Page 29 of Best Kind of Trouble
“Even if it sucks, they’ll love it if they’re already tanked,” I say with a smirk, a bit carried away by her vision.
I can see this working. It’ll be a big show built around my beer. A beer I’ll only have a few weeks to make.
Can I do it?
Damn straight I can.
“Yeah, I thought maybe that would help,” she says, prompting me to laugh.
“It’ll have to be a pale ale or maybe a wheat beer.”
“I know. I was thinking we could do something similar to the Easy Drinking Ale you made this summer. Hannah gave me a bottle. Maybe with a couple of variations to make it more exciting…”
It’s obvious she knows her beer. She hasn’t been sitting around doing her nails, waiting for her daddy to hand her the keys.
“And then, I was thinking…” She splays her hands dramatically in the air, nearly knocking over a water glass. “Weekly reveal parties for the new beers. Obviously the dark beers will have to come out later. It’ll be…the publicity…it’ll be great. People will want to see what we’re doing. How do you feel about herbs?”
I laugh at her non sequitur. “Herbs in our organic beer, you mean?”
She taps my arm with her hand.
“Was that supposed to be a punch?” I ask, laughing harder.
She responds with a headshake, a few strands of her hair whipping around and catching me in the arm. “A nudge for a noodge. I was thinking herbs and fruit. I want something different. Something special.” She smiles again, her whole face lighting up. “I want those reveals to blow their minds.”
“I think we can come up with something.” I have about a hundred ideas for flavor combinations that BevCorp would never let me mass-produce. Ideas that have been weighing down my brain. Recipes I wrote years ago and have made only for myself and my friends. Here’s my chance. “I’ve got a few different beers I’d like you to try. As soon as possible. Which makes it pretty inconvenient that you’re wasted.”
“I amnotwasted,” she insists, frowning at me. “Would a wasted person be able to do this?”
She stands up, her posture perfect, and presses the bottom of her little booted foot to her inner thigh. My eyes track every movement, even as I stand up, preparing to catch her when she inevitably falls.
“And what, exactly, are you doing?” I ask.
“Tree pose,” she says with a frown, probably because she looks like a tree caught in a windstorm. “See, I can definitely do it. I practice every day.”
A second later, she topples.
“Timber,” I murmur as I catch her. For just a second, she’s pressed against me, warm and smelling of bad whiskey, and then she pulls away with a pouty look on her face.
“It’s the floor in here. Don’t tell Sharon, but it’s not level.”
It’s cute that she thinks Sharon gives half a shit about this place just because she works here. It makes me think that Briar could run the kind of business peopledocare about. Which is definitely what I should be thinking about, not the way my sister’s friend felt pressed up against me.
But my mind has never been very good at obeying anyone, myself included, and that’s exactly what I’m thinking about.
Then again, it’s been a long time since I’ve touched a woman—months and months. It was Margaret, Hannah’sotherfriend.
I shake off the memory as Briar resumes her seat and plants her elbows on the table, cradling her head in her hands.
“I might be a little tipsy,” she finally concedes as I sit across from her.
I lean back in my chair, watching her, feeling an unwelcome awareness. “Hannah’s making arrangements, you know. She says you should be at the tea shop at five, ready to make some decisions on staffing.”
Her eyes widen in alarm, and she lifts the coffee and takes a big sip. She sets it back down and stares at the mug as if it betrayed her. “It didn’t work.”
I laugh. “It’ll take more than a single sip. It’ll take time. We’ll walk in the cold too. That’ll help. We can head over to Silver Star so I can check out the equipment.”
“But you need to start working on the new beer.” She sounds a little panicked now, as if she’s beginning to realize her plan is impossible or sitting squarely on impossible’s doorstep.
