Page 42 of Best Kind of Trouble
“What is it?” Briar asks, and I inhale sharply as she wraps her hand around my arm.
So she’s handsy even when she’s not drunk.
I like it, which is exactly why I tug my arm away and snap the band at my wrist.
Wake up, Liam.
“Neither of us has a car here, do we?” I ask.
She laughs, her nose wrinkling. I make a point of looking away.
“No trouble,” I say. “If you don’t want to walk, we can order an Uber.”
“No,” she says, “let’s walk. Exercise always does me good.” Her gaze turns thoughtful. “But first we need to do something. Wait right here.”
“The anticipation is killing me,” I say as she disappears into the back. She returns to the tasting room a few minutes later with a pencil and a sheet of printer paper.
I can’t help smiling as she scrawls at the top of the page, in perfect handwriting:
Liam and Briar’s Recipe for Success.
“A humble list,” I tease.
“A humble beginning,” she replies.
I take the pencil from her, our fingers brushing, and sit down to write.
She leans in, her soft cheek nearly pressed to mine. Despite a long day of drinking and working, she smells good, although maybe my senses have been burned by the sage smoke.
When I finish writing, I look at her and find her face only inches away. Her lips curve upward. “I can’t read a single word you wrote. Your handwriting is god-awful.”
“Look closer.”
She leans in further, near enough that her hair brushes the side of my neck, and then starts laughing.
Sage incense attaches to everything. Never again. Ghosts aren’t so bad.
She’s still laughing as she meets my gaze. This close, I can see the band of lighter brown in the middle of her irises, and a tiny mole next to her eyebrow. Her lush, full lower lip is pushed out the slightest bit as she laughs. But then her laughter trails off, and in the silence between us a new feeling comes to life—an awareness that we’re alone in here, faces tilted together, laughing. Planning. Trying to build this place up, brick by brick.
I’ve never shared a dream with anyone before. While I had been invested in the success of Mountain Morning Brewing, it had never felt even one percent mine.
Without intending to, I lean in, drawn to her and the promise of our shared dream, but then reality hits me like a punch to the solar plexus. I made a promise to Hannah—a promise I need to keep.
So I pull away and stand up abruptly, the sound of the chair screeching back assaulting our ears. “Let’s go. It’s getting late.”
She nods without speaking.
We step into the night, Briar pausing to lock the door behind us.
“What do you think about all of this?” she asks as she steps up next to me.
I hope to hell she’s not asking about what just happened inside.
I don’t have an explanation for why I almost kissed her. Maybe I’m just contrary, the way Hannah has always said, because there are billions of women on this planet that I’m allowed to kiss. Briar Sterling is one of the only ones who’s off limits.
It’s only the energy of the day, I tell myself.
It’s natural to feel swept away by it.
