Cole stared at me, bobbing his head slightly. "Who owns the property? The apple juice place, I mean."
"I do. It was cheap enough to grab on my own," I replied. "Rather, thecider houseis owned by the tavern."
"One of these days, you can explain the difference between apple juice and apple cider to me, but not tonight," he said. "What's it going to cost to turn the apple juice place into the type of location that will yield the kind of traffic you want?"
A dish towel clenched in my fists, I gazed at him for a long moment. "It's great that you like my gin, but I don't want to talk about money with you."
"Why not?"
Because I hate talking about money with people who have more of it than I do. "Because this isn't the time."
He held up his hands, glanced around. "What better time than now? I'm enjoying your product and I want it to be widely available so I can enjoy more of it and brag to my friends about finding a hot new label before they did. This is the perfect time." When I didn't respond, he continued, "All I want is a loose estimate. I'm wondering what this sort of project costs. Consider it pure curiosity on my part. I could guess, but I shouldn't. Guessing gets me into trouble because I meander down long mental paths until five days have passed without me noticing it."
"You're not leaving until I tell you."
"No, definitely not," he replied with a laugh. "Owen needs more time to cool down and I want to know everything about this distillery."
With a sigh, I grabbed a cocktail napkin and scribbled a figure on it. I pushed it across the bar. "Consider your curiosity quenched."
Blinking rapidly, Cole stared at the napkin. "Characterize this amount for me. Is it bare bones, middle of the road, bells and whistles?"
I dumped several jiggers, stirrers, and mixing spoons into the sink, unconcerned with the bracing clatter of those items hitting the stainless steel basin. "Somewhere between middle of the road and bare bones."
He pushed the napkin back across the bar. "Write down the bells and whistles number. For my curiosity."
I pointed my pen at him. "You know something, McClish? Most people come in here, get a drink, watch the game. They don't tell me about the poison berries they brought home and they don't expect a business plan to garnish their martini."
"I've never once succeeded at doing the things most people do," he replied. "Everything that's ever gone right in my life is the result of following my own path, fucking it up along the way, and acknowledging that conventional wisdom doesn't work for me." He pointed at the napkin. "Since I'm not going to watch the game and you've already heard about my berries, why don't you write down that number and see what happens?"
"Fuck it," I mumbled, snaring the pen's cap between my teeth.
Cole didn't look at the napkin when I pushed it toward him. "What happened with the investment partner?"
"He liked the idea of building a food and beverage destination here, but he wanted to exploit every trend in the market. Ciders, seltzers, pirates." I ran the dish towel over the lip of the bar. "For better or worse, this place is about craft gin and vodka, and that didn't excite him enough. I'd rather see the distillery fail before getting off the ground than die a miserable, trend-chasing death."
Cole finished his drink and then reached into his back pocket, pulled out his phone. He tapped out a message, nodded at the screen, and tapped another message. "Expect a call from my aide-de-camp. Her name is Neera Malik and she'll need your bank information. She'll send some legal paperwork for you to sign. All boilerplate. Your basic covenants and restrictions and such. If you get it back to her tomorrow, you'll have the full amount"—he tapped his finger against the second figure, the bells and whistles—"by the weekend."
"What the hell did you just say?"
"Neera Malik," he repeated. "She'll call you—"
"No, I caught that much," I interrupted. "Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of backing my distillery?"
Cole scratched his jaw. "Why? Because Owen loves it here and I love Owen. This town desperately needs new ideas. Small places like Talbott's Cove are struggling because there's a painful absence of innovation. Nothing new has come to town in fifty years, maybe one hundred, and those things aren't new anymore. Hell, people have no real options beyond leaving. Change is fucking scary, but without it Talbott's Cove won't survive another twenty or thirty years." He glanced to his phone and typed out another message. "And what do I want? For starters, a case of gin each month. Beyond that, I want to connect you with branding and marketing people who know their shit. I'd like a seat on your board of directors, but I know fuck all about running a business so I'll keep quiet."
"That's it?" I twisted the towel around my hand. Untwisted it. "You drop some cash because you believe in Small Town, USA, sprinkle some marketing on top, and cross your fingers?"
He placed his phone on the bar, clasped his hands. "It seems like you want this to be more complicated. I can ask Neera to do that for you, but I have no desire to do that myself. I'm offering you a clean deal. Take it." He glanced at the clock, nodding. "I think Owen has had enough time to cool off."
"How do you know that? How do you determine the right amount of time?"
"I won't call myself an expert, but I think it depends on the size of the fight. We weren't yelling at each other about berries or sheets or dog grooming. We were yelling about time. I'm pushing a new product through beta testing and I've been spending unconscionable hours at my computer. The summer season is kicking Owen in the ass and he's exhausted. We had to get our frustrations out, even if that meant going hardest on the person we care about most." He slipped his phone in his pocket. "Owen needed a couple of hours to be angry, but once he works his way through it, he's done with it."
"And what if you go to him before he's done with it?" I asked for entirely selfish reasons.
"Then I give him the space he wants," he replied. "I've learned to accept that Owen works through things differently than I do and I can't expect him to hurry up because I'm ready to move on."
Cole tried to drop some cash on the bar, but I waved him off. "Don't drink this on the walk home," I cautioned, setting a fresh bottle of beach rose gin on the bar. "Thank you. I can't explain how much I appreciate this."
