She’s insensitive. Though, her statement must be true because I’m not feeling the heartbreak or longing for Ace. In fact, I’m not feeling much about the last few years of my life at all. Part of me would like to forget it happened. I wasted precious time of my prime years.
"Right now, I need to focus on Dad. That’s it, okay? I was uncomfortable running into him yesterday, but it’s good he doesn’t remember anything about us from ten years ago. Yeah, it’s fine and better off this way, right?"
"Sure," Journey says, heading up the stairs.
We have spent the last hour sweeping and dusting, and now I’m stocking the shelves with the boxes that needed to be unloaded. I can handle these tasks.
Journey is cashing out the drawer from yesterday and counting out cash, making notes, and printing out reports from the computer. "I need to run down to the bank. Will you be okay for a few minutes? I have to unlock the doors now."
"Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
"Let me show you how to ring a sale through," Journey insists.
"How do you know how to do all of this?" I didn’t think she ever spent time working here, or at least I wasn’t aware she did.
"I’ve been helping here and there, especially around the holidays and whatnot."
I’ve never offered to help. Instead, I moved down the coast and left everything behind to be a housewife for a man who had no intention of getting married.
Journey shows me the process of scanning a barcode, hitting a couple extra buttons on the computer, and cashing out the sale. She points to one wall with both hands. "Seasonal." Then, she points to another wall. "Older, original." Her finger pointstoward the displays in the front of the shop. "And newer original. Got it?"
"Yeah …" No. I never paid enough attention when Dad would go on and on about the different bourbons. It never struck my interest. I don’t know if it ever will, but I need to figure this all out.
Journey unlocks the front door to the shop and leaves with the leather bag of cash hidden in a paper bag. I spin around, looking for my next task and spot a section of bottles twisted around. The labels aren’t showing like they should be. When I take a closer look, I see they’re all out of order too. I know Dad likes to keep the different variations organized, or at least I think he did. Of course, he would. He has always been very obsessed with organization.
I begin to rearrange, alphabetize, and sort bottles by shape to make the shelves look more appealing. I’m also feeling grateful that a customer hasn’t come in during the time I’ve been here alone. I’m certainlynot comfortable chatting about bourbon if someone were to have questions. Although, I think most of the customers are long-time loyal repeats.
Brett makes it back to the shop before Journey does, and I silently scold her for forcing me to be alone with him. "The shop looks good," he says, walking in.
"Thanks," I tell him, replacing the last of the bottles I had to arrange. "I’ve been straightening up. The bottles weren’t organized properly, andI think my dad likes everything to be in good order."
Brett walks up behind me and inspects what I’ve been doing, moving one bottle to the side. "Did you organize these by date or—"
"I alphabetized them." As the words come out of my mouth, I immediately realize I screwed up. I didn’t even notice the dates on the bottles. "Crap."
Brett chuckles. "No worries, I can help you straighten them out. People often shop by the date, so we don’t want them mixed in together."
"Right.” I should know all of this. I grew up in the back room of this place. He must think I’m a total idiot.
"Hey, uh—sorry about the mom-comment to your daughter. I didn’t mean to overstep my bounds."
"No worries," he says. I figured he might fill me in with more details now that Parker isn’t here, but he doesn’t. He begins resorting or un-sorting what I had already sorted.
"Do you remember me at all? Like—"
Brett glances over his shoulder at me with a raised eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
I will not spell it out. "Never mind."
"From our odd encounter on our flight? Yeah, of course I remember you," he adds in.
I intertwine my fingers in front of my waist and look away from him. "No, I mean from years ago."
"Hmm," he says, sighing at the same time. "Vaguely, maybe."
The kiss was vague, maybe. That’s it. I can only imagine how many women he has kissed if ... forget it. I leave his side and make my way around to the register, seeing a calendar taped to the area of the counter customers can’t see. Tuesdays have tastings between ten and twelve. "There’s supposed to be a tasting today," I tell Brett.
"Yeah, we have a little time. It’ll only take a few minutes to set up." Of course, he already knew.
