Chapter 12 #2
“Me?” I point to my chest in bemusement. This is the first time anyone has ever asked me to play cupid. I hope to hell it will be the last.
“Hannah mentioned you go to this boxing gym.” He wrings his hat in his hands. “I thought maybe if I could get swole, she’d see me as more of a man.”
“You shouldn’t get fit for someone else, kid. You do it for yourself.” Or, in my case, because you need it. Because nothing else burns off the bad feelings.
“Then I’d like to do it for myself. Can you train me?”
“How do you know I’m any good at boxing?” I ask with a laugh.
“Look at you!” He gestures with the hat and nearly drops it. “You look like you could carry a house.”
“Depends on how big it is.”
“There you go.” He slings the hat up again. “I couldn’t even carry a henhouse.”
“Sure, I’ll bring you,” I say, making a split-second decision.
This kid’s all right, but he needs confidence.
Either boxing will help him, or he’ll take one blow to the face and retreat to his smartphone.
Might as well bring him once, introduce him to some of the guys.
Maybe he’ll surprise both of us. “But first you’ve got to help me with something.
We’re doing a beer tasting this afternoon to figure out what to make next.
Let’s set it up down here. Give Briar a real thrill. ”
She’ll need it, because I have to tell her that the brewery isn’t actually organic, and probably hasn’t been since it earned its certification.
The kid and I park ourselves at a table in the tasting room, waiting for Briar to arrive. He blathers on about some video game I’ve never heard about and couldn’t care less about; I stew over how to solve this latest problem.
It’s a pretty big blow, on top of the beer’s failure to ferment quickly enough.
Another half hour passes before Briar arrives at the front door with Dottie and a dark-haired woman. Briar’s hair is blowing in the wind, moving like a sinuous golden scarf.
It takes me a second to look away from her and identify her companion as Nora. Interesting. She didn’t mention they were meeting, but Hannah’s been all hot on the topic of Nora, so I’m not surprised.
“They’re here,” Otis exclaims unnecessarily as he leaps to his feet and bounds toward the door, opening it even as Briar pulls out her key.
“Otis,” she says, surprised. Her gaze strays to me. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “He’s joining us for the tasting.”
“Oh, lovely,” Dottie says. “We’ll have representatives from three generations. That’s just as it should be.”
Otis seems disgruntled at the reminder that he’s a decade younger than Briar, but he accepts a hug from Dottie as all three women hurry into the tasting room, Nora shutting the cold out behind her.
“Nora, this is Otis,” Briar says, gesturing to the kid. Her lips firm into a line as she flings a hand at me. “And Liam, our head brewer.”
“Is that the royal we?” I ask.
Briar doesn’t crack a smile, not that I’d expected differently.
Nora greets both Otis and me before telling me, “I tried your home brew at the last Brewfest. It was fantastic.”
I nod, and give credit where it’s due. “I like what you’re doing down at The Ginger Station too. But I hear you ruined my buddy Cormac’s science experiment.”
She stares at me, obviously baffled.
“Cormac Peebles,” I add. Lifting a hand up to his approximate height—six-two or maybe six-three—I say, “About yay high. Curly hair. Glasses. Talks like he was unpopular as a child.”
Her eyes widen. “Are you kidding me? He still blames me for that?”
A laugh sneaks out of me. “Yeah, but he said you probably don’t remember him from high school. He’s obviously wrong.”
“Oh, I remember him,” she says in a pissed-off undertone.
“The universe works in such mysterious ways, doesn’t it?
” Dottie looks excited, like she thinks everyone’s going to link hands and sing “Kumbaya.” “How remarkable. And after all these years your parents have found new love together. I suspect you’ll be seeing a lot of each other, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to put any past unpleasantness behind you.
I’ve never met the young man, but his father tells such lovely, colorful stories about him and all of his inventions. ”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Nora snaps, clearly not ready to put anything behind her. “Men love to blame women for the problems they create.”
I laugh again, lifting my hands up. “Otis and I aren’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole.”
Briar fixes me with a piercing stare. “You and Otis are friends now, are you?”
“He’s taking me boxing,” Otis says, as if we’re going on a date.
“Yeah, that’s why he’s here,” I lie, wanting to keep the surprise a surprise. “But first we have something set up for y’all downstairs. We’re doing the tasting in the barrel room.”
Briar’s brow pinches. “We should do it up here.”
She thinks I’m trying to embarrass her by bringing her successful guest down to a dark, dank, shitty little room.
“Otis helped set it up,” I say. “Took us a long time. Lots of glasses.”
Truthfully, I had no idea how many people she was bringing, so the only thing we have set up are the beer bottles and a leaning tower of shot glasses, but I moved a couple of barrels over in case more seating was needed than the intimate duo of chairs Otis got from the estate sale.
“Fine,” Briar says stiffly, still obviously as annoyed with me as Nora is with Cormac.
I let Otis lead the way, figuring the kid deserves some glory.
Dottie follows him through the door to the back, trailed by Nora, but Briar hangs back, giving me a look that nearly makes me laugh again, even though it would obviously piss her off if I did.
It’s not my fault she’s cute when she’s mad.
When she’s mad. When she’s drunk. When she’s boxing…
“Did you have to say that about Cormac?” she whisper-hisses.
“Sure. It’s true, and I prefer for things to be out in the open.”
“That’s not why you did it,” she accuses, her eyes fastened on mine. “You wanted to cause trouble. You love causing trouble.”
I stare right back. “Maybe it’s trouble that loves me.”
I can almost feel the tension radiating between us, like heat shimmering over blacktop in the middle of summer. Without thinking, I reach over and smooth a mussed part of her hair.
Her lips part, and I’m sure she’s going to blast into me. Remind me that I’m her employee, and I was the one who wrote those rules. She’d be right to do it.
But a voice drifts toward us through the wooden door. “Simply remarkable. Oh, Briar dear, come take a look. You must see this.”
Briar’s lips part further, and I let myself imagine what it would be like to say fuck it and kiss her. To suck that full bottom lip into my mouth and spear my hand into her soft hair.
My mouth goes dry as I watch her turn away and walk through the door without another word.
I want to go with her. I want to watch her take in the room—the manifestation of her vision. I’d love to soak in her sweet smile.
Which is exactly why I don’t.
Let Otis keep her initial excitement for himself. He’s done more to earn it.
Instead, I slip behind the bar and seize the photo of her father to take out our list of rules. I grab a pencil and add:
Don’t touch your boss.