CHAPTER 1
GREYLIN
As I settle into our office, I can’t help but feel a surge of pride. We did this. We’ve been doing this, I should say. It’s not new, but it still feels that way. It also still feels like a long time coming because we spent so long researching, coming up with a plan, getting all the pieces into place, and then making our dream into a reality.
That is when Green Mountain High was born. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure our little town of Storyville was ready for GMH. I’m still not sure it’s ready, but our town has embraced our business. Well, most people have.
It’s hard to ignore the one person who seems to have it out for us, but I try.
Because if I think about Mayor Bart Simmons, then I’ll think about his son, Officer Aiden Simmons.
And the very last person I want to think about is Aiden. No. Nope. Not today. Not tomorrow.
No thank you.
The man is already enough of a bother in my day-to-day life; I don’t need him to invade my thoughts as well. Talk about adding insult to injury.
As if you don’t already think about the man.
Pushing thoughts of him away is easy when I look around the large office. It’s perfect and exactly what we wanted when we designed the space. We each have our corner of the room, but because the business, as a whole, has to function as one, we have to be accessible to each other.
It’s not like I’ll be heading over to Meadow’s desk thinking I can order flour or whatever. I certainly won’t be near her recipes or her plans for incorporating seasonal fruit in her baked goods for the next year.
And she wouldn’t come to my desk and try to place an order with Rook, one of our more local farmers. She wouldn’t know the first thing about which strains I’m planning to order, or what sells as a pre-roll and what doesn’t.
But if push comes to shove, we could accept an order for the other.
Leaning on our strengths was how this business came to be.
Well, that and some Over The Ridge Moonshine. Gemma found it for one of our girls’ nights. She was all excited about it. Something about the distillery once being in the hills of someplace called Dogwood Ridge, Tennessee, before they could operate legally.
She’s always finding little breweries or small distilleries to try. The entire process is fascinating to her. It’s her thing.
Putting the four of us together and adding in some moonshine had us coming up with an entire business plan. It took us time, but we made it into reality.
There were a lot of people who didn’t think we would be able to pull it off. I get it, but I don’t have to like how people underestimated us. Being young, seeing as we’re 26 now, and women, made a lot of people look down on our business plan.
I grab my tablet just as Gemma and Meadow walk in and I flash them a smile. Mayer, who keeps the entirety of the operation going, expects us to show up ready for our monthly meeting. Not that we wouldn’t, but she’s great at keeping our friendship and GMH separate and managing to protect both.
We put her in charge because she was the only one capable of controlling the various moving parts of GMH while letting Meadow, Gemma, and myself be in charge of our specific areas. I wouldn’t want her job.
With all of our office areas taking up the corners, the center of the room is a communal sitting area. And we made it as comfortable as possible since it’s where we go through event packages with clients and hold meetings.
When I sit in my favorite spot, I snuggle deeper into the couch and curl my legs underneath me. Mayer walks in, the clicking of her heels making me almost want to giggle.
She must see the amusement on my face because she points at me with narrowed eyes as she reaches her desk and immediately uses it to brace against as she takes off her heels. “You know it’s a power move and that’s why I wear them,” she bites out the words, but there’s no teeth.
“You hate them,” I point out.
Fuck, how she hates them. Mayer’s rants about heels are epic. She even brings the mother of whatever man invented them into the conversation. She’ll read the whole bloodline for filth.
As if she’s not the one to blame for the three or four-inch monstrosities she chooses to wear most days. Nope, it’s all on her, and she knows it.
But I can agree with her about it being a power move. She looks like a boss bitch in her heels; and when she gets going about something, usually whatever bullshit Mayor Simmons is up to now, it’s glorious to witness.
“Beauty is pain,” she sighs with an overdramatic flair that has us all laughing.
When she sits down and pulls a blanket over her, her suit no longer visible, I’m reminded of teenage sleepovers involving pajamas, junk food, and late-night movie marathons. This moment is both worlds away and yet, somehow, feels exactly the same.
