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Normally I bristled at this much intimation that I didn’t know what I was doing, but he spoke so earnestly that I couldn’t bring myself to bite his head off. “Okay. What tequila should I drink then?”
“Shouldn’t be drinking no tequila at all! That’s a drink for gals who go on spring break and show off their titties for a free T-shirt, not a serious stand-up gal like you.” He clasped my hand like he was trying to pull me free from quicksand. “You need Knox bourbon. Best in the South.”
Despite all the talk of heartache, the friendly conversation had been keeping a portion of the pain at bay.
Until I heard Hunter’s last name.
Pain lanced through me like a sword, shot through with the memory of his scent and the touch of his mouth.
The way he said my name, the way I had wanted to hear him say my name…
Great. Even in a hick bar, I couldn’t escape Hunter.
“No thanks,” I said.
My voice had come out clipped and cold, and I saw a faint start of surprise from most of the biker guys and the bartender, but Cobra Tattoo’s expression of kind joviality never faltered.
“Well, it’s your choice, but you don’t know what you’re missing.” He sat down on the stool next to me, leaning back against the counter as his eyes went misty and far away. “Nothing like it in the world. First taste of it I had was at the wedding to my Juniper. It was like someone had taken all the fire in her veins and brewed it up into magic. I kissed her and the taste of it was on her lips and I never wanted it to fade.” Sadness seeped into his voice, tinged it mournful, wistful, resigned. “Drank it for the second time at her funeral. Brought tears to my eyes with how close it made her feel. Like I was kissing her all over again. Still drink it on her anniversary.”
“Homer, are you trying to make that girl jump off a cliff?” the bartender interrupted. “She came here to forget her heartbreak, not take on yours too.”
“Well, shit, he’s got a good point about the liquor though,” interrupted another one, the deep-voiced one—Sonny, wasn’t it?—who’d thumped the jukebox into life earlier. “Hell, when my folks kicked the bucket and I had to take over running the household, that was when I got my first taste of Knox bourbon. It was sweet but hard, like a promise and a regret. Can’t nothing beat it for the hard times.”
“It ain’t just for the hard times, though,” the bartender protested. “Why, my very first sip of it was a joyous occasion—birth of my first child, my daughter Nancy.”
“It’s a rite of passage, not a consolation or a celebration,” argued another of the crowd. “You don’t feel a real man ‘til your pappy or your grandpappy’s given you one of their old bottles to open up and share. Lets you know they trust you, lets you know they know you’re ready to carry on the old tradition.”
“Hey,” I interrupted. “You all going to keep jawing, or are you going to give me a taste of this famous bourbon?”
There was a shocked silence, and for several seconds I thought I had pushed it too far.
And then the whole room burst into laughter.
“I like this one, Dwayne!” Cobra Tattoo—no, Homer, it was Homer, I should remember that so ‘Cobra Tattoo’ didn’t pop out of my mouth—said. “Pour her the best you got, so she keeps coming back!”
Dwayne obliged, and I tossed back the bourbon. This was smokier than what I’d tasted before, a faint hint of apple hiding in the oak and burnt caramel tones. The burn kicked in a second later, and oh, it was just like they said. A sweet shiver, a little bit of pain, and then a reward, not numbness—no, just a little bit of…what was the word I was looking for? Relief? No.
Exaltation.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Loosened muscles I hadn’t realized I’d been tensing.
Let the tears fall that I hadn’t realized I’d been hurting myself so badly trying to hold back.
“It takes you like that, often times,” Homer said knowingly. “Let ‘em flow, girlie. Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of in a bit of tears.”
“Tears is part and parcel of it,” another biker said, clapping me on the back. “Rite of passage, shedding the hurt of the past as you hold onto the good of it and look to the future—”
And as if my mind was a lock and his words were a key, suddenly I KNEW.
I knew exactly what direction I needed to take the brand.
I was on my feet before I knew it. “This is it!”
“This is what now?”
But the ideas were bursting behind my eyelids like fireworks, too fast for me to keep up with. Sound bites flashed through my mind: the rite of passage, classic Americana nostalgia. Real people, real memories, a taste of home. Holding onto the good of the past as we look to the future. I could feel the excitement fizzing through my brain, my hands waving through the air as if trying to sculpt my ideas out of the ether.
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