“You’ve forgotten the name,” Lydia pointed out, waving her bottle at the top of the board which remained blank. Lydia had named a few in her time. Cheers, Brewnette! had been a favourite, along with Jen’s Halloween stout she’d christened Beerwitched, Bothered & Beerwildered. “Call this one Attison’s Ruin.” Jen gave her a mardy look. She was not calling her wedding beer and final shout that, and Lydia could do one if she thought she was being subtle.
“Best women are supposed to be supportive, Lyds. I’m sure I mentioned that already. And mother’s ruin is gin.”
“Attison’s Lament?” Lydia’s tone wasn’t so teasing anymore. The mood had become more of a provocation.
“Lyds. Please.” This was hard enough already. “All I want, is to know you’re on my side, even if you don’t agree.” She turned to look at her sister. “Help me find the right name, something elegant.” Jen held the chalk out to her.
Lydia mulled her words, but still looked surly. Finally she got off the counter and took it. “I’ll always be on your side. But let’s call this what it really is.”
She chalked up a single word, handed the chalk back to Jen and without looking back, left.
Well, OK, conceded Jen, she’d at least nailed the elegant bit.
The name of the new beer, the final beer, her wedding beer was Swansong.
Lydia had gone to bed by the time Jen came back in. To be honest, it suited her just fine. Jen hated when they were at odds, but this, her marriage, was one change Lydia was just going to have to deal with. Climbing into bed, Jen told herself time would sort this; there wasn’t an app to fix or progress this, she’d simply have to wait it out.
An hour later and still wide awake, Jen plodded downstairs to make herself a warm milk with honey. There was so much marauding around in her mind, the paper lists weren’t holding it all in check. The wedding, Ava’s business offer, the crampons, the ring, the beer, someone else’s interest in her passion, they all spun around in her brain like a vortex and sleep didn’t have a chance.
She grabbed her laptop from the kitchen table as she went back up with her mug. If the milk didn’t work, then at least she could get some spreadsheets done. Sitting in bed, computer on her lap, Jen found herself staring at the Google home page, fingers poised. She typed in crocheted tampons, squeezed her eyes shut and hit return.
Credit to Ava; she hadn’t been sold magic beans. Crocheted tampons were a real thing and Etsy was full of them. White or Ecru, bamboo or cotton, even some with smiley faces crocheted into them.
Dear God.
Jen hung her head. Surely, bringing these to the masses – organically or not – wasn’t what life intended for her? She quickly hit the back arrow to remove the images.
She doubted she could talk Ava and Zara out of it, and she was reluctant to buy into it. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place; she was about to join their family, and they wanted her to be part of the company. If she didn’t come on board it would be horribly awkward at family events and she had no other job to go to. Argh. Jen flopped back on the pillows, unable to reconcile it all. She was just going to have to take Alice’s suggestion and say she didn’t have the money to buy in and stall for time until she could come up with a better excuse, or – fingers crossed – Ava and Zara saw the crampons weren’t a goer.
Her finger tips were still on the keyboard.
Her nails tapped against the plastic.
Her eyes were drawn to the sound and then to the flashing cursor.
What could it hurt to have a little look in cyberspace, to see if Yakob was there, whether he really existed, or if he was merely a figment of her tipsy, sartorially-tortured Copenhagen weekend?
Keeping her hands distant, as if they’d gone rogue from her body, Jen typed in Yakob Yule and held her breath.
Nothing appeared.
Huh.
Maybe she was spelling it wrong. She tried with Yakob Yool. Nothing there either. She bunged an e on the end of the surname, and also tried his first name with a c instead of a k, but neither got any results. She wracked her brains to think what else she could try, but realised she had nothing to go on. Argh, why hadn’t she got him to write it down? Bugger.
The door creaked open and Lydia’s face appeared.
“I can’t sleep. I heard you plodding up and down the stairs.” Her eyes dropped to the laptop. “What you doing?”
Jen slapped the lid shut, which only served to snag Lydia’s interest. “One might suspect you’re watching porn, Jen, given that reaction,” she said, crossing the floor on her crutches, “but I know you. My guess would have been a spreadsheet, but not anymore …”
Oh bum. She’d played this very, very badly.
Lydia burrowed her way in under Jen’s duvet and got herself comfortable. “Let’s see what we have here, shall we?” She raised the lid with her index finger. Jen’s shoulders sagged. Lydia would make this as painful as possible. “Ah ha! Caught red-handed, Miss Nothing Happened.”
“Nothing. Happened,” Jen tried, weakly. “Really.”
“Then why are you looking him up?” Lydia rudely whizzed back through the search history, emitting a snort when she reached the crocheted tampons.
“I’m not looking him up. I’m just moderately interested to learn who I had dinner with. I was alone on his houseboat, I think it’s perfectly natural to check I was safe.”
“After the fact.”
“I wasn’t exactly given a choice on the sequence of events, was I?”
“I was doing you a favour,” Lydia said, keenly trying another permutation of his name, squinting at the screen. She got equally useless results. “You needed a little adventure in your life.”
“My life is fine, thanks.”
“Well maybe I’m testing your resolve regarding Robert. Helping you make sure you’re doing the right thing.” Lydia sat back from the laptop frustrated. “There’s nothing there. He’s a mystery.”
“I know!” said Jen, equally exasperated and disregarding the resolve thing. She didn’t need testing. “He’s invisible. No LinkedIn, no Facebook, no online footprint at all. It’s like he doesn’t exist.” An awful feeling began to creep over her that maybe he’d given her a false name. Please not again. But then she dismissed it. There had been no expectation of ever meeting again when he’d told her either of his names. There’d been no need to lie.
“Maybe,” Lydia said with a lowered voice, “he’s a spy. Oh my God. You fell into the hands of a spy. How romantic would that be?”
“Lydia. Stop.” Jen swiftly shut down the computer. Enough was enough. “I have all the romance I need.” Admittedly what she and Robert had wouldn’t be the strongest definition of romance, but it was kind and respectful and they knew what each other was about. She slid the computer to the floor, safely away from either of them, and lay down. “You’re too wrapped up in the rom-coms, and now the spy films apparently.” She tugged at Lydia’s t-shirt, so that she lay down too. “Real life isn’t like the movies, Lyds. I know you want it to be, but it isn’t. I’ll be happy with Robert. You’ll see.”
Finally the exhaustion was setting in. And for once Lydia had nothing to say. Jen didn’t know what she’d thought she’d get out of the Googling. She wouldn’t have contacted him or anything like that. Now however, she was even more sure meeting Yakob had just been a moment, a moment that was done and dusted. Not being able to find him was a sign – had she been looking for one, which she absolutely definitely hadn’t. Like the beer, she would pack away her thoughts of Yakob too, because the universe was literally telling her this was a dead end.
Chapter 13
The room did indeed have a disproportionate number of beards for the general public, Jen had to admit.
“Only you would take a day off to spend it with beardies,” Lydia had said as they’d travelled into London together on the train. Jen was used to the excess of facial hair at beer trade shows, but she was pleased to point out to her sister that over recent years there were more an
d more women attending. Lydia rubbed her chin between thumb and forefinger and Jen wasn’t quite sure whether she was expressing doubt or suggesting the female brewers might have chin hair too. Either way, she wasn’t entertaining it, she wasn’t having fellow brewsters mocked.
She’d bought her ticket to Brewing Live months ago. She couldn’t see the point of wasting the ticket in light of her ending her hobby, and besides she needed to find just the right bottles for her wedding favours. Sure, she could spend an evening in the comfort of her own home forensically searching all the online bottle suppliers for the exact shape and size of bottle she wanted, but there was nothing like examining them in real life, holding them up to the light to check the colour density, even if it meant taking the day off work and spending money on a train ticket. Some things deserved proper effort. Besides, it was a day away from the inco pads and imminent crampons, so she was having it.
The Craft hall Jen was slowly making her way through was a hubbub of noise. The show covered three halls, this one for craft beer tasting and supplies, one for the state-of-the-art brewing equipment and the last for all the large corporate companies to tout their huge deals and spend their promo budgets on freebies. With an air of disdain the Craft brewers stayed safely away from that hall, considering the hordes of visitors in there as mere tourists. The halls were connected by a central hub of conference rooms, offering a rolling buffet of panel talks, demonstrations and lectures. Jen had already been to a couple, one on rediscovering hop varieties and another on revisionist brewing techniques, but only because she’d already signed up for them a while back, no other reason. Her copious note-taking she could only put down to reflex. Three years at uni would do that to anyone, she was sure.
Generally, Jen was on the other side of things at trade shows, handing out samples and flyers for Well, Honestly!, becoming exhausted from standing on her feet all day and having the same conversations over and over again. Today however, as she wandered along the stands, saying hello to the people she knew from previous years and other events, she was enjoying being a punter. Having tasted several beers already, as one did, she was feeling quite relaxed. Normally, she would have spent the previous evening looking through the delegate listings, planning the most efficient walk route through the halls so she wouldn’t miss a thing. However, in light of her only needing the bottle of her dreams and perhaps some ingredients, she’d decided to adopt a more Yakob approach this time, and meander her way around. It was proving quite enjoyable. Of course there was no need to be efficient about it anymore, given she was drawing it to a close. Next year she would just be a tourist herself. Instinctively, she straightened her Kronegaard-sponsored lanyard and show ID. Next year she supposed she needn’t attend at all …
Feeling her buoyant mood ebb, Jen focused on the stand she’d arrived at, one which was on her to-see list. (Yes, of course she still had a list. She was just taking more time getting between the points on it.) Bottles of all shapes and colours stood on display, some designed for capping, some with ceramic swing caps. She was in two minds about having those or whether to have personal caps made for the day, perhaps with a J & R insignia and the date. She picked up a brown one. Brown was a given.
“Hello again.” She heard the voice over her shoulder at the same time as she felt the light tap on it, but it still took her a while to process the words were directed at her. That voice, those words.
She spun, and there he was. Yakob. The internet man of mystery himself. She felt her head instantaneously heat in her confusion. What was he doing here?
“Hello again,” was all she could say in her befuddlement. What a muppet.
“It’s good to see you, Jen.” Yakob looked like he meant it, his eyes were bright and his smile wide.
“You too, Yakob.” Oh God, her conversational skills were lacking, but it really was the truth. She’d felt so sad about sending him away on the bridge that night, after that kiss, even though it was absolutely the right thing to do. “What are you doing here?” She’d expected never to see him again and here he was. Shocked didn’t quite cover this.
Jen looked him over. Sadly the abs had been covered with a pristine white shirt, but open enough at the collar to give a repeat view of his fine collar bones and he wore a pair of tailored navy suit trousers, the jacket presumably having been ditched elsewhere. If he’d come in wearing a tie it had been dispensed with and whereas she had dutifully donned her lanyard on entry, he’d apparently stuffed his in his pocket, the end of the lanyard peeping out. He looked neither like a tourist nor a brewer. He almost appeared corporate if it hadn’t been for the hair still walking its own line. Regardless, Yakob looked equally fine in his business wear as in his weekend cargo shorts. She thanked the heavens she was in her own clothes as opposed to Lydia’s charity shop styling.
“Working. Finance things. Very boring. But what about you?” He eyed the bottle in her hand, which she swiftly put down.
“Just browsing. Ingredients and materials. You know.” She shrugged a bit, hoping they could move on. He leaned past her and picked up the bottle.
“Are you sure brown isn’t your favourite colour?” She plucked it out of his hand and replaced it. Sixty seconds he’d lasted. Sixty seconds and he was teasing her again. It didn’t irk her though, it said he bore her no ill feeling about her refusing him and it made her so glad.
She got a waft of his aftershave, its scent instantly igniting her memories of their evening in Copenhagen. That pine, lemon and sage mix was perfect for him.
“I have some time before my next meeting, Jen. Would you like a coffee?” he asked, then added with a smirk, “do you have a coffee break timetabled?” Why did he find her being organised so funny?
“Actually Yakob,” she said with mock indignance, “I haven’t timetabled today. I am meandering.” A to-see list was NOT the same as a timetable. FACT. And yes, she was aware how imperious she suddenly sounded, but he seemed to bring that out in her, along with the pratting, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.
His lovely blue eyes showed his delight and she chose to believe it was at her accepting the coffee as opposed to in amusement, though she wouldn’t have bet on it. Having a coffee was acceptable, wasn’t it? Having coffee in a public space was normal friend behaviour and given he’d saved her from the canal and clothed and fed her, she felt she could easily justify him as a friend. He definitely wasn’t a stranger. She safely parked the memory of The Kiss far far away at the back of her head. What happened in ‘hagen … although her treacherous eyes did flit to his lips every so often. Unless she was much mistaken, his eyes were doing the same.
Unlike in Copenhagen, he didn’t hold a hand out to her this time, safely putting them in his pockets as they walked side by side towards one of the cafés. At one point she fell in behind him to allow for oncoming foot traffic, and watching him she remembered how tall he was. Admittedly the unruly hair added another inch on him, but his legs were extremely long and led up to a very neat bottom. He really had invested in some good tailoring there.
Jen gave herself a mental kick. What was she doing ogling other men? That was Lydia’s MO, not hers. And it certainly wasn’t the behaviour of an engaged woman. She forced her eyes up to the back of his rumpled head until there was room for them to walk two abreast again, though not so much room that their arms didn’t rub together as they made their way.
Jen found the seats while he bought the coffees. As she’d recently learned (and having a crappy phone that didn’t do browsing), she took the time to take in the things going on around her; him standing in the queue, him ordering, him paying and returning to her cups in hand. She was getting good at this – although her breathing might be a little off.
“It is not the same, seeing you without the Kronegaard t-shirt,’ he said with a grin. “I am sure I saw them giving some out today.” She’d had a go at saying Kronegaard like he did, rolling the Kr, but she’d sounded like a cat with a furball in its throat.
“I woul
dn’t know,” she said primly, ignoring his jibe, “I don’t usually hang around that hall.” They both knew she had to pass through it from the entrance to the other halls, the corporates having paid for the central showcase positions.
“You mean they are not on your list?” He was taking the piss again and heartily enjoying doing so, by the looks of it. It didn’t feel in the slightest bit malicious, just that he found her slightly hilarious. She still had little idea why, because her planning was what held things together. Sure, the “taking time to look around” was nice, but it was bonus activity, not useful activity.
“I think I might have mentioned, Yakob, I haven’t timetabled today,” she said, passing over the mention of a list, unwilling to let him win, “I don’t have time for or interest in those brands. I’m a craft beer girl through and through.” He tilted his head like he wasn’t sure he believed her freestyle approach, but changed his line of attack.
“You don’t think,” he asked slowly, but with a look of mischief, “and I only say this to play devil’s advocate Jen, that you might be a beer snob?”
Jen’s eyes widened at that. She had never been called a snob before. But then she thought about it. “Yes. Totally,” she agreed and without a hint of shame. Yakob sat back at that. “What? You think I should be repentant? I’m not. The corporates are all about the money, not about the beer.” He opened his mouth to say something but feeling feisty given the strength of her conviction she waved a hand in his face, “And you can tell the devil’s advocate from me that my snobbery is in fact promotion of standards, skill and creativity.” She wasn’t done yet, enjoying having the floor. “Which, by the way, I think you secretly agree with, given you found me in the Craft hall. Lost were you? I suspect, Mr Finance, you are a closet creative. I think your hours with Morfar, instilled a love of the brew in you, but you’ve buried it under the numbers. Only, the truth will out.”
Probably the Best Kiss in the World Page 11