Trouble Brewing

by Suzanne Baltsar

  The little tidbit of personal information she knew had me grinning. “Have you been Googling me?”

  “Pfft.” She waved me off. “No.”

  I raised a brow.

  She squeezed her thumb and index finger together, mouthing “A little bit,” then straightened her smile. “But seriously, trust fund?”

  “I’ve had a lot of good luck by coming into family money, but like you, I put everything I had into my place. If I fail at this, I’ll have nothing left. And my parents aren’t so happy with me right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “They think the Public is a terrible idea. They think I should do something respectable, something worthy of our family’s name.”

  “How very old money of them. I’m sorry. That sucks.”

  I nodded in agreement. “My dad’s dad owned a bunch of factories, and his dad before that owned everything on this side of the Mississippi,” I said with a sigh. My family’s lineage was a long one, and after a while I got tired of hearing and talking about it. That’s why I broke away from them, from it.

  It being that thing. The power-of-God attitude, the passive-aggression, the thinking-that-they’re-always-right thing. “My father can be a real dick sometimes, but my grandfather was beyond. I took pleasure in using the old bastard’s money to make my dream come true.”

  Piper patted my shoulder, and I turned to look at her as I slowed for the yield sign at the bottom of the exit. She grinned, a sparkle in her eyes.

  “What?” I asked, biting back my own grin at her playful expression.

  “Do you still have any more of that bastard’s money? There’s a new fourteen-gallon fermenter I’ve had my eye on for a while.”

  This time I let my smile go. I liked a woman who wanted beer brewing equipment over jewelry. “How about a few siphon hoses or a CO2 tank?”

  She crossed her legs and sucked in air through her teeth. “Oh, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Piper

  You didn’t tell me we were coming to the Original Pancake House. Now I feel underdressed.”

  Blake surveyed me as he took his beanie off, dragging a hand through his hair. And it was almost impossible not to stare. But I didn’t. These were business pancakes.

  “Only the best when I take a girl out,” he said, gently pushing me in front of him to follow the hostess.

  As we walked past the wooden tables and chairs and floral wallpaper, I felt like I was at my grandmother’s house. The place was packed, and sounds of chatter and patrons eating surrounded us, but the only thing I could concentrate on was the slight pressure of Blake’s palm on my back. When we reached our booth, he moved away, and I immediately missed the feel of his hand as I slid across the worn vinyl seat.

  The hostess handed us laminated menus and said our waiter would be with us shortly.

  Blake didn’t even spare a glance at the menu as he began to play with the sugars, putting them all in the same direction.

  “You know what you’re getting already?” I asked.

  “Two by four,” he said, righting the jellies stacked up in their holders.

  “What’s that?”

  “Four pancakes, two eggs on the side.” He lifted his eyes to me when I laughed at him. “What?”

  I pointed to the plastic jelly holder. “What’s with that?”

  He tried to suppress a shy grin. “I like things in order.”

  “I bet you fold your fitted sheet, too.” I was kidding him.

  He looked at me sheepishly.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do.” He nodded.

  “How? Why? No one folds their fitted sheet.”

  “I watched a tutorial on YouTube.”

  An incredulous chuckle escaped me, and he laughed in spite of himself. “I swear it fits better in the closet folded.”

  “Okay,” I said, shaking my head and looking down at the menu.

  “What looks good to you?”

  “I don’t know.” I’d already eaten lunch, but the smells of bacon, cinnamon, and coffee coming from the kitchen made my mouth water.

  The waiter, who looked young enough to be in high school, put our waters and coffee mugs down in front of us. “You ready to order?”

  Blake raised an eyebrow in question, and I nodded, telling the waiter, “The chocolate chip pancakes, please.”

  Blake placed his order then turned to me. “You got a sweet tooth?”

  I leaned forward with my arms on the table, matching his posture. “More like sweet mouth.”

  He smirked, his eyes dropping to said sweet mouth, and I replayed those words in my head.

  “I didn’t mean it to sound like that,” I said, hiding my embarrassment behind a sip of water, trying to ignore his teasing gaze.

  His hazel eyes, which looked more brown today, had the ability to make me melt, and I didn’t want to lose my cool in the Original Pancake House before I even got to try my flapjacks. Though it was hard to contain the flutter in my belly when he smiled and said, “A sweet mouth is my favorite thing.”

  My cheeks stung with heat, and I knew I turned ten shades of red. I was so out of my element—I hadn’t dated since breaking up with Oskar and moving back to the States. My flirting skills were rusty, to say the least. But lucky for me, this wasn’t a date.

  I didn’t have to worry about how I was focused on my career, or that I sometimes didn’t bother to shave my legs for weeks at a time. I didn’t need to remember that I avoided men in general because I didn’t want to have to choose between my job or a nice smile. Nope, I didn’t have to bother with any of those things.

  I fiddled with my utensils. “Tell me about Connor and Bear. Have you guys known each other long?”

  He sat back in his chair and scratched at the bit of scruff on his chin. His fingernails made a scraping sound against his skin, and suddenly I was very interested in the texture of his stubble. What would it feel like against my palm? Against my cheek? My lips?

  Was I allowed to fantasize during a non-date? I needed to consult the rule book, if it even existed.

  I missed the first thing he said and had to ask him to repeat it. He huffed out a small laugh as if he knew why I couldn’t concentrate, and repeated, “We met in high school. We were all on the football team.”

  “You played football?” I couldn’t imagine long and lean Blake, with that pretty boy face, playing football.

  “Yeah, I was a receiver. Although I wasn’t very good. I did it more for the girls and the recognition.”

  “I like that you can admit it,” I said, adding three packets of sugar to my coffee.

  Blake smirked. “You want some coffee with that sugar?”

  I waved him off and took a sip, his eyes once again following the movement of my lips. I hated to admit it, on this non-date, that he made my insides go all gooey and I was afraid I’d become a puddle on the floor.

  “What position did Bear play?” I asked, since the guy looked like he could terrorize the field.

  “I don’t remember. Sophomore year, he sprouted up like five inches and he ended up playing hockey instead. You don’t recognize him?”

  When I shook my head, he grabbed his phone and pulled up a picture. It was Bear in a Chicago Blackhawks jersey, a closed-lip smile on his face. It was a roster picture, like the ones they show on television when they introduce the lineup.

  “Bear played professional hockey?”

  Blake nodded. “They recruited him out of high school. He retired last year.”

  I set my half-empty mug on the table. “I’ve never watched hockey before.”

  “But you live in Minnesota. Surely you’ve seen at least one game.”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t really into sports. “Everything I know about hockey, I learned from Mighty Ducks.”

  “No boyfriend who watched hockey?”

  “No.” I huffed. “My ex wasn’t much of a sports fan. He was . . . the intellectual type.”

  �
��You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said a bit defensively.

  “It’s not.” I tapped my fingers on the table while I came up with the words to describe Oskar. “But he liked to think he knew better than everyone else.”

  “Ah.” He nodded in understanding. “Well, I’ll take you to a game. You’ll love it.”

  I highly doubted I’d love it, but I had a hard time turning his invitation down. Instead I avoided answering altogether. “And Connor? What’s his deal?”

  Blake shifted in his seat, making room for his food when the waiter returned. He thanked him and lifted his fork to eat. “He went to a DIII school for football, but tore up his knee and had to quit. He teaches history and coaches at Jackson High.”

  “And what about you? What happened to you after high school?”

  He finished chewing his bite before he answered. “I went to Northwestern, like my father. Got into law school, like my father. Then moved back to St. Paul to work at the same firm my father did.”

  “I’m sensing a pattern,” I said, scraping up a tiny bit of melted chocolate from my plate with my fork.

  “One that I broke when I quit to open the Public. He assumed I was going to follow in his footsteps.”

  Blake rolled his eyes, and I reached out to tap his hand. “You know what you need? A good motivational poster in your office. Something that says, ‘Keep your eyes on the prize.’ ”

  His dimple appeared. “Do you have a motivational poster?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s the one with the cat hanging on the rope. It says, ‘Hang in there.’ ”

  He laughed, his head bent over his plate, as he said softly, “How have I not met you before?” then shoveled another forkful in his mouth.

  I didn’t know if it was rhetorical or not, or if I was even supposed to hear it. Either way, his words made something inside me twist all up, and suddenly I couldn’t eat another bite.

  Instead, I listened to his stories about Connor and Bear, and he asked questions about my family, my sisters. And then when he’d finished his plate, he scooted my leftovers toward him to finish them off, too.

  When the bill came, I tried to pay my half, but he wouldn’t have it, tossing a balled-up napkin at me, saying, “Let me be a gentleman.”

  He even went one step further in the chivalry category and held the passenger door open for me when we reached his car. The ride back to the pub was a little longer since we hit rush-hour traffic, but I didn’t mind. Blake was a natural speaker, funny and intelligent. I could see how he would’ve been a good lawyer, holding the attention of the court. Not to mention, he probably rocked a suit like nobody’s business.

  “Thanks for the second lunch,” I said once he’d parked.

  “My pleasure. We should do it again sometime.”

  I nodded, loosening my jacket, suddenly a bit too hot. We went from having lots of room between us to just a few inches when he leaned toward me. And I did the same, like a gravitational force pulled me to him. Some random Top 40 song was playing on the radio, but I couldn’t hear it over the rush of blood in my ears as Blake brought one hand up to my cheek and closed the distance between us.

  His breath smelled sweet, like maple syrup, and I closed my eyes waiting for the touch of his lips to mine.

  It had been a long time since I’d been kissed, let alone given myself permission to let my guard down. I’d worked hard the past few years, forgoing a lot, including romance, to bring my business to life. And now that it was finally coming to fruition—

  “Wait. Wait,” I said, putting my hands on his chest, realizing I was only two seconds away from crushing my lips to his. No matter how much I wanted it, I knew this was a bad idea. “Hold on a second.”

  “What?” His eyes were wide with something that was probably reflected back in my own.

  “We can’t do this,” I said. “I can’t do this.”

  He backed away, but only a few centimeters. “Why?”

  I smoothed my hair and pulled at my jacket like it would protect me. “Brewing is a small community.”

  His gaze was sweetly patient as he waited for me to continue.

  “I can’t be known as the chick who sleeps with someone to sell my beer.”

  That’s when his dimple reappeared. “So . . .” He gently wrapped his hands around my upper arms, pulling me toward him again. “That means you want to sleep with me?”

  “Blake,” I half whined, half warned because, yes, I wanted to sleep with him. I wanted to have his mouth all over me. I wanted to learn the sturdiness of every muscle I knew was hiding under his thin sweater. “Business partners, remember? I lost my head for a minute, but we can’t do this. I refuse to be reduced to a stereotype.”

  He stared at me for a moment, looking deep into my eyes before he relented and sat back in his seat. “All right. I understand.”

  Unable to look at him, I dropped my gaze to my lap and picked up my purse. One peek at his dimple or a flash of his charming smile and I’d backtrack.

  Instead, I reached for the door handle, but he stopped me with a gentle touch on my elbow. “Will you still come to the opening next week? Bring some friends. Everybody’s going to love your beer.”

  I chanced a glance over my shoulder. My first instinct was to say no, but I was excited for him, for me, to see firsthand what people thought of Out of the Bottle, and I nodded. “I’ll be there.”

  “Great. I’ll see you later then.”

  I hopped out of the SUV and waved to him through the tinted window. I didn’t know if he could see me or not, but I got the feeling he was watching me as I made my way to my car.

  I hated that I wanted him to watch me. I hated that I really liked him. I hated that for the first time ever my dream was actually a problem.

  CHAPTER 7

  Blake

  I tried to get out of the monthly dinner with my parents at their house in St. Paul. I had too much stuff to do before the opening, but my mother had laid the guilt on thick.

  “There are a lot of changes going on right now, and we need you here,” she’d said to me on the phone yesterday. “Can’t you make a little time to come to dinner? It’s important.”

  But to her, everything was important. The luncheons with the girls, the cocktail parties, the every-third-Sunday family dinners—it was all important.

  Yet, it wasn’t.

  None of it meant anything. Meaningless chatter with vapid people. And my mother was the ultimate peacock among all the brightly colored birds.

  My father wasn’t much better. Sure, he was charming on the outside, but inside he was a son of a bitch. He could be mean to the point of cruel sometimes, especially to his staff. His sharp words had been turned on me often enough that I knew better than to trust his smile.

  The problem was they were the only family I had.

  But the thought of spending four agonizing hours with them right now, when I could be home or at the Public doing something worthwhile, almost had me swerving my car off the Ford Parkway Bridge just to escape. There were only so many “safe” topics I could stick to before we started arguing. Mostly over my life choices or politics. Sometimes over whether I needed a haircut or if my shoes matched my belt, depending on how much my mother had to drink.

  I didn’t expect anything different tonight.

  I turned down Summit Avenue and parked outside my parents’ house, an old Georgian Colonial mansion. The neighborhood was a tourist attraction, filled with big turn-of-the-century homes. The magnificence of the street couldn’t be denied, but as I opened my car door and planted my feet on the sidewalk, the beauty turned my stomach. The house I grew up in was representative of my family—beautiful on the outside, cold on the inside. It was huge, much more than what four people needed, but it had been in the family so long I don’t think they ever considered living anywhere else.

  I checked my phone one last time, praying for an emergency from someone. A come-here-quick! text. But nothing.

  Sighing, I walked
up the long sidewalk and had only just finished knocking when my mother opened the door.

  “Darling,” she said, smiling. She put her hands on my shoulders and tugged me down a few inches so she could kiss both of my cheeks. Like she was Parisian or something—my mother grew up on a farm in Northfield.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, stepping over the threshold. Soft classical music played in the background, as Sandra, the housekeeper, took my coat. Sandra was relatively new; she’d only been around for the last year or so, since Michelle left.

  Michelle was a fantastic woman and single mom. When her kid got accepted to the University of Minnesota, she’d asked my parents for a raise. They’d gotten rid of her instead.

  “Hi, Sandra, nice to see you again.”

  She smiled, but didn’t say anything. I guess after Michelle had supposedly “spoken out of turn,” my mother ran a tighter ship nowadays.

  “Come, Blake, your sister and father are in the drawing room,” Mom said with a wave of her hand. Her heels clacked on the dark hardwood floors as we made our way down the hall to the drawing room. Not the living room. The drawing room.

  “Hey, Dad. Tiff.”

  Tiffany, my sister, the Kim Kardashian of Minnesota. If selfies were a sport, she’d quite possibly medal in the dimwit Olympics. At one point, I actually thought her face might get stuck in that stupid pout, or maybe she’d eventually go blind from staring at the screen of her phone for too long, but it hadn’t happened. Yet.

  Neither of them looked up. My dad had his Crown Royal on the rocks in one hand and his iPad in the other. My sister typed away on her cell.

  “Honey, what would you like to drink?” my mother asked from the wet bar by the fireplace.

  A fifth of Everclear. “I’m fine for now, thanks.”

  She nodded and sat down with her own martini.

  “How are you?”

  I stretched my legs out, my arms resting on the back of the uncomfortable love seat I sat on. “Fine. Getting ready for the opening.”

  My father snorted.

  “Are you coming?” I asked no one in particular.

  Tiff lifted her face to me, smirking. “Sure. I’ll come support my big brother.” It wasn’t support she wanted to give, it was free drinks she wanted to get.