“You were out cold and this”—he walks closer to me, moving his finger to point around the weeds—“would make a really nice garden, but you needed to clear it out before you started planting anything. Your irrigation system needs to be spread out, but it makes sense to see what kind of space you’re working with first.”
He rests the rake against the small bistro table and grabs the hose.
“And you just know this?” I say, amused, crossing my arms over my chest.
Twisting the head, it turns on without leaking everywhere, and he hoses off his hands and up his arms. He drags his fingers into his hair, wetting the strands more than they already were.
“Anything I design, I have to have a plan for.” His lips tip up as he looks at me. “And in case you forgot, I’m actuallyreallyfucking good at cleaning things up.”
Ignoring the fact that I’m pants-less, he’s wet, and my grandmother is very likely watching all of this, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and lift onto my toes to kiss him. His lips claim mine like they’ve done it millions of times.
He hums as his arms wrap around my back and hands roam to the hem of my shirt. “You have no pants on,” he whispers against my lips.
“You have no shirt on,” I say against his lips as I smile.
Lifting me up so that my feet dangle just above the ground, he walks us back inside. “I think I need to shower again. Mind helping me, Crowne?”
“I liketo think that if it had to be determined, whiskey is a woman,” Stevie says and follows it with a dramatic gasp. “I know, I know, if I have any male listeners who still have a skewed perspective of gender roles, this is probably the episode I’ll lose you. Ciao, fuckers!” She laughs. “I think about all the kinds of whiskey in the world too—bourbon whiskey, Scottish whisky, Japanese, all of them different in the way they’re filtered and finished, but holy shit, doesn’t that feel feminine? Whiskey has been postured as a man’s drink for a long-ass time. I know plenty of men who claim women the exact same way. Whiskey is a fucking lady, and I have a flight that’ll twist your panties on the podcast’s website listed. I’m going to sip on one that my gorgeous sister doesn’t know I stole from the latest batch she bottled. I promise you, it's not just because she’s my sister; this woman makes elite-level tasting profiles of Tennessee whiskey.”
I smile as I listen to her latest podcast, and a part of me misses Thursday nights in Montana when the bar packed in and I could do a tasting flight to complement the episode.Maybe it’s something I could do again?
Spotting my nephew on the footbridge that connects the bar to this side of the property, where my house and the distillery are spread out, I pluck out an earbud.
“Nash, what are you up to over there?” I call out.
His head whips around, binoculars pressed against his eyes. He’s wearing a fishing hat and vest, but as I walk closer, instead of lures and lines on the pockets and loops, there are dinosaurs and a magnifying glass. He holds his finger up to his lips to signal to me to be quiet, and I can’t help but sniff a laugh in response.
As I approach and step foot over the weathered wood, I ask, “What are we looking for?”
“Ralph’s family. Did you know that alligators are actually prehistoric? I wonder if Ralph knew dinosaurs when he was a kid,” he says, lifting the plastic blue-and-yellow binoculars up to his eyes again.
“I think it would be pretty cool if he did,” I say looking out across the river. The water seems quieter lately. In the spring, it’s always higher from the rain, rushing by faster, but this time of year, I forgot how much it dries up.
“Birdie says Ralph’s family roams up and down this river looking for him, but this is the time of year that we’ll likely see them.” Peering through his binoculars, he adds, “Don’t worry, Auntie Wyn. I know better than to get too close.” He holds up his air horn. “I also know to sound this. Mama says gator or stranger, I can use it when I need it.” He hits the top of it, and a loud, blaring sound comes from the horned end.
Less than ten seconds later, we both whip our heads toward The Whispering Fool when Stevie comes running out, yelling, “Nash!” When she sees that he’s fine, and I’m with him, she shouts, “Emergencies only, I said—that’s gators or strangers! Not Auntie Wyn.”
I hold my hand up. “My fault, I told him to test it for me.”
He gives me a side-glance and a knowing smirk.
“Are you okay out here if I go over to the distillery?” I ask him, crouching down and kissing his cheek.
“Of course,” he says. “Oh.” He reaches into his vest, along one of the many pockets, and plucks out a brown and orange rock. “I found this for Julian. Can you give it to him?”
Caught off guard, I ask, “Sure. What is it?”
“Just thought he’d like it. He wears jewelry, and Auntie Jo said he’s an artist and makes things people wear for lots of money.” He shrugs his shoulder. “It’s nice having more boys around here.”
I smile at the gesture and how damn sweet this kid is. I try not to think about how I wouldn’t have had a chance to know him if I never came back. I would’ve only been a story of a person in his mom’s life and not someone who he would feel love from. “Sure is nice to have you around here, that’s all I know,” I say, giving him a hug before heading toward the large black building on my side of the river. “Love you big, Nash.”
Every time I’ve walked up this path toward the distillery, I’m in a good headspace. The man I’ve been wrapped around helps too. I smile, thinking about all the ways I feel more myself than I have in a long time...Maybe ever. And I want this feeling to last.
The sliding door of the distillery is wide open as I get closer. My breath catches, and I stop in my tracks as my mother hoists up a case of whiskey. “Mom? Where are you going with those?”
“I made it, I’ll do what I want with it,” she says flippantly, moving toward the sidecar of her motorcycle. I glance at the back of the rickhouse where Tommy wipes his hands, leaning against the doorway, watching the exchange. He told me what she’d been doing when I was gone, but I want to hear it from her.
“What do you mean, you made it?” I ask, following her.
