“With benefits?”
“Dammit, Sully.” I could feel my eyes roll without meaning to.
“I mean”—he gestured back at the skillet—“my meat is hard to resist.”
“Cole Sullivan, if this is how it’s going to be, maybe I will just stay with Emma and Max.” I growled, turning my attention back to the guacamole. I could feel my heart racing. Damn infuriating man.
“Mags.” Sully moved around the island to my side. “You don’t want to stay with Max and Emma. They’re going to be at each other like rabbits.”
“Ugh, I know.” I continued looking at the counter.Don’t look him in the eye, I thought.I could resist him as long as there was no eye contact.
“I’m sorry, Maggie. I want you to be comfortable here.” Long pause, then he went on. “You’ve made it pretty clear you want to remain friends and only friends.”
What the hell?I’vemade that clear?
“I’m trying hard to respect your wishes.” He continued as he moved right in front of me. His finger came under my chin as he tipped my face up to look in his eyes. “And that is so hard.”
Christ, that wasn’t the only thing that was hard right now, I thought as he brushed up against me. Oh my God, where was this going? I needed to be able to pause this scene for a moment and try to psychoanalyze everything, then get back to him. Was that possible? No? Why the hell not?
“Sully,” I whispered breathlessly.
Sully brushed a kiss on my forehead as he pressed me against the island, then gently kissed my lips before pulling back. “Roommates it is, Maggie. You need to move in by Saturday, right?”
With that, he walked back to the stove, and I stared at his back. Holy shit. I actually thought I could live with him and nothing would happen? I wondered if fool was written all over my face.
Roommates indeed.
11
Never Dull
Sully
By the time I hit the brewery, the servers were getting ready for the lunch crowd to come in an hour or so. Every time I stepped into this place, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of pride.
The front doors opened up to the hostess stand with the main room of the brewery just beyond it. There were tables and nooks for people to sit throughout the large open area of the original barn. That space was flanked on either side by the bar on the far wall, the tank room in the opposite direction. The tank room had several beer tanks along with a handful of high-top tables for when folks came back for tastings and we explained the beer-making process. The interior wall of the tank room was filled with large windows allowing you to look back into the dining area of the brewery. The kitchen and restrooms were right off the hallway that took you to the tanks.
Moving toward the tanks, I could hear Jake’s music flooding the restaurant at a level far louder than it would be during the times we were open.
Speaking of Jake, he had a beer in hand and was headed to the table glancing at his phone when he caught sight of me moving toward him.
“Hey man, I was just going to message you,” Jake said in a voice that was still far from his normal tone. “You ready to try A Trip to Grandma’s?” he asked, sliding over a second beer that was on the table.
Accepting it, I muttered, “Hell yeah.” We tapped glasses, then took a small drink, each letting it settle and thinking through the flavors of the beer.
Jake spoke first. “What do you think?”
“Fucking perfect,” I replied.
“My thoughts exactly,” Jake said with a tense smile. He tapped the barn wood table for a moment before meeting my eyes. “Originally, I had thought this would be perfect beer to begin our canning process with, along with Black Hole Sun.”
My stomach dropped with the feelings of anxiety as I prepared to have this conversation with Jake. For the past week we’d danced around this topic but hadn’t really gotten into it since last Saturday when I made the decision for us. I felt like a dick and it wasn’t fair, but all my focus had been on being a provider for my family, not going into more debt.
Jake broke the silence since I couldn’t figure out what in the hell to say. “Just be honest with me, man. Not this bullshit about how we need more money in the bank because that doesn’t fly. We’d had the same in savings the week before, and you were right there beside me, pushing to move ahead.” He ran a hand through his hair while he looked out at the brewery through the windows. Glancing back my way, he dropped his voice. “It’s Maggie, right? The pregnancy?”
I met his eyes. I didn’t want to get into it because I still couldn’t figure out the feelings swirling in my own damn head, but I owed him this. Hell, I owed him so much more. “I can’t fucking explain it. It’s like I heard I was going to be a dad and immediately panicked about money. All that I could think was that it was the wrong time to take any chances with our business.” Remorse filled me up as I thought of how I’d just dropped the bomb that we weren’t moving forward without any thought to what Jake thought. We were in this, equal partners. What the hell would I have done if he’d pulled something like that?
Looking at Jake, I could tell he was trying to calm down, that he didn’t want to rail against me here. I appreciated it, but it was more than I deserved. “You’ve got it wrong, Sully. Now is the perfect time to invest. You want to grow this business, not stay stagnant. Expanding this way makes perfect sense. We’ve already done all the groundwork and were ready for the next step, and then you just decided we were done.”
