“Scenery is better here,” he said with a raised brow.
“Do I need to give you two some privacy?” Emma crowed from her side of the booth.
I looked at her with an incredulous expression. The noise level in the crowded deli wasn’t enough to cover the crying babies from the side room, the beep of a timer for something in the back. Looking to the right, I saw Lou waving at me as she jerked her head toward Sully. It appeared she mouthedkiss himwhile her friends nodded at me.
“Privacy?” I asked, while Sully wrapped his hand around my neck and squeezed. “What’s that?”
Emma laughed out loud while Sully leaned over and pressed a kiss to my cheek. Even in the midst of the bedlam of lunch hour in the deli, this felt good. Safe. Solid.
* * *
Sully
I jogged around Jake’s house to his backyard. He had a great fenced-in space so that his dog, Chief, had plenty of room to run, even living in town. Jake had sent me a text that the crowd at the brewery was under control, so he was heading home to spend some time with his pup for a few hours before he headed back in. We could do a video call with his brother, Drew, from his backyard just as good as we could from the brewery, so I was in. And considering the day was a perfect June summer day, this was even better than the original plan in my book.
“Spencer?” I called, opening the gate and heading in his side yard. There wasn’t a whole lot of plants back here, but it was a large expanse of grass for Chief, so it was likely perfect.
“Here,” he called, coming out of the back door and down the steps to the yard, his chocolate lab following him briefly before taking off after a squirrel and barking up a storm. He handed me a can of beer. “Thought you might want to try this. It’s a new batch from the place over in Savoy.”
“Dirty Hippy?” I glanced down at the can and back to Jake.
“It’s a lower-alcohol-content, English-inspired brown ale. Thought it would be good as an afternoon beverage for us since we both have shit to do tonight,” he said, sinking down into one of the Adirondacks around his fire pit.
I sat on the chair next to him and heard my name. Glancing over at Jake, I noted the laptop he had opened on the arm of the chair he’d sat in. Apparently, he’d already started the video call as Drew’s face was filling the screen.
“Hey, Drew,” I said, acknowledging him. “How goes the life of a hotshot?”
“Smokey,” he said as he raised up his own can in a pseudo toast with us. Jake and I did the same.
“Bro,” I said to Jake, nodding at our cans. “Were you just in the mood for an English ale or did the name make you think of a certain bookstore owner in town?” I sat back in the chair with a shit-eating grin, waiting for Drew to grab on to that like a dog with a bone. However, he surprised me with his lack of surprise.
“Ahh, you mean Bookstore Ivy, Sully? Tell me more about her.” Drew’s grin matched mine.
“Fuck you all,” Jake groused.
Hmm, Drew already knew about Ivy? I gave Jake another glance. He’d mentioned Ivy several times since they’d met about a month ago. His comments and interactions when the woman had come into the brewery a few times since had all been friendly, but with a hint of teasing. I had a feeling there was more there, but that was something to set aside for now.
“At any rate, we should get down to it,” I said, pulling my chair closer to Jake’s so Drew could clearly see us both. “Drew, talk to me about what you’re looking for. I know you’ve already spoken to this big lug”—I tipped my head in Jake’s direction—“but I want to hear directly from you.”
“You’re getting on my nerves, Sullivan.” Jake said, but his body said the opposite as he stretched out with his feet hitting the bricks of his fire pit, the picture of ease. Jake grew up with two siblings, Drew and Steph. The three were extremely close and were happiest when giving each other hell. It was the way they showed that they cared. Since Jake and I had become friends a decade ago, I’d been able to hang with them all numerous times. The nights were marked with nonstop laughter. Whether it was in the stories they told or the jokes at each other’s expense, I didn’t know. But there was the undercurrent of love for each other always present. The Spencer siblings were as loyal as they came.
“Ignoring my big bro, I want to invest, Sully. Jake told me about how you all wanted to can and had that loan slip away,” Drew said. My gut clenched, wondering if Jake told the real reason we hadn’t got that loan. “I’ve been working for seven years out here. I live on base, and since I now work on equipment and training during much of the off season, my savings have piled up. That plus my job at the brewery down the mountain that I’ve had for many of the winters out here equals a pile of cash that I’d like to invest. Sinking some of it into your canning operation seems perfect.”
The tightness that had been in my chest for the past month eased up. Jake passed me a spreadsheet. “Looking at the low end that we had originally wanted to start with, we needed to come up with a hundred fifty thousand. Drew has the capital to invest a bit over seventy thousand. Max already called. He wants to kick in ten. We easily have the rest, or if you don’t want to take up most of our reserves, we could do a combo of reserves plus a small loan.”
I glanced down at the paper spreadsheet. It was one I had detailing the costs of the start-up equipment. Jake had added the investors and remaining funds needed.
“Thoughts?” he asked.
I nodded, thinking. Looking up to Drew, I asked. “And this is what you want?”
“Yup. Sounds perfect,” he said.
“Do you want to stay invested or do you want us to work out a repayment plan?” I asked. Better to be upfront and figure out where he was at. I noted that a grimace of some sort passed over Drew’s face. Not sure what that was about.
“I think I’ll stay an investor. Not sure how many years I have left out here. Might come your way at some point and hit you all up for a job,” Drew said.
Jake had been looking down at his beer, but at this he looked up, intensely watching his brother. “Really? You thinking of getting out?”
