CHAPTER ONE
Ruby
It was Friday night, and I had a mandarin bourbon smash in front of me and a semi-crowded bar behind me. The goblet glass was pretty, filled with ice, muddled mandarin, bourbon, orange liqueur, and bitters. It looked like a hard orange creamsicle. Perfect for summer. Only I wasn’t drinking it; I was photographing it.
I swiped to a different undertone on my phone and clicked. Then clicked again. I took a few more shots. Then I put a mandarin next to the glass and went through another round of shots.
“Need a model, Ruby?” one of the regulars called from a few tables away.
I smiled over my shoulder. “I can’t afford you, Jason.” The older farmer was in his forties, but his kids were my age, in their midtwenties, and he treated me like I was one of their lifelong friends when I’d only met his girls once.
“I’d cut Copper Summit a deal.”
I laughed, but inside, I sighed. I’d been suggesting more candid photo shoots. Less-formal sessions, preferably with Baileys involved. After all, the family owned and ran Copper Summit Bourbon Distillery.
But Junie’s the face of Copper Summitwas the response I’d gotten from my boss the two times I’d brought up using others for more informal social media posts.
Junie Kinkade had been the face of Copper Summit since she was old enough to legally work for a spirits company. She was also a wildly popular country singer, which helped drive sales. Her audience loved what she loved, and she loved Copper Summit bourbon.
But... the brand could do with a refresh. At least online.
I wrapped up my photo shoot and took the mandarin bourbon smash to Jason’s table. “On the house.”
His mouth dropped open. If there was one thing Jason loved, it was trying all the new cocktails. “Thank you, Ruby. You’re one in a million.”
No, I was not. Not at all. Just ask any of my exes. “You’re welcome.”
I went back behind the bar. Instead of using my phone to stalk the social media accounts of Copper Summit’s competitors, I used the tablet we took payments on. I looked more official and less like I was fucking around online while working. But really, I was working while working.
Outside of my day job at the distillery, I picked up a couple of evening shifts each week in the tasting room to give the illusion I had a social life. I laughed with regulars and tourists, and then I drove back to Bozeman and my empty apartment. No one had to know that if I hadn’t been working, I’d have been home in bed, scrolling through my phone or reading a book like I did the other five nights of the week.
Movement beyond the front wall-to-wall windows caught my eye. I did a double take.
No.
Not tonight. Copper Summit was my safe space. I got to have a career I loved, one that fit my wallflower lifestyle, and I got to have a social life on the nights I worked the bar.
This environment was a judgment-free zone. So why the hell was my ex-boyfriend in the parking lot, my ex–best friend in tow?
That man had judged the hell out of me.
Oh no. They were walking in.
My heart rate crept up. No, no, no.
Brock Gibson had always mocked my social media marketing position with Copper Summit. Now I was also bartending—which I loved—but no doubt he’d act like I’d hit my head on each rung on the way down the corporate ladder. His words ran through my head, as fresh as the day he’d said them.
I just want more, Ruby. I don’t want to watch the world go by, and you’re always buried in your phone. Or in a book. And when we go out, you complain. We can’t keep trying to mine a well that’s gone dry. The pitying look he’d given me when he’d said that was still crystal clear in my head. Probably because I relived that humiliating breakup conversation every day since it had happened.
I kept telling myself that at least this time he hadn’t given me theI need a breakconvo. Or theit’s not you, it’s mecliché he’d given me the time before that. This time, he had said it was most definitely me.
He hadn’t been the first guy to dump me for similar reasons.
They were almost to the door. When had Brock and Cara Simonson started going out? Right after our breakup? Had she been the reason for his sudden disinterest in me? Did they giggle about how unexciting I was? How predictable?
I was frozen, my gaze glued to the big picture windows that lined the exterior wall of the distillery. Brock and Cara. Cara and Brock. In my workplace. The two people who had made me feel the worst about myself. Brock opened the door for her.
Please go into the main distillery.
