Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
LIAM
On Monday afternoon, my sister tugs me back into the storeroom at Big Catch, where she changed the course of my life last night.
It’s her first day of work, she’s obviously hungover from the staff party last night, and someone has already puked in the women’s restroom.
Still, something tells me Hannah’s not nearly as worried about her own problems as she is about Briar’s.
That’s my sister for you. She’ll do anything for the people she cares about.
The good news is that Hannah doesn’t really need to focus on her job in order to do it. She worked the evening shift for years, so she has this daytime floor manager gig in the bag.
But while the job’s a cinch for her, it’s got to be boring. Hannah’s like me: we live for trouble. But her new boyfriend has a seven-year-old kid, a kid she loves, and she’d rather be around for him than have a more interesting job.
“Couldn’t you just go outside with me for a cigarette break instead of bringing me in here?” I say, rolling my eyes at her as she switches on the single bulb in the cramped room.
“Neither of us smokes.”
“I’ve been thinking of taking it up to get more breaks.”
“Very funny,” she says, because we both know she’d figure out a way to kick my ass if I started smoking again. “Have you heard from Briar?”
I stop myself from snapping the hair band on my wrist. It still smells like her.
Not that I’ve been sniffing my wrist constantly like a weirdo. I just noticed, is all. I don’t usually walk around smelling like flowers.
“No,” I say gruffly. “I thought you told me you didn’t want me messaging your friends.”
She growls at me.
I lift my hand as if tapping out of a fight. “Look, I told her I’d take the job, and I will. But we’re not suddenly friends who text each other. She’ll let me know when she’s ready for me to start working, and we’ll go from there.”
She glances around at the shelves anchored to the walls and stacked with supplies, as if she thinks there might be someone else in this tiny-ass room with us.
When she reaches the obvious conclusion that we’re alone, she says in an undertone, “She texted me an hour or two ago. Her father’s only giving her a budget to last until the end of the year. ”
I whistle, and she shoves me for making noise, then bites her lip.
“Look, in light of this new information, I’m not going to make you take the job, Liam. It’s a risk. I can find her a different brewer.”
Laughter rips out of me. “Oh, so now you’re trying to give away the job you ‘made’ me take? How were you going to make me take it, anyway?”
“I know you’re ticklish,” she says pointedly. “What if I tickled you in public, right before a boxing match? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”
“Nice try.” I smirk. “It would be helpful, if anything. The other guy would underestimate me, and then he’d be the one feeling embarrassed after the ticklish asshole smashed his face in.”
But my smile fades as I consider the latest development in the Silver Star drama. Odds are, Briar’s cooked. A few weeks of budget, no staff. That’s a lot to turn around, and over the holidays too. She’d be lucky to make it halfway through January.
I’ll be damned if that doesn’t make me curious to see what Princess Briar pulls out of the think tank between her ears. Because I saw her hit that bag last night. That woman might be green, but she’s tougher than she seems.
Challenges light me up, and I got a feeling she’s the same way.
“You don’t have to do it,” Hannah says again, although I can tell she still wants me to. She’s feeling guilty is all. She’ll feel guiltier if I’m unemployed in a month.
Would I give her shit about it? Would I ever. But only because it’s the Moroney way. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love my sister, our dad, and our little brother, Connor. Never will. That’s what happens when you get thrown into the deep end and have to save each other.
Our mother walked out when Hannah was little and Connor was a baby. Something like that happens, you either get close with the people left to you, or you leave everyone behind forever. We chose each other, thank Christ.
“I’m not going to let you down,” I insist. “If the brewery kicks it, I’ll get another gig. We won’t be able to work together anymore, which sucks—”
She huffs in protest.
“But I won’t mind having a new challenge,” I continue. “It’s felt stale around here for a while now.”
She plants a hand on her hip. “Stale? How dare you. Eugene just started a couple of months ago. How could it feel stale with me and Eugene as the main floor managers? This place is hopping.”
In the distance, I hear someone calling Code V, which means there’s more puke. I lift my eyebrows at her.
“Oh, come on. As if there won’t be puke there too.”
“I’m giving you what you want, Hannah, but what about you? Don’t you think the GM is going to get a little suspicious when I go to work for your best friend?”
She laughs. “You think Frodo knows who my best friend is? He barely knows which end of the bottle the beer comes out of.”
She has a point. We call the general manager Frodo because he spends the majority of the day anywhere but the brewery—Look yonder, Frodo left on another quest—and also because he loves to talk about the Super Bowl ring he bought off eBay.
It’s a fake, but he’s a dick, so I’m content to let him make a fool of himself.
“Okay, but stop doing suspicious shit, just in case.”
“Like pulling you into storerooms in the middle of the day for private meetings?” she asks, clearly amused.
“That makes the list, sure.”
“Why’d you take Briar to the boxing gym?” she asks, her forehead creasing.
“I could tell she needed it,” I say, feeling the hair on the back of my neck prickle, as if sensing an electrical storm. “And we needed somewhere private to talk. I don’t want to be seen at Silver Star until everything is settled.”
She gives me a frosty-ass look. “You’re not going to hit on her.”
“We talked about this already, didn’t we?”
“Just make the promise again for my neuroses.”
“I’m not going to hit on her,” I agree. I snap the elastic around my wrist without really intending to.
I’m not going to hit on Briar, obviously, but I wish Hannah would shut up about it. She’s as contrary as I am, so she should know she’s only planting ideas in my brain.
“Okay, great,” she says, patting me on the arm. Then her eyes brighten. “Hey, Travis told me Eugene’s son is going to practice with the band tomorrow.”
This makes me smile, because Cormac is an oddity I enjoy. “Yeah, he’s a bit strange.”
“You get the son, and I get the father.”
“You’re a bit strange too,” I say, shaking my head. God, it feels good to be on good terms with Hannah again. It was a dark time indeed when she was pissed at me.
“Come on…you know what I mean.” She waves a hand and nearly knocks over a broom propped against the wall. “Eugene’s my platonic soulmate, and setting him up with Mrs. Applebaum has basically been my life’s work.”
“Yep.” I reach for the door to leave, then pause and turn back. “You know I’m not staying in your boyfriend’s band, right? It was just a temporary thing. A favor to Travis for not being a dick.”
I also wanted to keep an eye on him in the beginning so I could make sure he was good enough for my sister, but I don’t need to tell her that. Odds are she knows.
“Yeah, I figured,” she says, sounding kind of sad about it. I’m probably supposed to ask her why—women love to be asked why they’re upset—but if she’s not gonna call it out, I’m not poking.
“Mick’s probably going to join, though. He said he’d come to Cormac’s audition with me tomorrow.”
She wrinkles her nose.
“Oh, come on. Mick’s a good guy.”
“If you say so. But you can never let him know that Travis accidentally glitter-bombed him.”
“How can you accidentally glitter-bomb someone?”
“The artillery was meant for me,” she says with gravitas.
“So Mick robbed you of your weird sex game?”
She shoves my arm. “Gross. And yes. I wanted that glitter.”
“I can guarantee you Mick didn’t.”
The code for puke gets called out again, more urgently this time.
I grin at her. “They’re playing your song, Red.”
She rolls her eyes but grabs my hand. “Come to Tea of Fortune this afternoon. Five o’clock. We’re going to figure out the rest of the staffing for Silver Star.”
“You think you’ll manage it in one afternoon?” I say with a whistle. Frodo sometimes keeps job listings up for weeks with no bites.
“In one afternoon,” she repeats firmly. “Because if she’s going to pull this off, she needs to reopen next week.”
My phone buzzes half an hour later, while I’m sitting in Frodo’s office being talked at.
I’m curious enough to pull it out immediately, even though my boss is passing on some directives from on high (i.e.
, the suits at the corporation that owns us).
Couldn’t be less interested in what he has to say, and soon I won’t have to pretend to care.
“Liam?” he asks, stiffening in his chair. I ignore him and open my messaging app.
I have two texts from the same number.
Can you mete mee? I’m at the dinr on Pack Square. Theo silver one. I have a plan.
This is Briar. Hannah gave me yor numbr.
Interesting. She’s either drunk or dyslexic. Given the news she got this morning, I’m going with drunk, but I’ll have to sober her up quick if she’s supposed to make big decisions this afternoon.
“Liam, this is outrageous,” Frodo says.
I glance up from my phone but don’t pocket it. He’s glaring at me from behind his desk, his eyebrows furrowing so hard they’ve formed one quivering, furry line.
“Yeah, I’m gonna have to take off,” I tell him before it occurs to me that I should probably offer an excuse. “I’ve got this beer idea. I bet the suits will like it.”
“But…” His lips open and close repeatedly without any words coming out, until he lands on, “But we’re in the middle of a conversation about what BevCorp wants. I’m telling you what they want.”
“You were the only one who was talking, really. Why don’t you let the assistant brewer know what’s up, and he and I will discuss it? Or you could record yourself talking, and I’ll totally watch the whole thing later.”
“No.” He pushes out his lips unhappily. “No, we’ll discuss it now.”
“It’ll have to wait,” I say, getting up. “Inspiration strikes. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I pushed it away.”
He gets to his feet. “You may be talented, but I can find another—”
“Are you going to fire me?” I ask, more interested than disgruntled. Honestly, it would be pretty convenient if he did. I wouldn’t have to give notice, and I’d probably get a couple of weeks’ salary.
His face turns red, and he twists that not-a-Super-Bowl ring around on his finger three times.
I gesture to it on impulse. “You know that’s fake, right? You got hosed. The font’s all wrong. Devil’s in the details, man. Next time you should insist on getting proof before shelling out.”
His eyes widen, and he clutches a hand to his chest.
Shit. I didn’t just give the guy a heart attack, did I?
I might not be Frodo’s number one fan, but I start mentally reviewing everything I know about emergency medical care (not much, but we do have a yearly staff seminar arranged by Hannah), when he pokes a stubby finger at me.
“You…you…”
I lift my eyebrows. “Me?”
“You’re fired. Leave. Get out of my sight.”
“Don’t you have to check in with your superiors before you trigger the nuclear option?” I ask, knowing he does—and that pointing it out will piss him off.
“No.” His face is an even darker shade of pink now. “I have complete autonomy. Go.”
I shrug, feeling like some lucky star must be hovering overhead. This is fantastic news all around, because my decision to join Silver Star is much less likely to be blamed on Hannah.
“Well, all right, Merry Christmas to you.” I pause, deciding I need to act at least slightly upset for my sister’s sake. “This is obviously incredibly difficult for me. Will you let me be the one who breaks the news to Hannah?”
His face softens slightly at the mention of Hannah. Everyone loves my sister, quite rightly (though he might feel less fond of her if he found out she’s the one who came up with the Frodo nickname while drunk off her ass at a staff party). He nods once in agreement.
I take off, whistling to myself. It feels like I’m getting away with something, which I suppose I am.
There’s no sign of Hannah on the floor, and I don’t seek her out. I really don’t want to get her into trouble, so it would be better to fill her in later, when we can talk privately.
In the meantime, I’ve got a business meeting to get to with my new boss.