Page 78 of Fall is Brewing

The second stop goes better.

At Orchard Pantry, a boutique grocery full of local jams, goat cheese, and honey jars with handwritten tags, Mr. Voss tastes the reserve, asks about volume, and immediately starts grilling me about production consistency. Willa watches while I answer questions about batch sizes, storage, delivery windows, seasonal fluctuations, and whether we can guarantee supply through Thanksgiving weekend.

It isn’t glamorous. No golden orchard light. No romantic rain.

Just numbers. Logistics. Margin. The unsexy bones of keeping a dream upright.

When Mr. Voss finally agrees to a small trial order, Willa’s smile is quick and private, like she’s trying not to be pleased for me.

I see it anyway.

By our third stop, I’m fighting the dangerous urge to impress her.

Not the customers.

Her.

Which is inconvenient, considering she is wearing the name of my biggest competitor and watching my every move like she’s building a case file.

We stop at Maple & Main, the coffee shop that agreed to carry our Apple Cinnamon Crisp blend two weeks ago. The owner, Aanya, waves us in before I even open the door.

“You,” she says, pointing at me. “I need three more cases.”

I blink. “Already?”

“Sold out twice. People are feral for it.” Her gaze lands on Willa. “Oh! Hey Willa!”

Willa smiles with the gracious ease of someone who has been recognized in public her entire life. “Hey Aanya.”

Aanya leans over the counter. “A little birdie told me you sold twelve bags of this stuff yesterday at Calder.”

Willa glances at me. “Allegedly.”

“She did,” I say. “It was damn impressive.”

Aanya winks at Willa. “Maybe I need to hire you to come work for me next!”

“She’s taken,” I say before I can stop myself. The words land too loudly in my own ears.

Willa turns her head slowly. Aanya’s eyebrows climb.

I clear my throat. “By Hartley & Sons. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Willa repeats, but there’s a thread of amusement beneath it that does absolutely nothing good for my focus.

Back in the truck, the rain-dark streets shimmer under a pale morning sun, and Main Street looks almost fake in its charm. Like someone built a town out of cider donuts, old brick, and unresolved emotional tension.

Willa balances the clipboard on her knee, reviewing the orders. “I didn’t realize how hard you were fighting.”

The sentence is quiet, but it lands loud in my heart. I keep my eyes on the road. “Most people don’t.”

“I think I assumed…” She stops.

“That we opened the doors and tourists started throwing money at us?”

“Something like that.”

“I wish. I think when you’ve lived in a close-knit town like Orchard Falls your whole life, you forget how insular you can sometimes become. For the first six months, we couldn’t get our cider in anywhere. People were so afraid of angering Hartley & Sons. Then we managed to get in with some of the newer people in town, like Aanya, who had once been outsiders themselves.”