The engine roared as I pressed harder on the accelerator. The island road stretched before me, lined with palmettos and the inevitable descent toward water. I made a choice somewhere between the causeway and the resort. A clean, cold choice.
I would end this on my terms.
I wouldn’t be second place. I would be the man who saw it coming and protected himself first.
It felt almost like relief.
The parking lot was half-full when I pulled in and I went straight through the pub’s kitchen entrance. The air hit me first—malt and hops, the scent of the fermentation tanks in back, the underlying brine of the ocean. Home. The only thing in this town that had never betrayed me.
Maria was organizing liquor bottles when I appeared, inventory clipboard in hand. Something in my face made her freeze mid-motion, her hand still reaching for a bottle of Maker’s Mark.
“Not now.” I snapped before she could speak.
She put the bottle down and didn’t approach me.
I headed for the back. The brewing area was dim in the late morning light, the fermentation tanks casting long shadows across the concrete floor. I’d designed this space for efficiency. Every pipe and valve placed for optimal function. No wasted motion, no wasted space. The way I’d designed my entire life. I started on equipment that didn’tneed cleaning. Moving things. Checking equipment I’d checked yesterday and the day before. The work was purposeful and mindless, my body moving through familiar motions while my brain cycled through justifications like a record stuck on a groove.
I built this from nothing. I can rebuild. I’ve done it before.
The first tank I sanitized had been part of the original setup, back when I’d started with nothing but an idea and a stubborn belief that success would prove her parents wrong. Prove her wrong. I scrubbed the inside until my forearms burned, the cleaning solution caustic and sharp against my skin.
The routine of the cleaning solution hitting steel was almost meditative. I’d known it was coming. Some part of me had always known. That’s what this three-month project had been—a reprieve. A brief moment where I’d let myself believe in the impossible.
I was a goddamn fool.
The email is proof. It was always coming. I was just delaying the inevitable.
I was checking the CO2 lines for the fourth time when the door to the brewing area opened.
Tessa stood silhouetted in the doorway, her chest heaving as if she’d run. She was wearing the same clothes—a simple sundress—but her hair was a mess. She looked like she’d been through a war.
Behind her shock was relief. She’d found me. Now she could do whatever she’d come to do. Explain. Convince me.
“Braden—”
“Don’t.” The word came out flat and final, stripped of any emotion I could afford to feel. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“You don’t.” She stepped forward, and I moved to thefar side of the closest tank, putting the equipment between us. “That email came at the worst possible time, and I?—”
“And nothing. You’re leaving. You got your proof today that you made the right choice all those years ago.”
“That’s not what’s?—”
“I can see it on your face.” I kept my voice level. Controlled. “Relief. Like you knew this was coming and now you don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore. Your parents get to be right. You get to take the prestigious job. Everything works out exactly the way it was supposed to.”
“You’re wrong.” Her voice rose. “Braden, you don’t understand. When that email came, my first thought was?—”
“Was what? That you could have both? That I’d be fine waiting for you while you went off to make yourself into something better?”
“No. My first thought was that you’d think I was lying about wanting to stay.”
Her words nearly worked.
For a second, looking at her face, I almost wanted to believe her. Almost wanted to think there was a world where she actually chose me. But I’d learned a long time ago not to trust almost. Almost was how you ended up abandoned.
I moved around the tank, closing the space between us. She stepped back. I kept moving. “I told you this would happen three months ago, Tessa. Before we got into this, before we went public, I told you I didn’t think I could do this because you’re always going to have one foot out the door. You swore you were different now, that you’d made your choice. That you chose me. But the second something better came along?—”
“Braden, I’m sorry. That’s not?—”
