Page 39 of Fall is Brewing
She had it. And I—
“Hey.” Jace’s voice cuts through the spiral like a rock through glass. I blink, dragged back into the present. He’s watching me over the rim of his glass, one brow lifted. “You gonna join us tonight, or are you planning to stare into that beer until it confesses something?”
Evan doesn’t look up, just adds, “You’ve been quiet for ten minutes.”
“I’m thinking,” I say.
“Yeah,” Jace replies. “We can tell. It’s unsettling.”
I huff out a breath and take another drink, letting the bitterness settle on my tongue, grounding. It doesn’t help.
Nothing about this feels settled.
“Snap out of it,” Jace says, nudging my boot under the table. “You absolutely smoked her.”
I take a drink of my beer instead of answering.
Amber ale. Solid. Clean finish.
“She didn’t get smoked,” Evan says, without looking up. “They tied. It came down to a tiebreaker.”
Jace waves a hand. “Semantics. He won.”
“I didn’t beat her,” I say.
They both look at me.
Jace tilts his head. “Pretty sure the whole town watched you do exactly that. You won.”
The word lands wrong.
I set my glass down harder than I mean to. The crack echoes across the table, sharper than it should be and something in my chest tightens with it.
I won. Yep, that’s what the town saw. That’s what everyone believes. Except it doesn’t feel like a win. It feels like I fucking cheated. I haven’t had full access to my sense of smell since I was a kid.
I drag a hand over my jaw, exhaling slowly. “Yeah,” I mutter. “Feels great.”
Jace snorts. “You sound thrilled.”
“I think I need to tell them I didn’t win fair and square. Tell them abou—”
“Brooks, no,” Evan snaps. “Don’t do this. You didn’t cheat.”
Jace snorts and takes a long pull of his beer. “Seriously, man. That’s an insane thought.”
A sharp bark cuts through the room, almost like the dog is agreeing with Jace and a flash of white and black spots barrels toward us like we’ve personally summoned him.
“Whoa—hey,” Jace laughs, lifting his boots just in time as the Dalmatian skids slightly on the worn wood floor before planting himself directly between us, tail wagging with full-body enthusiasm.
“Easy, Chief!” Dawn calls from the bar. “Don’t scare the customers.”
The dog ignores her entirely, nudging his head insistently against my knee like I’ve been neglecting him my whole life.
I reach down automatically, fingers sinking into the short, warm fur at his neck. He leans into it immediately, satisfied, tail thumping hard enough against the table leg to rattle the glasses.
Evan gestures vaguely upward with his glass. “This place used to be a fire station before they built the new one off of Main St. And Dawn over there was one of Orchard Falls’ firefighters before she retired.”
“You found all that out in the fifteen minutes we’ve been here?”
