Page 9 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

Gunny wanders past with a case of empties and stops dead at the sight of an eight-year-old conducting a formal headcount of the grain pallets. "You hired a second employee already."

"He's a volunteer."

"Does the volunteer get benefits?"

"Just a juice box, if he behaves."

"Better package than I started with." Gunny keeps walking, laughing to himself in a way that tells me this story is going to make it around the building by closing time, same as everything else does in this place.

Josie finds me an hour later at the corner table in the taproom, where I've retreated to do paperwork that doesn't require standing near heavy machinery while children roam free. She sets a piece of paper down in front of me with both hands, the same careful presentation she used on the dandelion, and steps back to watch my reaction with an intensity that makes me feel like I'm being graded.

The drawing shows a large yellow shape with four black circles underneath it and a row of small squares along one side. It takes me a second.

"Is this Biscuit?"

"Yes. That's his ears." She points at two triangles near the top that I'd mistaken for some kind of antenna. "And those are his legs."

I count the circles. There are four of them, evenly spaced, and the overall shape bears a closer resemblance to a school bus than to any dog I've ever owned, but the confidence in her face doesn't leave room for a review of the anatomy.

"It's the best picture anyone's given me in years."

"I know." She says it without a trace of doubt, the way only an eight-year-old can, and looks past me at the wall behind the bar like she's already decided where it belongs. "You should put it up."

I should say I'll think about it. I should say thank you, set it somewhere safe, and go back to work, the way any sensible adult would handle a drawing from a kid he's known two weeks. Instead I find a spare thumbtack in the drawer behind the register and pin the drawing to the corkboard by the office door before I've fully decided to do it, crooked, one corner curling slightly, directly at kid height.

"There," I say, like it's a business decision and not the second time in two weeks this family's talked me into keeping something I had no business keeping.

"It looks good there," Josie says, with the satisfaction of an artist whose work has finally found its proper gallery, and wanders off to find her brother.

Eli finds me not long after, mid-recount, and drops onto the stool across from me at the corner table with the boneless confidence of a kid who's already decided the two of us are friends now.

"What happened to your arm?"

I follow his eyes down to the scar, the pale line disappearing under my sleeve that most adults pretend not to notice for exactly as long as it takes them to work up the nerve to ask about it later, in private, with careful phrasing. Eli skips straight to the question with the total lack of tact I've come to expect from him.

"Work thing."

"Did it hurt?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." He accepts it instantly, no follow-up, already moving on to the next item on whatever mental list he's running. "Have you ever shot a gun?"

"Yes."

"A real one?"

"Real ones are the only kind that count."

"Have you ever met a Navy SEAL?"

I look at him for a second, weighing how much of the actual answer an eight-year-old needs. "Technically."

"Where?"

"Around."

He accepts that too, apparently satisfied with the vague heroism of the answer, and starts telling me at length about a documentary he watched once involving submarines, none of which requires any input from me beyond the occasional nod. I let him talk. It's easier than explaining that the real answer is a lot closer than "around" makes it sound, and that it's not a story I hand out to anyone, especially not an eight-year-old who thinks I'm cool for owning a brewery.