me,” he says smirking before turning to me. “Hey, Seth, didn’t know you’d be here.”
I could say the same since I just found out an hour ago, but I keep my mouth shut. “Hey.”
He gives me one of those up-nods men do then heads to the bar.
From the corner of my eye, I see Ripley walking down the hall toward the back room Brooks was just in. Trying not to be obvious, I shift my sights back to Brooks who’s now behind the bar, grabbing the bottles of bourbon they’ll be using and lining them on the backbar.