Page 10 of Best Kind of Trouble
She’s right. After dressing me and prying my story out, Hannah practically launched herself out of the room, insisting she was going to hire more staff for me.
Tonight.
She must have been talking about Liam, right?
I hope to God she was, because the only thing that will save me is if I find a brewer good enough to pull everything together.
I also hope shewasn’ttalking about Liam, because if Hannah convinces her brother to work for me, I’ll be a nepo baby twice over—my father gave me the brewery, and my best friend gave me?—
“Ican’tlet her give me her brother,” I cry out, tears tracking down my cheeks.
Sophie cocks her head, and I feel the telltale flushing of my cheeks again. “I mean…she obviously can’t give him to me…he’s a grown man. He’s six foot four, maybe even six foot five. But he’d do anything for her, you know he would. What if she asks him to come work for me, and he only does it because she made him, and then the brewery is a huge failure?—”
“No one can make anyone do anything,” Sophie says firmly. “Let’s do more of that yoga breathing.”
We’ve been doing it off and on since Hannah left the room.
I learned Dirgha breathing when I was a kid from my great-aunt Sky. For a month every summer, I stayed with her in her cabin in Georgia, where we used to pick wildflowers and do yoga together. Sometimes she would take me to her art collective studio so I could learn from the different artists.
My great aunt is probably the only reason I made it through childhood. She’d spent so much time teaching me ways to calm my anxiety. But the most useful has probably been how to breathe through stress. I can practically hear her whispering to me in her soft, musical voice:inhale deeply into your belly, then rib cage, then chest, and exhale in the opposite order.
She’d insisted Dirgha breathing was magic, and she may have been right. I can already feel the weight on my shoulders lessening.
The snick of the door opening at the back of the warehousecatches my attention. It lets in a spurt of noise from the staff party—someone laughing, followed by strains of that hateful song about a stalking Santa.
Oh, I’ll never listen to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” again without thinking about Bubba’s hostile raisin eyes.
I turn toward the entrance, expecting Hannah, but Liam walks in, shutting the door behind him.
Yeah, he’sdefinitelysix foot five, with broad shoulders and thick arms. He has auburn hair and a short, trimmed beard that gleams red and gold or brown depending on the lighting. His eyes are brown, not a dancing green like Hannah’s, and even though they’re light—the color of our amber ale—they’re not warm and welcoming. They remind me of a wolf’s eyes.
He nods a greeting as he walks over, his movements brimming with confidence. Something is tucked under his arm, but my overloaded brain can’t make sense of it. My heart starts racing like a scared rabbit’s. It’s that confidence of his, thatswagger. He walks like he owns the world.
I nearly gasp when he comes to a stop in front of us, because there’s a sticker on his shirt that says,
Hi! My name isMR. MIRACLE.
I needed a miracle, and I came here. Perhaps I’m being foolish, but this feels an awful lot like a sign.
“We have to talk privately,” he says, his words giving me an electric jolt.
“Why can’t we talk here?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Hannah said you want to poach me. You’ve got some pretty big balls if you want to discuss it at my place of employment.”
My cheeks burn as I get to my feet, needing to show some agency, even if I’m suddenly hyperaware of my tearstained faceand mussed hair. I had it in a ponytail earlier, but somewhere in the middle of my crisis the scrunchie must have slipped off.
I search his face but can’t tell whether he’s pissed, annoyed, or bored. I can’t read him at all, other than his confidence. If Hannah’s an open book, he’s a firmly closed one. Actually, he’s like one of those lockable diaries every girl is given at some point, with a key that gets lost after a week.
It’s hard to imagine two more different siblings.
“Where’s Hannah?” I ask.
“I don’t want her anywhere near this,” he insists. “She works here too. People don’t look kindly on poaching employees.”
It feels like he just punched a hole in my chest with a rusty office implement. Hannah’s risking her job for me.
If she asked Liam to quit, and their boss finds out…
