Trouble Brewing

by Suzanne Baltsar

  “She left on Tuesday. Drove down.”

  “Tuesday?” I got out, grasping at pieces of the story for something to hold on to. Today was Thursday. She’d been in a different state this whole time.

  “She said she had to go, and didn’t think she’d be able to if she talked to you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Blake.”

  As quickly as my heart had stopped beating it picked back up, galloping away. A pain shot down my chest and through my rib cage. I waited for an audible sound, imagining my bones breaking, and when it didn’t happen, I pressed my hand to my breastbone, making sure I was still whole.

  Sonja stretched up on her toes, hugging me around the neck, but I didn’t have the energy to wrap my arms around her. I sunk into her. Like deadweight.

  I was deadweight.

  “She was really torn up about it,” she said, as if that would comfort me.

  It didn’t.

  “I’m sorry. She said she owed it to herself to see what it was like.” She slowly backed away from me, but kept her fingers on my shoulders, anchoring me.

  “I guess that’s all there is then,” I said. I’d get no final discussion. No time to look in her emerald eyes. No brush of my fingers around hers, no kiss good-bye.

  Piper wasn’t mine anymore.

  I combed my hands through my hair, shaking off Sonja’s light grip. I stepped away from her, needing to get out, get away. I spun around to my car, but I felt Sonja’s gaze on my back the whole time. I didn’t acknowledge her, I couldn’t right now. I kept my eyes ahead, always ahead. It was the only way I could keep it together.

  Outside the windows of my car, people walked downtown, laughing and smiling, all enjoying the late evening. Most people were headed into a long Fourth of July weekend. Fireworks popped in the distance already. The parties had begun.

  And I wanted nothing to do with it.

  I tore into the Public through the back door, one single raise of my hand to the staff on my way to the office, intent on working. I’d get some paperwork done, inventory the bar and kitchen, maybe reorganize my filing cabinet. Everything and anything to keep myself occupied. But when I poked my head into the hallway, I found the bar packed.

  I jumped in to help out.

  “You all right?” Missy asked as she poured two lagers from the taps. “You look a little crazed.”

  If she only knew. I gave her a single stiff shake of my head and got to work.

  I’d refilled the ice twice and changed one of the kegs before I had a chance to help the servers clear some of the tables off. By the quick look I’d gotten at the POS system, we’d be well over our target this week. One thing to celebrate, at least.

  By ten o’clock the crowd had thinned out a bit, and I wiped my forehead with the rag I had tucked into my back pocket.

  “You almost look like a real bar back.”

  My head whipped toward the voice. The one I could pick out of a crowd and would most likely remember for the rest of my life.

  Piper.

  One corner of her mouth tipped up to form the smallest of smiles. Her hair was up in one of those knots that I could never figure out. Her face was flushed like she’d run here, and she held a reusable shopping bag in her hands.

  She bit her lip before asking, “Can we talk for a minute?”

  My vocabulary momentarily flew out of the window, and I mumbled some sort of agreement. She waited for me to come around to the opposite side of the bar before stepping up next to me. She smelled delicious, a combination of her usual fresh wheat scent and something new, sweet like sugar.

  I didn’t know whether to be excited by or dread the fact that she stood in front of me. My hand rose to her waist of its own volition, but I pushed it in my pocket to keep from touching her. I pointed down the hallway. “Let’s go to my office.”

  She followed me, and I closed the door behind her. She kept close to the wall, holding the bag to her chest. I assumed she had brought the stuff I left at her place, officially cutting off all ties. And I thought I could handle it, but I couldn’t.

  I wasn’t ready for the end.

  To stave off the inevitable, I changed into a clean, dry shirt. I kept a few T-shirts in one of my drawers for occasions when I got dirty working or, like this case, had beers spilled down my back. I shucked my wet polo and yanked on the plain black shirt. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Piper staring at me.

  I pivoted to fully face her, and her gaze slid up slowly from where it hovered somewhere around my hips. The sudden brightness in her eyes lit a spark deep inside me. The pull between us was still there, the attraction real and palpable. My pulse thrummed, steady if not nervously, and I sat on the edge of my desk to keep the jittery energy from escaping.

  The faster we got this over with, the better. “I wa—”

  She stopped me with a tiny step. “Can I go first?”

  Her body was still closed off, her feet pressed together, her knees noticeably wobbling. In fact, when I focused on her fingers tucking the lone lock of hair behind her ear, they shook ever so slightly.

  I once again kept the visceral need to go to her at bay. Things needed to be sorted out between us, and touching her wouldn’t help anything.

  “Sonja told me you were at our house waiting for me.” When I nodded, she took one more step to me. “Why?”

  “Because you didn’t return any of my calls or texts, and I figured if we really were broken up, I wanted some closure.”

  Her throat bobbed on a swallow, and the longest moments of my life ticked on before she spoke. “I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t. I would’ve chickened out of going to Iowa, and I needed to.”

  The earnest pleading in her voice broke my heart all over again. No matter how things ended between us, I’d never want to keep Piper from doing what she needed to do.

  “I know,” I said, dropping my hands to the desk as a reminder to keep them to myself.

  “I went to talk to Bob in person, see the space, understand what my opportunity cost was.”

  A chuckle unwillingly left my throat. “Look at you, using economic terms like a pro.”

  “I learned from the best,” she said, coming a mere three inches away from me. It physically hurt to have her so close and not kiss her, hug her, anything. I already despised the words about to come out of her mouth, but this was what I needed in order to move on.

  “I owed it to myself,” she continued, her eyes shining under her lashes, “to see what I’d be giving up. In the end, having a brewery out of state wasn’t worth giving you up.”

  For the second time today, my heart stopped, and it took me a long time before I sucked in another breath, frozen in anticipation of her next words.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I left, but if I hadn’t gone, I’d always ask what if, and I didn’t want that shadow following us around.” She bit into her bottom lip, her eyes focusing on the wall behind me, the ceiling, and then the floor. “If there is still an us, I mean. I realize I might be too late, but I want to be with you. I love you, and I should’ve—”

  “Piper.” I interrupted her, fearing for my health. It couldn’t be good for the body to have so many close calls to a heart attack. “Can we sit down?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure, sure.”

  I held her hand as we sat in the two chairs in front of my desk. I turned hers so we were face-to-face. There was no hiding anymore.

  “Can you say that again? The part about how you love me?”

  She breathed out a giggle; it was the best sound I’d ever heard, besides, of course—

  “I love you, Blake.”

  I held her beautiful face between my hands and kissed her perfect mouth that had uttered my most favorite words.

  “I want you to know what happened with the other bars,” I said, pulling my mouth away from hers.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do, and it’s important you hear my apology. I’m sorry that I ever made you feel disrespected or that I made your work se
em irrelevant.” She leaned into me, but I wouldn’t give in until she heard the truth. “I didn’t go to those bars specifically for you, it just sort of happened. I ran into Pete at the distributor, we got to talking, and one thing led to another. Monkey Bar was a place I used to frequent all the time, and I’m still friendly with Susan and Eddie, so when I stopped there for a drink one night, I put a bug in their ears about you. I didn’t say anything other than your beer was phenomenal, and they should give it a shot. That’s it, I swear. I didn’t—”

  “I know you didn’t mean anything by it,” she said, interrupting. “It’s hard for me not to have self-doubt, but I know you’d never intentionally do anything to make me feel less than. I know that. It’s difficult to forget about history, but me and you are brand-new. We both deserve to get what we want.”

  She kissed me, and I let my hands roam over her hair and the back of her neck since I could now. In between short bursts of her mouth on mine, she said, “I’m sorry I acted the way I did on Sunday. I was overwhelmed and hurt by what happened.”

  “You should know I told my parents in no uncertain terms that until they can respect me and my decisions I will not be taking part in any related Reed family events. No dinners, no holidays, and obviously no election BS. I don’t want you to have to worry about them on top of everything else.”

  “You’re sure?” she asked, a bit of doubt coloring her tone.

  “Yeah. I can’t control what family I was born into, but I can control my life and decide if I want them in it or not.”

  “Well, if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  “I’m happy,” I said. “But I want to hear about the last few days for you.”

  She pursed her lips and looked away. “I was looking for an excuse not to stay. I had it in my head that if I stayed here and didn’t take Bob’s offer, I’d betray my dreams.”

  Since she was practically there already, I hauled her to my lap. “I swear I’ll never ask you to stop. I’ll never ask you to give anything up for me. I want you to be whoever and do whatever you want.”

  She curved her arms around my neck, running the tip of her nose against mine. “I know. And before I left on Tuesday I went to the bank and spoke with a nice woman named Mary Ellen, who helped me fill out some forms about a loan. She called me this morning to tell me that I got it.”

  My jaw dropped, anticipating what she was going to say.

  “It’s enough to buy a small building in Prospect Park and get me up and running.”

  I started to tell her how awesome that was, but she stopped me.

  “And I already hired my first employee.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded, trying to hide her smile.

  “My new PR guy is Thomas Behr.”

  I laughed. “No shit.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Who better to sell my beer than Bear?”

  “That’s brilliant.” I shook my head at her. “You did all this and you didn’t tell me.”

  “No, because this is my business. I needed to do it on my own. And you need to swear to me no interfering. You can make all the decisions about my beer in your bar, but no more favors, okay?”

  “Cross my heart.” I drew an X over my chest and kissed her again, imprinting my promise on her with my lips and tongue and teeth.

  She smiled, and that was it. We had said all we needed to say to each other. I’d missed this girl, and I wrapped my hand around her neck, leaning her head back so I could kiss down her chin and throat with my lips and tongue. She meekly fought against me, pushing at my shoulders. I bit into the crook of her neck then sucked a mark into her skin, and she shrieked.

  “Wait, wait.” She shoved me away and leapt off my lap. “I have presents for you.”

  She picked up the bag, and thankfully it didn’t contain any of the things I’d left at her place: including but not limited to contact solution, my favorite Twins T-shirt, and the old-school Adidas sandals I’d thrown on one night when I’d been in a rush. What she did take out of the bag was a Tupperware container full of Funfetti cupcakes.

  She offered it to me. “I stopped at the grocery store on the way home tonight. They were either going to be celebratory or drown-my-sorrow treats.”

  “Well, I hope you made a double batch. We have a lot of celebrating to do,” I said, before plucking the lid off and diving into one of the cupcakes, while she grabbed the next item from the bag. I licked the vanilla icing from the corner of my lips and wiped my hands off before taking the poster from her hands. I slipped off the plastic wrap and unrolled it to reveal a simple message.

  “I thought maybe you could add it to your collection,” she said, angling her head to the giraffe poster she’d given me when the Public opened.

  “Absolutely.” I grabbed the tape from my desk and stretched up to put the poster on the wall. I stood back to admire it. One sentence written over and over again in neat cursive. I love you.

  I repeated the sentiment in her ear as I looped my arms around her. She grinned, but didn’t let me kiss her yet. “One more.” She bent down for the last item, a growler. “I’ve been working on this recipe for about a month. I want you to be the first to try it.”

  “It’s new?”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking of calling it Buzz Cut.”

  I scooted out of the office for two glasses from the bar and returned holding them up triumphantly. “I’ll let you do the honors,” I said, putting them down on my desk so she could pour. “What is it?”

  “It’s a barley wine,” she said, passing me one of the glasses. “The ABV is eleven percent.”

  An eleven percent alcohol by volume. Holy Jesus. “Good buzz then, huh?”

  “Hence the name.”

  I clinked my glass to hers before drinking. I kept my eyes on her and was transported to the first day we met, when I did this very same thing. This woman—this funny, intelligent, and bright woman—was here with me, and I couldn’t get enough. I slammed my glass down, grinning. “Fill me up again, Sunshine.”

  EPILOGUE

  Piper

  I can’t believe my baby is finally open.” I didn’t know what it was like to have an actual baby, but I’d wanted this for so long I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. It was almost exactly six months from the day when I turned Bob down in Des Moines and came home to Minneapolis, deciding to go it on my own. And here I was, opening Out of the Bottle Brewery.

  “I can’t believe my baby did this!” My mom tossed her arms around me.

  “You did good, Pippi. Real good,” Dad said before sipping from his beer in the specially designed glasses by Kayla. My whole family had flown in for this, but I’d taken my parents in the back to have a moment alone with them.

  “If it weren’t for you two always being so supportive, I don’t think I ever would’ve been able to do it on my own.”

  “Honey, I am so proud of you.” Mom couldn’t stop kissing my cheek. “You are proof you can do anything when you put your mind to it.”

  My dad actually got a little teary-eyed when he bent down to kiss the top of my head. “I love you, Piper.” He patted my back then sniffed and cleared his throat. “I think I need a refill.”

  Mom rolled her eyes. “That one. Always so emotional.”

  I laughed and followed my parents toward the front. I’d purchased a small warehouse, about two thousand square feet. The entire front wall was made of windows, so everyone walking by could see inside to the gleaming stainless steel brite tanks along the wall. Opposite them was the bar, where visitors could try any of the brews, then have a seat at one of the numerous picnic benches to play games like Clue or Jenga. Out the back, there was an open cement lot that I’d fenced in and strung lights around. It was too cold right now to be outside, but there were a few people milling about eating snacks from the food truck parked on the corner of the street.

  It was pretty fantastic. And it was all mine.

  My pride overflowed.

  “There you are,
” Blake said, coming up behind me. “Everybody’s been asking where you were.”

  “I’m here. In my brewery.” I smiled. “I can’t stop saying it.”

  He kissed my cheek. “You don’t have to.”

  He pushed me to where Bear and Sonja were behind the bar, my makeshift bartenders for the day. Sonja handed me a beer while she threw a face over my shoulder at Blake. They’d become awfully friendly in the last few months, but the secretive smile she shared with him was a bit unnerving.

  Charlie, my newest friend and Connor’s frenemy, hugged me. I’d moved in with Blake pretty soon after we’d made up, and Charlie had needed a place to live after accepting the head coaching position for the Otters. She was a female football coach. It was almost unheard of. Needless to say, Sonja and I immediately took this badass chick into our mini-sorority.

  “This is pretty impressive,” she said with a slight Georgia accent.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Of course. Wouldn’t miss it for anything. Except for a statewide playoff game.” She lifted her glass of the Blonde with a wink, and I laughed.

  “Where’s Connor?”

  “Who knows with that boy.”

  “I thought you two were . . .”

  “We’re coworkers. We teach and coach in the same school. That’s it.”

  I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant when she said That’s it. I’d said the same about Blake and me.

  “Gather round,” Blake said, motioning to Connor, who was shooting daggers at Charlie, closer to us. Bear wiped his hands off and poured him and Sonja two small glasses as well. “I just wanted to say a quick little something.”

  “Quick?” Connor joked.

  “Yes, quick.” Blake elbowed him. “But I wouldn’t be making jokes about length of time if I were you.”

  “Yeah, just length,” Bear added.

  All of us girls looked at one another and shook our heads.

  “First of all, I wanted to thank you for being here to support Piper, but also for being great friends. You’re all more than friends, you’re family.” He held his glass aloft, and all of us did the same before drinking.