I burst out laughing. One, that was speedy. Two, she looked so serious. “What are you ready for?”
She shook her head at me, looking a tad exasperated. “Um, for you to finallytalkto me about your business instead of just making decisions that seem to be impacted by me? Come on. I’m all ears, Sullivan.”
I moved to sit up by the headboard next to her. Sliding a hand up her torso and tracing the lower half of her breasts, I felt myself get aroused again. “Well, not all ears…”
She slapped my hand away. “Sully!”
I laughed and then got serious, pulling the sheet up to my waist and sitting next to her. “I went to see Jake this afternoon. We talked about canning, what the initial investment is, when we’d see a payoff, et cetera.”
Maggie held her hand up. “Back up. What was your plan originally?”
I leaned my head back against the headboard, thinking back to how much shit had changed in the past few months. “Well, our original idea was to do a low-volume canning operation. We have the space to set up in the building that we never converted over for the brewery. We were going to start with two beers and distribute locally.”
“And,” she prompted.
I swallowed. This was where the conversation could go south. “And you got pregnant, and I got nervous.”
Instead of getting pissed, Maggie slid her hand into mine. “Why?”
I continued to look at the ceiling. “I don’t know, honestly. I think it was a lot of things. I wanted to be here for you and our little bean. I wanted to focus my energy on what was happening between us. But”—my voice trailed off, debating how to say this—“part of it was fear about making a bad business decision, of failing.”
Maggie sat there quietly. I couldn’t look at her. I wasn’t sure if she was disappointed in me, thought I was an idiot—whatever it was, I didn’t want to see it.
Finally she spoke. “Let’s tackle that in two parts. Part one, you thought the only way to be there for us was by not investing in your business?” The tone of her voice indicated she was confused.
I took a deep breath and tried to sort it out in my mind. “Looking back, I think I panicked. I mean, I knew canning would be an investment, but when I found out about the baby, I was worried about the comfortable place Jake and I had finally gotten the brewery to. We just paid off the loans from the bank and our parents in the past year. I guess I just worried that we were getting in over our head again and that wasn’t responsible.”
“I think I understand that,” Maggie said gently. “So that leads into part two, the bad business decision?”
I looked over at her. She wasn’t looking at me like I was making a fool or that she thought I was an idiot. She was looking at me with affection. I’d take it. “Yeah. I don’t know if you’d remember it, but my parents had some pretty lean years. I think it would have been right before you moved to town, maybe a bit after.” I shrugged, looking out the window. “I guess it impacted me more than I realized. I’m pretty conservative with our brewery, but it’s paid off in the past.”
I glanced over at Maggie, and she looked thoughtful. Meeting my eyes, she whispered. “Seems like we have more in common than I thought.” Giving me a quiet smile, she squeezed my hand again. “What are your options?”
I thought about it. “Well, really there are three. One, we continue like planned and take out loans. Two, we can use a third party to do the canning for us and pay them. And three, we can ask for investors in the canning.”
She sat up and looked interested. “Investors?”
I nodded absentmindedly. I’d been thinking about it since Jake shared his idea this afternoon. “Jake brought up this idea today. We could have people we know put in small investments into the canning side of the business, split the profits with them. Potentially, if we wanted to, we could buy them out later or leave it.”
Maggie looked out the windows mulling it over. “So, you wouldn’t need to put up as much money…”
“Yeah, depending on how much money we got from investors, we’d likely be able to do it out of our reserves.”
She tapped her finger on her chin. “So no loan, but not dealing with a third party. Seems like a win?”
I slid my arm behind her and tugged her over to lay on top of me. She laughed as her hair fell down in waves.
“I like talking business with you.” I leaned up and kissed her nose.
Emma grew serious, “Sully?”
I tilted my head, considering her switch in moods. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for talking to me about this.” She lowered until our lips met for a long, deep kiss. Pulling back, she ran her hand over the few days’ growth I had on my jaw. “So you’re going to go ahead?”
I watched her face for a few moments. Her eyes were shining with hope. I know she hated that our news had derailed my plans, but not as much as she hated that I’d made a decision because of her without talking to her. Lessons learned.
“I think we will. I’ll talk to Jake tomorrow. Getting the investors lined up and not getting started a few weeks back from what we originally planned just means our first batch won’t be ready until the end of summer, but that’s fine.”
