2. Chapter 2 - Callum
Icouldn’t suppress the smile on my face as the realization dawned on me.
Pax said his family's meadery was outside Sacramento. What he hadn’t said was that it was just on the outskirts of Foggy Basin, the small town near Sacramento where my family happened to rent this year’s house.
“You’re kidding me,” I said quietly. I had been sure we’d never see each other again.
The sense memory of him holding my hand as the plane landed flooded back to me, the warmth and safety it had provided me.
Pax furrowed his brow and ran his hand through his short, light brown hair as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, his dark brown eyes alight with either surprise or excitement, I couldn’t tell which. Maybe both, if I was lucky. “Cal? How did you—what are you doing here?”
I held up my pocket-sized spiral notebook and my pen.
“I’m a magazine writer, remember? I work for Connection Monthly.
While I’m out here for the reunion, I figured I’d write a piece on Foggy Basin.
After you told me so much about the mead-making life, I got curious.
As I was headed into town, I saw the sign advertising this one, I thought I’d stop by.
I didn’t know Celestial Cask was your place. ”
He nodded slowly. “Well, then I guess we’re both surprised to see each other. Why don’t you come in and have a seat?” He stepped aside to let me in.
The way he said surprised made me wonder if it was as pleasant a surprise to him as it was to me. I didn’t push my luck and ask. Instead, I took a seat at the glossy bar, settling onto a black leather barstool with chrome legs.
“Have you ever had mead before?” Pax asked as he made his way behind the bar, rolling up the sleeves of his red and black plaid shirt.
“Not yet.” I tapped my pen on the countertop. “What’s good here?”
He laughed. “Personally, I think it’s all good. There are a lot of different varieties. What kind of alcohol do you gravitate toward?”
“I’ll try anything, but when I have a choice, I prefer sweet drinks.”
He turned his back to me and grabbed a couple of glasses. “Perfect, because our meads run sweet.”
“Isn’t all mead sweet? It’s made from honey, right?”
Pax nodded and put the glasses under two different taps, pouring a little in each before turning back and placing the glasses in front of me.
“Mead is made from honey, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a light, sweet, fruity drink.
We tend to make a variety of melomels, which are flavored with fruit juices, hydromels, which have more added water than usual, and the occasional traditional mead, which is just honey, water, and yeast. Sometimes, we flavor them with coffee or spices instead of fruit juice. Here, try these.”
I took a sip from the first glass. The mead was rich and full-bodied, dry on my tongue, with a hint of smoke or maybe… “Is that caramel I taste?”
He grinned. “Good guess, but no. This one is made from buckwheat honey, which has a darker, richer taste. We aged it in smoked American Oak barrels, which is where you’re getting the caramel notes.”
“It’s good, but it’s not my thing. I can’t see myself drinking a whole glass of this. Too… strong, I guess. I don’t know.”
“That’s fair. This one is called ‘It’s Not You, It’s Mead.’ It’s our prizewinner, but like you said, it’s not for everyone. Try the other one.”
This one was fizzy, to my surprise. It was sweet and lighter, almost like carbonated grape juice. “I like it.”
“‘The Need for Mead’ is our most popular mead. It’s a session mead, lower alcohol content—a hydromel—and flavored with different things. What do you taste?”
I shrugged. “Just grape juice.”
“Good start. It also has cotton candy flavors in there.”
I took another sip and let the mead linger on my tongue. “Oh, yeah. It does,” I said, a little surprised. I gave Pax a genuine smile. “This is really cool. And you’ve been doing this…”
He nodded. “All my life, really. Like I mentioned, my grandparents started this place in the sixties, almost twenty years before mead started to go mainstream. They came from Europe where it was a lot more common, comparatively speaking. When they settled here, they started creating meads in their garage. They went commercial in sixty-five. My uncle took over in the nineties, and started branching out from traditional meads. And when I took over for him about ten years ago, that’s when things started to get really wild. ”
His grin was infectious and my chest heated under the warmth of his gaze. “That’s an amazing story.”
Pax nodded toward my notebook. “Hopefully your magazine will appreciate it.”
The magazine. Shit. “I should probably be taking notes, huh?”
A soft chuckle came from him as he leaned in, placing his hands against the bar top. “Hey, I don’t know your process.” The smooth, velvety way he spoke did something to me, made my gut twist and roll, made me want to reach out for him.
“I could show you my process sometime,” I said quietly, raising my eyebrows. “Now that I’ve heard all about yours, I mean.”
“Oh, you haven’t heard the first thing about the process around here. All you’ve heard is the backstory.”
I hummed and nodded, my cheeks warming. Why was a stupid running joke with the word “process” in it so sexy? “Well, you show me yours and maybe I'll show you mine.”
He hummed a little. “Why don’t I show you around the back room then? Give you a little tour. Then you can sit back down and enjoy a flight, knowing exactly where it comes from.”
Was that intended to be as suggestive as it sounded?
I nodded and stood. “I’d love to take a look at the back room.
” As I stood, I had to shift a little to keep my jeans from having too noticeable a bulge in front.
I followed Pax through the swinging door that led to, presumably, the room where he mixed and fermented and bottled his meads.
He ushered me in and followed behind as I slowly walked around, taking it all in.
“This is great.”
“Thanks. Those are the fermentation barrels. Over there is where we do our mixing and experimenting in small batches, before trying to scale up. And that’s the honey storage.”
“So cool.” I was quiet for a moment before turning back to Pax, who was just a few inches behind me. “Oh,” I said softly.
“I hope this is okay,” he murmured, hands in his jeans pockets.
My stomach flipped in anticipation and I inched closer. “Yeah, of course.”
Pax moved one hand to my jaw and leaned in close, until we were nearly touching. He smelled like honey and caramel and wood smoke. I held my breath in anticipation of his next move.
A door slammed nearby, startling us both, and we backed away from one another.
“Hey, boss, you back here?”
Pax took a shaky breath and stepped farther from me. “Yep,” he called over his shoulder.
A moment later, a burly guy with a beard and long-ish hair pulled into a ponytail stepped into view. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t know you were giving a tour.”
Paxton nodded and shoved his hands back in his pockets. “Yeah, Tommy, I’m giving a tour. This is Callum. Cal. He’s writing for…”
“Connection Monthly,” I said, sticking my hand out to shake Tommy’s. “Pax was just showing me around.”
Tommy nodded and shook my hand. “Good to meet you. Boss, there’s someone out front who wants to see you. Says she’s from the county planning commission or something.”
“Be right there,” he said. As Tommy walked away, Pax gave me an apologetic glance. “I’m going to…” He nodded in the direction of the taproom.
“Right, yeah. Of course. Lead the way.”