Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  Copyright (C) 2019 Kandi Steiner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law.

  The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Kandi Steiner

  Edited by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC/ Publishing & Book Formatting, www.allusiongraphics.com

  Cover Photography by Perrywinkle Photography

  Cover Design by Kandi Steiner

  Formatting by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC/Publishing & Book Formatting, www.allusiongraphics.com

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Newsletter Sign-up

  The Wrong Game - Prologue

  The Wrong Game - Chapter 1

  More from Kandi Steiner

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Here’s to the ones who don’t have it all figured out,

  to the ones focused on the journey,

  and not the destination.

  To the messes —

  because life’s too short to always be put together, anyway.

  Logan

  I was made to be a tour guide.

  I know, it sounds crazy, right? What little kid looks at the endless list of possible career choices and thinks, “When I grow up, I want to walk tourists around an old, dusty whiskey distillery in perhaps the smallest town in Tennessee and tell them stories about how the Scooter brand came to be.”

  The likely answer? Not a single kid — except for me.

  I could blame it on a number of factors — like that my dad worked at the distillery, and he was nothing short of Superman in my eyes. Or how my grandfather was a founding member of the distillery, of the Scooter Whiskey brand, of the distinct taste known around the world. Maybe I could attribute it to my weird fascination with history that developed at a young age, or my consistent need to learn something new every day and stash that information away to relay to someone else.

  I loved reading books — especially biographies or history recollections. I loved watching documentaries, primarily centered around modern-day luxuries that we all take for granted and never wonder about how they came to exist. And, I loved checking the newspaper — every morning — for the latest technological advancement or forecasted “next big thing.”

  Essentially, I was a nerd — through and through — though I’d never portray that on the outside.

  To everyone in my small town of Stratford, Tennessee, I was a Becker boy. I was trouble, never too far from a fight. I was the third oldest son of the late John Becker, a legend in our town, one taken too soon from all of us by a devastating fire at the distillery. And, I was a player, a man destined to never settle down, to hop from bed to bed for as long as the girls in town would let me.

  That’s what everyone saw me as on the outside, and only my brothers knew the real me.

  I had three brothers — Michael, Noah, and Jordan.

  Mikey was the youngest, a senior in high school, and he worked at the distillery with my older brother, Noah, and I. Mikey was in the gift shop for now, but I had a feeling that would change once he graduated. He was smart, and talented as hell on the guitar. Something told me he’d be moving on to an entertainment position of some kind, and that the distillery would be lucky to have him if he stuck around past graduation.

  And Noah? Noah was the most well-known barrel raiser at the Scooter Whiskey distillery. He could put a barrel together faster than anyone I knew, and it’d been years since he’d had one that sprung a leak. He started as the youngest, and quickly moved his way up to a leader on the team. He loved to push my buttons when I brought a tour through his part of the warehouse, almost always pulling some sort of prank — like a sawed-off finger.

  And I fell for it. Every single time.

  Jordan was our oldest brother, and the only one who didn’t work at the distillery. He was adopted before I was born, and though his skin was a darker shade than that of mine and my brothers, his hair coarse and black as night, he had always been our brother through and through — no “adopted” necessary to put before that title. He was the Stratford High football coach, and in my opinion, the best damn one our town had ever seen.

  My brothers had quite the reputation around town — especially after our father died in the distillery fire when I was seventeen. No matter what we did, it seemed trouble always found us. Sometimes it was just a small bar brawl, other times it was stealing the mayor’s daughter away on her wedding day — which was our latest scandal, thanks to Noah.

  The town could say whatever they wanted about my brothers, but at the end of the day, they were the ones who knew the truth about who I was — and who I wasn’t.

  They knew that when those fights everyone loved to talk about happened, the only reason I was involved at all was because I was trying to play referee, to break it all up before anything even started. I only jumped in when I absolutely had to — which, sadly, with my brothers, happened to be a lot of the time. And yes, it was true that I hadn’t held a single, long-term relationship in my life, but that wasn’t because I didn’t want to — it was because there wasn’t a single woman in Stratford who could keep my attention.

  My mind craved stimulation — late night talks about deep and unexplored topics, book discussions and conspiracy theories, questions I’d never been asked and beliefs I’d never been introduced to.

  I was waiting for a woman to surprise me, and thus far, there had been none.

  Well… there may have been one.

  I tugged at the collar of my Scooter Whiskey Carhartt jacket at the thought of her, gripping the handle on the large door that led to the barrel-raising area of our distillery. I held the door open for the tour group following behind me, forcing a smile in spite of the turning in my gut at the thought of the one girl I was trying not to think about.

  “Right this way, folks,” I said, ushering our guests out of the cold and giving each of them an encouraging nod as they filed in. “Remember, this is an area where photos aren’t allowed. Go ahead and stow those phones away now. And if I see any of you sneaking a picture, my suspicions about you being sent by those posers in Kentucky will be confirmed and I’ll have no choice but to yank you out by your ear.”

  Several chuckles rang out at that, group after group squeezing past me and lining up against the wall inside to wait for me to continue.

  I found Noah as soon as the metal door clanged shut behind me. He had bright orange ear plugs stuffed in each canal and protective eyewear over his eyes as he worked on situating the staves of wood in the metal ring to make a barrel come to life. He glanced up at me, a mischievous grin on his face, but he looked back down at his work before I could give him a warning glare not to fuck with me.

  He knew that today of all days was not the time to give me shit.

  “Alright, folks,” I said, turning to face the group as they looked around. “Take it all in — this is where the real magic happens. If you recall the
video we watched earlier, you’ll recognize these fine gentlemen behind me as our Scooter Whiskey barrel raisers. Every single day, this small team of four bring five-hundred Scooter Whiskey barrels to life.”

  Noah, Marty, Eli, and PJ all waved from where they were working, offering the group welcoming smiles before their heads were down again, and they were back to work.

  “Why can’t you take pictures in here?” one of the men in the group asked. From chatting with him on the walk over from the gift shop, I discovered that he was passing through with his wife and sister-in-law on their way home from a Thanksgiving visit to Illinois.

  “Good question,” I said, pointing directly at him before I addressed the group. “We’re one of the last distilleries that still make their own barrels, and we don’t want our secrets getting out. Most get theirs from wineries nowadays, but we still take pride in making and charring our own — which is why with every bottle of Scooter Whiskey you drink, you get those familiar notes of vanilla and oak.”

  Murmurs rang out, each family within the group leaning in to talk to each other as they looked around at the barrels with more admiration.

  “And these four guys are the ones responsible for every single barrel?” a woman asked.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, a hand clapped down on my shoulder, and my brother took over. “Yep. My team and I are here five days a week, and we each raise anywhere from one-hundred-and-twenty-five barrels to one-hundred-and-fifty barrels every single day. Which means we get about twenty-five-hundred barrels out every week.”

  The crowd buzzed with a mix of ooh’s and ahh’s.

  Noah grinned, and I couldn’t help but smile, too. I loved that I got to work with my brothers, that they were a part of my every day. Noah was older than me, but just a smidge shorter — which always ticked him off. I was lean where he was stout, and our hair was the same sandy brown — though mine was a bit longer. And Noah had Dad’s blue eyes, whereas I favored the hazel gold of our mother’s.

  “That’s amazing,” the woman breathed, and her eyes fell over my brother, from his arms to his midriff and lower. “Explains why you’re built like an ox.”

  She said that last part almost so softly that I couldn’t hear it, but I had — and I knew Noah had, too. If the poor girl had been a year earlier, she might have had a shot at ending her tour through town in my brother’s bed. But, as it was, his heart was tied up in a redhead currently stationed across the country in Utah doing her first year in AmeriCorps.

  Ruby Grace Barnett — the mayor’s daughter who was supposed to marry someone else this past summer, but had ran way with my brother, instead.

  Like I said.

  Trouble.

  Noah smiled, tipping his hat at the group before he turned. He squeezed my shoulder. “No pranks today, promise,” he said. “I know you’ve got plenty on your plate.”

  My lips flattened. “Yeah.”

  “Has she come in yet?”

  “Right after this tour.”

  He whistled. “Well, good luck. Come by my place later if you need a drink to decompress.” He squeezed my shoulder one last time before letting it go and heading back toward his station, and though my stomach was twisting violently again, I turned to the group, continuing on with the rest of my spiel about the barrels before I led them through the door again and back out into the cold November air.

  We were just a few days past Thanksgiving, and Stratford was well into the holiday spirit. Christmas lights were strung from every building at the distillery, and the entire town was dressed in lights and garland to match. The tree in the center of town was large enough to see from the end of Main Street no matter which way you were coming, and with all that around me, I waited and waited for the holiday spirit to find me.

  It hadn’t — not in years — not since my father passed away.

  I inhaled the cool Tennessee air, the familiar scent of oak and honey wafting in on the breeze, but it did nothing to calm my nerves as I led the tour toward our final stop — the tasting. For the next twenty minutes, I’d be helping that group taste whiskey for what was likely the first time in their lives. Sure, they’d taken shots of whiskey, but they’d never stopped to smell it, inhale the special aromas, taste each flavorful note, and enjoy that familiar whiskey burn on the way down.

  Twenty minutes.

  That’s how long the tasting would last.

  That’s how long I’d have before I’d be faced with the girl I’d been trying to avoid all morning, and for most of my life, if I was being honest.

  Mallory Scooter.

  Scooter — as in the name on the jacket I wore, the one in large letters on the building we walked inside, the one sprawled in the top right-hand corner of my paycheck each week.

  And the one my family had been at war with for decades.

  To fully explain my jitters as I waited in my office for Mallory Scooter to arrive for her first day on the job, we have to go back in time a bit.

  You see, Robert J. Scooter was the founder of the Scooter Whiskey distillery. And though it’s his name on the bottles and the building alike, he had a pivotal partner in crime — my grandfather, Richard Becker.

  Granddad was the first barrel raiser at the distillery, the one who fine-tuned the process and made it the instrumental one it is today. It was the beginning of the partnership and, more importantly, the friendship between Robert J. Scooter and my grandfather, and it was one that lasted all the way up until the founder’s death.

  And that’s when shit hit the fan.

  There was nothing in Robert J. Scooter’s will about my grandfather, about leaving any part of the company to him — even though it was Grandpa who had helped build and establish the Scooter brand.

  The distillery and brand as a whole was left to Robert’s family, namely to his oldest son, Patrick — who is the CEO of the distillery today. It wasn’t long after Robert passed that my grandmother died, and my grandfather right after. We’d always been told he’d died of a broken heart, and while most would argue it was because of grandma, we all knew a big part of it was the Scooters.

  After Granddad’s death, my dad stepped up and kept the Becker name alive and well at the distillery. He had been young when he started, and not too long after the changing of the hands, he was made a member of the board.

  That’s when the real trouble started.

  While the Scooter family wanted to blow full-steam ahead toward innovation, my father was hell bent on keeping tradition. He wanted to remember and honor what had made Scooter a household name to begin with. The more he pushed, the more they pulled his reins. Eventually, he was reduced to nothing more than a glorified paper pusher — and when they assigned him to clean out Robert J. Scooter’s office, it wasn’t only a hit to his ego.

  It was a hit on his life.

  There had only ever been one fire at the Scooter Whiskey distillery. It happened in that office.

  And my father had been the only one to perish in it.

  To this day, my mom, brothers, and I have had to live with the mysterious death of my father and no viable explanation as to why it happened. The town buzzed about it — some wondering if foul play was involved, others tsking him for the bad habit of smoking — which the Stratford Fire Department swore was the cause, and which my mom insisted wasn’t possible because he didn’t smoke.

  It was a mess — a giant, steaming pile of mess.

  It was also another stave of wood hammered between the Becker family and the Scooter family.

  Noah, Mikey, and I worked at the distillery for many reasons — but the main one was to keep our family legacy alive. And though Patrick Scooter and his family played along, there was always an underlying tension, like we were some kind of infection they couldn’t be rid of.

  But to fire us would be to stir the pot of rumors that they had something to do with our father’s death, and for us to quit would be turning our backs on the distillery our family had a rightful hand in owning and operatin
g.

  Even with all that being said, I shouldn’t have been so worked up over the fact that Patrick’s youngest — Mallory Scooter — would be walking through my door any minute now. I shouldn’t have been working my stress ball overtime, tapping one foot under my desk, biting the inside of my cheek as I ran over the words I would say when she got there.

  Sure, she was the founder’s granddaughter and the current CEO’s daughter.

  Sure, she beared the last name of the family I couldn’t escape.

  And sure, she hadn’t earned this job — not the way I had. It’d been handed to her, just because of the blood flowing in her veins.

  But it wasn’t even any of that that mattered.

  What did matter was that I was the lead tour guide, and rightfully next in line to be manager — and I had a sneaky suspicion she was hired to thwart that.

  Another thing that mattered — perhaps what mattered most — was that I’d had a secret crush on Mallory Scooter since I was fourteen years old.

  No one knew that last part — not even my brothers, who knew everything about me. I’d never told a soul that I found her outspoken sass and open rebellion against her family and this entire town a huge turn on. I’d never once stared at her longer than appropriate, never showed the fact that my palms were sweaty every time she came around.

  We were the son and daughter of a bitter rival sparked to life decades ago and still burning hot today.

  There was no option for me to entertain my infatuation with her, and I’d known that. I’d steered clear of her with little effort over the years. It was easy to do in high school and even easier to do once she left for college. The few times she had come back home made it more challenging, since I knew she liked to hang out at the same places I did. Still, I’d avoided her in every way possible, shoving down any and every urge I had to get to know the blue-eyed girl with the septum piercing who I’d watched scribble in her sketch book from afar all through high school.

  But now, I would be working with her every single day.