1
SYDNEY
My heeled boots clack on the concrete steps as I descend into the brewery cellar. The sweet smell of hops permeates the air, and light slants through the single high window. I stomp over to the rows of stacked kegs, slicing through dust motes in my wake.
Of all the men to walk into the clubhouse last night, Viking was the last one I expected to see. He’s military for life; he made that clear four years ago.
I thought I was over him, but seeing the way he waltzed in as if he’d never left, with every club member slapping his back as if he’s a returning hero and not the man who left me in pieces four years ago, enrages me..
The peacefulness of the brewery cellar usually calms me, but not today. My body vibrates with energy as I pull up the inventory app.
I move down the rows of beer, counting kegs and punching numbers into the app, but my mind keeps returning to Viking. The way he slid off his bike as if no years had passed, the new scar on his left temple, the soft way he looked at me, and the old nickname on his lips brought back too many memories.Memories that took four years and five continents to erase. And with one word,cupcake,it all came flooding back.
I stop between rows B1 and B2 with no idea how many kegs I’ve counted.
“Damn,” I mutter to myself.
I stomp back to the cellar wall and begin my count of the bottom shelf again. They’re stacked two deep, and I count in twos until I reach twenty-four at the end of the row.
I make a note in my app, and my mind thinks about the time Viking picked me twenty-four wild daisies, one for every week we’d been together, and gave them to me tied up with a piece of string.
I dried those damn daisies as if they were red roses and kept them for weeks in a ceramic pot by my bed.
Until he left, and I chucked them in the compost.
The sound of voices pulls me out of my reverie. Barrels’s booming voice precedes him down the cellar steps.
He’s followed by a dozen hungover resort guests, all wearing matching t-shirts with the face of one member of their party on it. The man in question has disheveled hair and red eyes and looks like he’s about to puke into one of our kegs.
We make good money from the brewery tours and especially the bachelor parties, who spend big in the tasting room.
Barrels gives them the full tour, describing the precise temperatures needed to store different types of beer in detail. I can tell the group doesn’t care, that they just want to get to the tasting, but Barrels doesn’t notice or he’s deliberately drawing it out. He was a first-class sergeant in the army, and with his curt manner and formidable frown, none of the men are going to ask him to get on with it.
I sidestep around the group and duck into the next row of kegs. The tall rows muffle their voices.
I begin my count on Row C1, starting with the top shelf and counting in twos. This is the IPA special that’s shipping out on Friday to a new distributor on the East Coast.
The count is soothing and keeps my mind off Viking.
As I get to the bottom row, Barrels moves the tour group out of the cellar, and it descends into peace once more.
“Two, four, six…” I stop abruptly and peer between the kegs. There’s an empty space in the back row. The kegs are stacked beside each other in pairs, and there’s a spare space where one keg is missing its partner.
I walk slowly down the row, peering in between the kegs to check if there are any other empty spaces.
There’s only one missing, and I would put it down to a staking error except it’s the second time it’s happened this month. Once is an error; twice is suspicious.
I tag it as missing in the inventory, and it flags as a red mark in the app.
I glance up at the busted security camera in the corner of the cellar. Even if it were working, the angle might not see into this corner. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed for the past few weeks, but there’s always something else to do.
I sigh and move it up my mental to-do list.
Without warning, my mind cuts to last night and Viking’s throaty laugh as he stood around the fire pit with Raiden and Hops and Barrels.
I shake my head, trying to clear the memory, and stuff the tablet into its case and head upstairs.
The office is open plan, and my desk is to the right, looking out of the glass window to the brewery floor. I nod to Isla, who sits at the desk next to mine on the days she comes in. She looks like she’s about to say something but must think better of it when she sees my expression.
