The Barrel House Series: Boxed Set: Bourbon Love Notes, Bourbon on the Rocks, Bourbon Nights, Bourbon Fireball

by Ryan, Shari J.

  I suppose I could call her today and ask permission to call her with the number I stole. It might be the right thing to do.

  I’m aware of the time ticking and the shade of red likely glowing from Hannah’s cheeks, but I still have five minutes to take a quick shower, jump into some clothes and run out the door. Unlike Hannah, who tries to steal the—thankfully, endless supply of—hot water in this house, I barely give the shower enough time to heat up, to what most would consider an acceptable temperature, before I’m done.

  “Dad, are you kidding me right now? There’s no time for a shower. You don’t need a shower. You’re working in a warehouse all day. Can we just go so we’re not late?”

  I wonder if she can hear my eyes rolling at her the same way I can hear hers. If so, there’s no need to respond as I close the bathroom door, crank the water to the left, drop my shorts and step under the icy blast of daggers shooting from the spout. Five, four, three, two, there—warm enough.

  Hannah thinks I’ll move faster when she bangs on the door, but in truth, it distracts me from my five-minute routine. I sometimes wonder if she bangs hard enough, her fist will go through the wood. She’s only eleven, though. She’s not forceful enough, but I put little past her.

  I inhale the steam, block out the sound of her fist pounding and soap up. “I hate you,” she screams.

  There it is. How would we ever get through a morning without those meaningful words straight from her heart? “I love you too, sweetie. I’ll be right out,” I respond.

  I get she’s angry at the world and has been for the last two years because of Kristy, but she takes her aggression out on me as if I was the one who screwed up our family. I’m not sure how many details Hannah knows regarding our divorce, but I love her enough not to tell her the truth yet, that her mother was unfaithful and didn’t love us enough to keep our family together. I’ll bury that secret with me for Hannah’s sake, so she doesn’t have to see her mother in a more negative light than she already does, after moving two states away to Connecticut with her boyfriend who’s ten years younger than her.

  I’m dressed and at the door by the minute we must leave, and Hannah has simmered down to a mere boiling rage from her explosive fury. Once we’re settled inside the truck, I glance at her in the rearview mirror, finding her icy stare reflecting in the glass window beside her. “Why don’t you just say hi to Gavin?” The moment the words leave my mouth, I decide I would pay any amount of money in the world to take them back because Hannah never mentioned the name Gavin or the fact that she was avoiding him in the hallway. I was listening in on her call.

  “What?” she snaps.

  “Nothing.”

  “How do you know who Gavin is and why are you telling me I should say hi to him?”

  A lump forms in my throat and I try to swallow it, but I can’t. My daughter shouldn’t scare me, but she does. “I overheard you mention it somewhere. I’m not sure,” I say.

  “You were listening to my phone call with Ivy the other day?”

  These kids today don’t even understand what it means to listen in on a call. I can’t physically pick up a phone that’s connected to the same line she’s on and listen to everything from both parties. Technically, I could only listen to one side of the conversation through the door, but she doesn’t even make that difficult because she and her friends video chat, which is essentially a loudspeaker, with a built-in invitation for me to listen to everything they’re talking about. I hardly see this as being my fault.

  “No, but your voice echoes through the hallway,” I try. She might have been whispering through that part of her conversation, but I could still hear it with my ear up against her door.

  “I wasn’t talking loud enough for you to hear,” she rebuts.

  “Obviously, you were. Back to my point … why don’t you just say hi to this Gavin guy?”

  A noise I can only describe as a growling groan rips through her throat. “My God, why can’t you just mind your own business?”

  Pick and choose your battles, sweetheart—my mom’s favorite piece of advice to help us survive the teenage years doesn’t always work out. How am I supposed to figure out which battles to pick and which ones to choose? I’m not sure anyone realizes what they’re saying when they offer this kind of advice. Picking and choosing are the same action, so I guess I should take a stab at all the issues rolling in on a minute to minute basis.

  I pull the truck off to the side of the road, hit the hazards button on the dash, and shove the gear into park before turning around to face Hannah. Time for the “dad-look.” I cock my head to the side and raise an eyebrow. “I’m not sure when or why you assumed it would be acceptable to speak to me the way you are, but I will not tolerate it, Hannah. I’ve been trying to cut you some slack, but there is only so far I can go with that. I’ve told you this too many times, and it doesn’t seem to sink in. You are my daughter, my child, and I am the parent—your father. You don’t get to question me and I will not allow you to berate me every time you don’t get your way. I’ve been nice enough to get up ten minutes early every morning to get you to school so you can avoid Gavin, for whatever reason you’re avoiding him. Rather than lecturing me on listening to your phone call, maybe you should have explained to me your actual reason for needing to be at school ten minutes early every day. Respect goes both ways, kiddo, remember that.”

  I hate having to speak to her this way. For the first year after the divorce, I tip-toed around her, worrying about upsetting her and figuring she was in a fragile state from the destructive pain Kristy caused, but I let her get away with too much for too long because now she thinks it’s okay to talk to me like shit—or dare I say the way Kristy did. When a child watches her mother scold her father day after day, it’s not surprising that it would affect the way she thinks she should speak to me. I’ve tried my best to undo the damage, but even with therapy and a peaceful living environment, Hannah still walks around holding all that anger inside and with a big chip on her shoulder.

  It has gotten so bad, I’ve had to come down on her pretty hard for the last few months. I thought a few weeks of stern parenting would create a change, but Hannah is relentless. She hates me, and I wish she could understand how hard I fought to be with her every day, to give her a good life. Even if she was a grown woman and I felt comfortable saying something like that to her, it would be selfish of me. I did the right thing for you, so love me. Life doesn’t work that way.

  Her big blue eyes stare back at me with surprise as if my anger is unwarranted and the expression on her face breaks my heart. I still see my little five-year-old with pig-tails sitting in her car seat, swinging her legs around while playing with a Barbie doll, but now, she has lip-gloss, and jeans that are too tight with purposeful rips in the knees, and she knows how to curl her hair and bat her lashes. Whoever this Gavin kid is, better watch his damn back because Hannah is gorgeous and it terrifies me to think about the upcoming years of dating, hormones, puberty, and all that other horrible female stuff.

  She wraps the blue strand of hair behind her ear and drops her gaze to her lap. “I’m sorry,” she mutters.

  “I appreciate you saying sorry. You are aware of how I feel about having an open line of communication, Hannah. I will never judge you, but I will always give you the best advice I can. Just don’t shut me out. A little honesty goes a long way.”

  With a slight nod, she offers the appearance of understanding. The weak mushy part of my heart doesn’t want her to have to face this guy if it’s making her uncomfortable and if we sit here for another thirty seconds, she won’t have her ten-minute leeway, so I drop the conversation and continue down the road.

  As we pull up in front of the school, Hannah leans over the front seat to kiss my cheek before bolting out the door. I’m left with the usual sensation of emptiness in my chest, making me wonder what I’m doing wrong, but the next six hours will offer plenty of time to mull over the question I will most likely never have an answer to.r />
  Dad’s warehouse is only a couple of miles down the road and as usual, I’m the first to arrive since I’m the only one who has to be anywhere by seven in the morning. I’m able to get most of my work done while Hannah is at school as long as I bust my ass the entire time, but now that it’s just Dad and me running most of the show here, I’ve had to put in some extra hours here and there to get shipments prepared. A few years ago, Dad expanded the business to vendors across the country because we’re one of a few barrel distributors who use maple wood for smoking. Customers are familiar with our barrels because of the unique sweet spice that’s enhanced by the distilling process of bourbon, but smoking the barrels is a science of time and temperature, something I can manage as easily as speaking. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, but it can be a lonely job some days and I get bored easily.

  With the first set of barrels filled with the maple chips and lit to a burning flame, I take a seat to down a bottle of water.

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and Facetime Journey. It’s only ten in the morning, but I’m sure she’s up. I think. Actually, I’m not sure what she even does for a living. I should ask. It would be a good place to start.

  The phone rings five times and I’m sure she’s let the call go to voicemail, but to my surprise, she answers.

  “Brody Pearson, why am I not surprised to be receiving this call from you less than fifteen hours after seeing you?”

  Journey’s inky hair up is in a messy knot; the strands drape over the front of her head and hanging to the side, and down to her neck. She’s dressed in a blue and black flannel shirt with a tight-fitting shirt beneath. Whatever she does for a living, she’s up and ready for the day. “What do you do for a living?” I ask.

  She narrows her eyes, staring back at me as if I just asked a question in a foreign language. “Where are you? It looks like you’re in a charred dungeon.”

  I glance over my shoulder at the tar-covered wall that helps maintain the temperature down here. “I guess it does kind of look like a charred dungeon but I’m actually at the warehouse smoking barrels. It’s what I do, you know?” She probably doesn’t know this. Why would she assume I would go to work for Dad after college? She doesn’t know a thing about me.

  “Ah, that’s right. You work for Bill—your dad.”

  “Yeah, what about you? Do you work at The Barrel House, or—?”

  “No,” she says. “I’ll help when needed, but bourbon making isn’t my thing, just my dad’s and now, apparently, my sister’s too.” Journey runs her fingers through her hair and closes her eyes for a quick second. “Brody, why are you calling?”

  I’d like to offer the reminder of her lips pressing against mine last night, but I don’t think it’ll get me too far. “I told you. I want to learn about what you do for a living.”

  Her forehead creases with faint worry lines as she presses her lips together and cracks her neck to the side. “I’m a photographer. Happy now?”

  “What do you take photos of?” I continue.

  Journey shakes her head. She doesn’t want to keep talking, but I do. “Stuff,” she says.

  “Like hot models, or what?” I’m trying to get her to laugh or smile but she is a tough nut to crack.

  “No, that’s not my thing either. I prefer objects that can’t talk back.”

  “I see. So, am I an object that can’t talk back?”

  Journey leans back in the chair I now see she’s sitting on. “Well, Brody, you’re neither an object, nor mute, so I’m going with ‘no’ on this one.”

  “Okay, well, can I see some of your work or your photos?”

  “You can Google me,” she says. “You’ll find my work easier that way. Speaking of which, I have to go. I have a gig.”

  “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night,” I say.

  “I’m not free tomorrow night,” she replies.

  “What about Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? The only day I’m not free is on Wednesdays.” I’m sounding desperate, but it’s okay. It’ll make it easier for her to bite the bait.

  “Crap. You know what? This sucks, but I’m actually only available on Wednesdays.”

  “I meant Thursdays,” I say.

  “Right, yeah, or Thursdays … same here.”

  I inhale sharply and purse my lips together, coming up with my next line, but I’m fresh out of ideas. “Fine, forget it. I’ll leave you alone, Journey Milan-formerly known-as-Journey-Quinn; girl-with-a story-who-doesn’t-want-to-share-y-but-wants-to-kiss-an-old-fling-in-an-elementary-school-parking-lot.”

  “Brody, you don’t know a thing about me. The girl you last saw fifteen years ago is long gone. We’re strangers. That’s all. It was just a kiss, so don’t make more out of it than it was.”

  “Hey look, I was just hoping to catch up and see who Journey Quinn became over the last fifteen years. No biggy.”

  Journey chuckles through a sinister sound deep in her throat. “I’m someone no one wants to know. I became an asshole, so don’t waste your time, okay?”

  Damn. She’s either going through some serious shit or I’m missing an enormous piece of whatever the hell happened to her. She was never full of rainbows and cupcakes, but she was funny and snarky in a cute manner. “Okay, sure,” I say.

  “That’s it, you cannot keep calling to persuade me to play twenty questions?”

  “I won’t,” I say.

  “Thank God.”

  “I will not be talking to you later, so have a wonderful life.”

  “Yup, you have a good life too,” she says with the most subtle smirk that makes me think this isn’t the end. I swear, I see something in her expression that contradicts her words.

  “Well, thank you. Goodbye, Journey.”

  She ends the call. That’s it. No remorse at all for her rudeness, at least not that she is showing. She’s being obnoxious, but something’s going on. Who acts like that? Have a good life, my ass. Yeah, okay, well, it’s time for Plan B—as soon as I figure out what that is.

  3

  I bet Journey does not remember what she once told me. I’m not sure why this one thing stuck in my head all these years, but it has. She had no clue what she was giving me advice about, but I was in a mood during one of our parents’ parties. We were young, probably sixteen, right around the time of … it …

  I define it as the pivotal time in my life. There was a brick wall in the middle of my path, and I had no choice but to take a left or a right. I’m not sure if I went the right way, but I figured one of the two directions had to be correct.

  I’ve had my license all of three weeks now and I think I may develop carpal tunnel from my death grip around the steering wheel. I’m not scared or nervous, but I feel like I have too much responsibility with my hands on the wheel. Mom and Dad told me I could go to and from school with the spare car, but if there was any other place I needed to go, I would have to ask first. Neither of them is home, but Pete paged me with: 9-1-1 and to us, 9-1-1 means come to my house, but don’t call first.

  Something must be wrong at Pete’s and if I told Mom and Dad Pete is in trouble, they’d tell me to take the car and go check on him.

  When I pull up, he’s sitting outside of his aged colonial house. The blue paint has been chipping off the wooden shingles for as long as I’ve known Pete, about ten years. His parents inherited the house from his grandfather when he passed away, but from what Pete says, they can hardly afford to pay the electric bill most months. I pull onto the bumpy driveway, composed of broken pieces of pavement. I feel like I’m offloading as I come to a stop. Not that I’m aware of what offloading feels like, but I imagine it’s something like this angle I’m parked at.

  Pete stands from the front steps beneath the awning of his front door and shuffles toward the car. I crank open the window as he walks closer. “Everything okay?”

  Though he was just calmly sitting on the step, he sounds winded through his response. “Yeah, yeah, I just need to get out of here for a few. Do you hav
e time?”

  When I’m in between football and lacrosse seasons, I don’t have a lot going on except for schoolwork and I like to get that done as soon as I get home so I can have the night free. “Yeah, I’ve got time. Where do you want to go?”

  “The usual,” Pete says as he opens the passenger side door. “This downtime between ball games is killing me. I just need to get the hell out of here for a bit.”

  Pete and I have been playing sports together since elementary school. We’ve practiced together, trained together, and went to junior championships, both landing a spot on the varsity teams for football and lacrosse during our sophomore year. We were two of the three sophomores chosen to move up last year. “You got it. I’ve never driven there before. Finally, we don’t have to depend on anyone to go anywhere,” I say.

  “Seriously, man, I can’t until I get my license next month,” Pete says.

  I drive down the familiar roads for the next few miles before pulling off into a clearing in a wooded area attached to a cul-de-sac within the Oakwood Development. Half of the kids in our school live in these houses, including myself. The other half live within the town borders but in farmhouses with more land and fewer opportunities to see other kids hanging out on the street. Pete has no neighbors within a two-mile radius, and he’s an only child.

  “No one’s here. That’s a first,” I say as I step out of the car.