The day crept by slowly. Sammie napped on the couch after her brother switched on a video game. A ding from the kitchen had them digging into the roast Greta had prepared. Tummies full, they both decided it didn’t feel right to skip their back porch time. They each had more they wanted to say, a continuation of their earlier conversation.
Hours passed, words fading until neither of them could hold their eyes open any longer. Even as sleep pulled at her, a new awareness burned in Sammie. She didn’t take it for granted that she could open up to her brother in a way she hadn’t known she needed. He was right; Sammie and Atticus were a package deal. No matter what, even if the whole world rejected them, at least they would still have each other through it all.
Sammie fell asleep feeling lighter for having talked out her feelings, for having let herself say what she wanted.
For having someone see her just as she was.
CHAPTER ONE
PRESENT DAY
The brewery was flooded.
Sammie fought back a groan, closing her eyes and wishing she was even a little bit religious so she could pray for some patience.
Carson Everly, the new assistant brewer that Sammie hadn’tactuallywanted to hire, was in charge of filling the cold liquor tank while Sammie herself had made a delivery to a local bar. Apparently, he’d been distracted chatting with a couple servers in the taproom until one of the bartenders cut in to ask if water was supposed to be aggressively spraying out of the top of the tank.
Thus the inch of water covering the entire brew space. It was slowly,slowlypouring into the floor drains. Too slowly.
“Luz, can you go grab the shop vac and start helping Carson?” Sammie’s other assistant brewer had just walked in the door. Her dark eyes were round as saucers as she took in the mess, nodding and hurrying off to find the vacuum, her high, dark ponytail swishing behind her.
Luz was great. Luz was wonderful. Luz was the assistant brewer that Sammie actuallywantedin her brewery.
Okay, so it wasn’t trulyherbrewery. The Everly family owned it. Sammie just made the award winning beers.
As Luz started sucking up water, Sammie sloshed over to the garage door, hauling it open so her assistant could get outside easier to dump the vac. She turned to see Carson with a mop in hand, running it back and forth on the concrete, doing nothing to actually lower the water level.
“Carson,” Sammie hollered. The kid—she had to stop thinking about him that way, even if he didn’t look old enough to be working with alcohol—stared at her with a bug-eyed, panicky expression. His white cheeks flushed pink. “Go into the storage room and bring out the big fan.” He hurriedly dropped the mop, scurrying away. Sammie almost felt bad for him.
Almost.
The water was draining faster, between Luz with the shop vac and Sammie pushing water toward the drains with a giant squeegee. Within half an hour most of the floor was more damp than flooded. Sammie had Luz stop what she was doing, sending her to crush in the grain for the next day’s brew. She handed off the squeegee to Carson, who looked back and forth between it and the mop for long enough to grate on Sammie’s nerves.
Just walk away. Walk away and let him do his thing while she calmed down.
Sammie had just finished fixing Carson’s mistake with the cold liquor tank, sweat dripping down the sides of her face, her shirt plastered to her pale skin, when voices reached her. She passed Luz, slapping her shoulder with a thanks as she walked back toward the garage door to find Carson chatting with someone, all thoughts of mops and squeegees seemingly abandoned.
“Samantha!”
Sammie frowned at the man before her. Robert Everly—not Rob, never Rob, and certainly not Bob—was the sort of guy that made Sammie frown pretty often. Crisp polo, perfectly styled light blonde hair, a hand he always offered for a shake thatfelt awfully soft and lacked the callouses everyone else in the brewhouse had. Well, except for Carson.
“Sammie,” she said, shaking his hand quickly, wondering why he always insisted on such a formal gesture. He gave her a questioning look, and she had to fight back an eye roll. “Nobody calls me Samantha.”
She could see the words fail to process behind those blinking brown eyes, and knew that next month, when he showed up for one of his rare visits to the business he owned, he would still fail to call her by her preferred name. Even though she had been working for him for five years. Had been his head brewer for three of those years.
Robert slapped his nephew on the back, and the poor kid stumbled forward.
“How’s Carson settling in? Got him brewing anything special yet?”
Dear lord, no.
“We’re still working up to that.” Sammie would rip out her own fingernails before she let Carson be in charge of any part of the actual brewing process, considering he struggled to even fill a tank with water properly.
“We hired him on to be your right hand man,” Robert said seriously.
We. Hilarious. Sammie hadn’t had a say in the matter at all. Robert had waltzed in one day with his nephew in tow, a lankier, baby-faced version of himself, and told her she had a new assistant brewer, despite the fact that Luz had been filling that role for the past year.
“Everly Brew Works is a family operation,” Robert continued. Carson flinched as his uncle slapped him on the back, shoving his hands into his pockets and chewing the inside of his cheek like he didn’t even want to be there. Sammie failed to understand why hewas. Just like how she failed to understandwhy this conversation hadn’t ended yet so she could go on with her day, get home, take a gummy, and chill until she fell asleep. “I want you to utilize this guy to his fullest. A strong work ethic runs in his Everly blood.”
