Chapter 11 #2
Before coming to work for my brother, Winnie designed and then sold Neighborly, a social media forum app now used in hundreds if not thousands of cities across the country.
The only one Winnie retained ownership of is the one here in Sheet Cake, and I’ve personally witnessed the great delight she takes in moderating what is essentially a place for people to gossip about the goings-on here.
Winnie is smarter than any of us, and though running a brewery is in a totally different wheelhouse than coding or designing an app, this place wouldn’t be operational without her.
James originally hired her to help with the website before he opened.
Now, she’s not only his fiancée but his business partner.
I’m not jealous, exactly. But envious? Absolutely. I can often ignore it, but the sense of missing out on having someone in my life sticks with me like a pinched nerve.
My thoughts shift to Molly, and I command them to shift somewhere else.
I haven’t heard from Molly since just after the breakfast Thayden interrupted with his big, stupid mouth and big, stupid ideas. Chase and Harper had been waiting at Tank’s place for her, and as far as I know, all three of them went back to Austin.
Did I think she might let me know? Yes.
But I’m not shocked that Molly tucked tail and ran. She said she didn’t think we should keep up the ruse—which hit me as hard as a real breakup. And that was before Thayden gave her more reason to distance herself from me. I’m such a catch—the guy with a vindictive ex stirring the pot.
Molly is not going to be my Winnie. Not in a fake way and probably not in a real one.
“I could’ve used this kind of help at my gym,” I tell Winnie now without thinking.
Instantly, her smile drops. Did she note the way I used past tense when talking about my gym? If she didn’t catch it, there’s no way she didn’t hear the dejection in my voice. Winnie misses nothing.
“Is everything okay, Collin?” she asks, her sharp blue eyes searching my face. Assessing. And probably seeing more than I want her to.
“It will be.” I give her shoulder a quick squeeze before I start walking again, right past the bar and toward the back. “Thanks, Win.”
I find my older brother in what I think of as the brewing room.
Floor-to-ceiling metal cylinders take up most of the space along with other machinery and equipment.
Despite James’s attempt to tell me what all this equipment is called and what it does, the information bounced right off my brain and back out again.
Brewy things—that’s the official term I’ll go with for all this stuff.
James is messing with some kind of pipe, a rag tucked into the back pocket of his worn jeans and a backwards baseball cap on his head. When he stands and turns to me, he uses the rag to wipe his brow.
“Hey, brother,” I say.
James grunts—his version of hello.
“Thought I’d stop by and see what you’re up to.”
His gaze is suspicious, making me wonder when the last time I stopped by for this kind of visit was. Probably a long while ago, since I’ve been avoiding my family ever since the Liza situation blew up in my face.
“You need money?” James asks.
“No!”
“Help burying a body? Because I already told you that’s beyond the scope of our fraternal bond.”
Maybe Pat and I are not the only ones in the Graham family with an impressive vocabulary.
“Can’t I just drop in for an impromptu visit?”
“No. Is this about whatever you’re trying to pull with Chase’s sister?”
“Her name is Molly. And … no?”
I wait for James to pounce, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he walks out of the room, apparently finished with whatever brewy stuff he’s been doing in here. I follow him down the cramped hallway, expecting him to duck into his office, but he bypasses it for the exit.
“You make a terrible white rabbit,” I tell him as I step outside right behind him.
He frowns. “A white rabbit?”
“You know—Alice in Wonderland. She follows a white rabbit down the—you know what. Never mind.” I pause, taking in our surroundings. “This is nice. When did you do all this?”
James flops down into a folding chair on the little patio.
Last time I was here, this exit door led to an alley between the brewery and a crumbling building next door.
Now, there are lights crisscrossing overhead, five folding chairs, and one of those blue bug zappers, which greets us by electrocuting some kind of bug.
There’s no fence, but the area is set apart by a row of tall potted shrubs on either side.
I guess this is James’s answer to not always being on at his brewery.
“Winnie did this. Drink?” James asks, opening a cooler beside him as I drop into my own chair.
I expect beer, but he holds out a cream soda—my favorite sugary indulgence. One I rarely allow myself to have. I take the can and pop the top.
“What?” James asks, and I guess my expression is doing something weird.
“You stock my favorite kind of soda,” I say. “That’s surprisingly thoughtful. Especially for you.”
James rolls his eyes and takes a swig of water. “Again—that was Winnie.”
“Glad at least one of you is thoughtful.”
James kicks my chair, which almost folds up with me inside it. “So. You wanna talk about your big mess?”
I debate kicking his chair right back. But James is bigger than me, so instead, I just glare.
I hadn’t planned on telling James about selling the gym and my issues with my ex, though talking to Tank pretty much opened the floodgates. Sounds like Dad alerted the family on my behalf. My family is entirely too close for its own good sometimes.
“Guess keeping this from y’all was too much to hope for,” I say with a sigh.
James narrows his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Uh oh. “What are you talking about?”
“Molly. Our not-so sister-in-law.”
I shudder. “Please don’t ever put the word sister in any sentences regarding Molly again. I beg of you.”
“What other mess did you make, little brother? I thought we were in agreement that mess-making was Pat’s job.”
“Seems like now that he’s all married and about to have a new baby, he’s passed on the torch to me.”
“You didn’t have to take it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
James kicks my chair again, and this time, the legs do fold, making me into a Collin-chair taco and spilling my cream soda. Winnie walks out as I’m trying to extricate myself from the chair and James is wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
It’s good to see him laugh, even if it’s at my expense. My too-serious older brother could do with a little more levity.
Hands on her hips, she says, “Collin, you know that’s not how folding chairs work, right?”
I grumble something about James while setting up my chair out of his reach. Winnie grabs a replacement cream soda from the cooler, handing it to me before she plops herself in James’s lap. She pokes him in the ribs, which makes him squirm under her arched brow.
She’s the only one who can give the eyebrow to James as well as he gives it to everyone else.
“Sorry,” he says to me.
“No you’re not.”
“No. I’m not. Now tell us about your big mess.”
“Oooh, yes!” Winnie says, bending to fish a Diet Dr Pepper out of the cooler. “I love hearing about a good mess.”
I bet they’re not going to like this one.
With only faint music from inside and the occasional bug being zapped for a soundtrack, I recount the whole Liza saga.
Starting with our ugly breakup and finding missing money and ending with the offers for my gym I still haven’t responded to and Thayden’s suggestion to fake a relationship with Molly for the sake of my public image.
Mostly because I haven’t talked to Molly about it.
The only thing I leave out is the field Tank showed me. For now, and maybe until I know what I’m doing with it, that’s something I want to keep to myself.
Might as well put all the cards on the table. I’ll play pick-up later. Likely not alone from the looks on Winnie and James’s faces.
James wears the same expression about ninety-five percent of the time, so he can be hard to read.
I do pick up on his anger by the way Winnie keeps unconsciously trying to soothe it—running her fingertips over his arm or gently massaging his shoulders.
By the time I finish, she’s removed his backwards baseball cap and is running her fingers through his hair.
But Winnie looks unsurprised. Actually, she looks guilty, avoiding my eyes in a way that’s intentional and biting her lip.
“You knew?” I ask her, going out on a limb.
James’s frown deepens as he spins to look at his wife.
“Y’all know I do a lot of stuff online. I saw her storytime.”
Winnie rolls her eyes, I groan, and James says, “What the hell is a storytime?”
I want to laugh, but it really isn’t funny when it’s you that someone’s making a storytime about.
“It’s a trend where people share their personal drama online as what they call a ‘storytime.’” Winnie makes air quotes.
Her lip curls like the very idea makes her nauseated.
“Basically, people are airing out their personal beef. They’re almost always negative—people griping about their bad experience at the nail salon or with a neighbor or someone on their flight. ”
“Or an ex,” I add.
“And people actually watch that?” James asks.
Winnie and I both nod. “They’re surprisingly addictive,” I say.
“People love drama when it’s not their drama.” Winnie sighs. “But more people should consider that it’s always someone’s drama. Unless it’s fictional, which sometimes they are.”
“So, you’re telling me that your ex posted a ‘storytime’ about you?” James asks.
“It was a twelve-part series,” Winnie says, then shrugs when we both look at her.
“What? It came across my feed. I watched, and it was, from what I could tell, a big steaming pile of lies.” She pauses, and the look that crosses her face is positively wicked.
“I reported every single one and her whole account. Created a few new accounts and reported her with those too.”