“You just got onto Kelly for not stretching, but I don’t see you over there with him.” Ivy didn’t even look up from the schedule in her hands, but Kieran could sense her smirk.
“I’ve gotta head out,” Kieran said, guilt tugging at him already. “Dad’s got a doctor appointment in the morning andMom’s already badgering me to drive down for the night so I’m with them tomorrow.”
He could see his coach fighting back a sigh. “You gonna be back in time for practice tomorrow?”
Kieran winced, as the needling guilt finally flooded every part of him. He’d been worried Coach would try to squeeze in another practice before the game. “I’ll have to miss. They need help with some stuff around the farm. I’ll be back before the game on Friday.”
Coach Rodriguez finally did let that sigh out, wiping a hand down his face.
“McCullough, tomorrow is our last practice before the game. We need this win if we want to make the tournament. Two wins out of the next three games. There’s a lot on the line right now, and your team needs you.”
The guilt was almost a physical thing, molten lead cooling in his veins, seeping into his heart and weighing him down. “I know, sir.” He couldn’t find an adequate excuse. And his coach knew the situation with Kieran’s parents. He knew how many calls Kieran constantly fielded from his worried mother, always asking him to come back home, to be there for doctor visits, to help out on the farm. Coach knew how much it tore at Kieran, the way he was being tugged between the two things he loved the most.
But they needed wins, and Kieran was an active part of their strategy. Theyneededhim.
And so did his family.
“I’m sorry,” Kieran said, even though the words rang false to his own ears. How could he be sorry about being there for his parents? Ivy finally looked up from the paper in her hands, her expression softening as she twirled the end of her long, wavy ponytail. The pity he saw in her eyes itched under Kieran’s skin, growing more persistent as his coach adopted a similar look.
“See if Mills will work with you for a bit on Thursday. He’s been nervous at the start of the last few games, maybe some extra practice before this one will do him good.”
Kieran nodded, making a mental note to text Atticus when he got to the farm. He didn’t want to ask now, not in front of the whole team who would all be let down when he didn’t show up for practice the next day.
He slipped out of the gym, Ivy hollering at his back about stretching. A quick shower in the locker room, and he was out before his teammates could corner him and start in with questions. Not that they didn’t already know about the practices he’d been missing over the last few months.
Even still, letting them down never seemed to get any easier.
Sammie left through the taproom, waving at the servers. One of the bartenders, Eli, gestured for her to sit down and have a drink before she left, his sweet smile bright in the dim lights of the room. It was tempting, especially considering the current state of her bank account. Robert Everly might be a cringey asshole, but at least employees got to drink for free. And Sammie liked Eli. An openly gay Black man working in an industry that was dominated by straight, white males. How he managed to keep smiling like that all the time, all while bartending like it was nobody’s business, Sammie didn’t know.
“Not tonight.” Sammie slapped the concrete bar top as she walked by.
“Figured you’d need something after what that little guy put you through.” Eli gave her a knowing look, and Sammie rolled her eyes but failed to keep her smile contained. It seemed Carson was earning himself a reputation amongst all of their coworkers.
“What I need is to be away from this place.” It wasn’t just the mess Carson had made. The whole day had been… a lot. The flood was the least of her problems. It still rankled, the wayRobert’s colleague had assumed she wasn’t the head brewer. And then there was the whole situation with Kieran arriving right as she’d pulled out the vibrator for the whale tale.
Mortification wasn’t a strong enough word for what she had felt in that moment.
All these years later and Kieran McCullough still managed to unsettle her at every turn.
“Go get some rest.” Eli’s smile went soft. They had talked many times about how much they loved their jobs. Because Sammiedidlove her job. In theory. She just didn’t love all the parts that hadn’t turned out the way she’d romanticized them in the beginning. It was the same for Eli, but at least he made good tips.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “Good luck tonight.” It was trivia night, and the mid-sized taproom was already starting to fill up.
Sammie left, another of Eli’s cheerful grins sending her off. The check oil light flashed on as she turned her key in the ignition of her jeep, zapping away all the joy seeing her friend brought her. She’d have to take it in for an oil change in the next couple of weeks. Which meant she would have to dip into the savings she’d been setting aside to get the gutters fixed on the old house. Sammie chewed on her lip as she drove, thinking back to the last time she’d spoken with Kieran’s dad.
“Now Sammie,” Grant had started off, the slightest hint of an accent clipping his words, speaking to the few childhood years he’d spent in Ireland before his parents had brought their family over to the states. “If you get the parts, I’ll get those gutters fixed for you. But you’ll need to take care of it soon. Don’t want water seeping down around the foundation like that, you’ll end up with repairs that cost a bit more than some gutters.”
Next paycheck. Next paycheck she’d have enough to set aside what she’d have to take out for the oil change. And she would,under no circumstances, ask Grant to do the work. Sammie hadn’t missed the tightness in Kieran’s expression when his father’s health had come up. No, she’d be hiring someone to install new gutters. Which would cost more. And there was the kitchen window that needed to be replaced from the storm that had blown in last month and had sent a broken limb crashing through the glass. Which had also resulted in some water damage to the cabinets.Andshe had to pay the Johnson kid to keep the lawn mowed now that summer was in full swing.
Maybe she did want a drink after all.
Sammie knew that it was a very silly thing for her to go pay for a beer when she could have taken the free one that Eli had offered. But, well… there was just something that tasted different about a good beer that she hadn’t had to labor and sweat over. A beer that someone else had made for her.
Not that her own beers weren’t delicious. Even if some of them weren’t her original recipes—holdover core beers from the brewer she had replaced three years earlier—Sammie was still pretty fucking proud of the stuff she brewed.
Pushing all guilt at spending money on herself to the back of her mind, Sammie swung her jeep into a small parking lot.
Constant Reader Brewing was a tiny operation. Even so, it was two businesses in one—a brewery and a used bookstore.
