Page 73 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"It's a small batch. Six bottles total, and every one of them is yours, because this batch was never mine to keep." He rubs the back of his neck, a rare unguarded fidget I've only seen a handful of times. "I brewed it around what you actually like instead of what sells. More honey than the regular amber, a little less bite. Took me four tries to get it right."

"You brewed me my own beer."

"I brewed you six bottles of your own beer and drew a flower on the label because apparently that's just how romance comes out of me, and this was the version that made sense to me." He says it almost sheepishly, like he's bracing for me to find it ridiculous.

I don't find it ridiculous. I find it exactly right in a way roses or a box of chocolates never could have managed, understated and specific and entirely him, a man who apologizes with woodstove repairs and now, apparently, loves with a hand-labeled bottle of beer he brewed four times until it matched something only he'd noticed about me.

"This is the best gift anyone's ever given me." I hold the bottle up to the light like it might reveal some new detail I missed the first three times I looked. "Truly. Nothing else even comes close."

"You haven't even tasted it yet."

"I don't need to. Pour it anyway."

We eat dinner at the kitchen table, nothing fancy, pasta and garlic bread and a candle I light mostly for the ceremony of it, both of us still smelling faintly of a day that tried to knock us both sideways and mostly failed. The amber's good, better than good, honeyed and easy and unmistakably built around every small preference I've ever mentioned to him in passing without realizing he was cataloguing it.

"You really tracked all this from things I just said out loud once?" I ask, refilling both our glasses.

"I remember everything you tell me. It's a problem, mostly for me, since half of it is you complaining about how bitter the seasonal stuff gets by the second batch." He shrugs, unbothered by his own thoroughness. "Figured I'd finally put it to use for something."

We talk about the glitter, about Eli's lips, about Gunny's ongoing campaign to convince Cole the brewery needs a perimeter alarm, easy and unhurried, the exact kind of ordinary night I promised myself this day would still have room for.

Somewhere between the pasta and the last of the candle burning low, Rafe goes quiet, studying me with a look I haven't quite catalogued before, softer than his usual careful attention, something unguarded working its way loose behind his eyes.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing. Just looking at you." He shakes his head slightly, like he's arguing with himself over something small. "There's a version of this year where I never let myself get here. Where I keep the fund anonymous forever, keep the loft empty, keep being the guy who fixes things for people and doesn't let anybody fix anything in him. I almost stayed that guy."

"You didn't, though."

"No. I didn't." His thumb moves slowly over my knuckles, back and forth, like he's confirming something with his hands that his voice hasn't caught up to yet. "I love you."

He says it plain, no windup, no speech built around it. Not like the driveway, rushed and folded into a goodbye with the twins standing right there and a truck door already half shut behind him. This is just us, at a kitchen table, candle burning down to almost nothing, and the words come out of him like they caught him off guard on the way out.

"I love you," I say back, immediately, no gap between his words and mine for doubt to crawl into, like I'd been ready to say it for exactly this kind of ordinary, unguarded moment.

He exhales, something in his shoulders unwinding all the way for what might be the first time since I've known him, and for a long stretch neither of us reaches for anything else to say, just sitting there with our hands joined over a half-eaten dinner and a candle burning down between us, Derek's text still sitting untouched in a file Cole's building somewhere three states out of reach of this exact kitchen tonight.

Whatever else this day was supposed to cost me, it gave back more than it took.

36

RAFE

The brewery's gone quiet by the time Priya calls, kegs racked, floor mopped, Gunny already halfway home with a stomach bug he swears isn't a stomach bug. I'm doing a last walk of the taproom when my phone lights up with her name instead of a number I don't recognize, and something in my chest braces before I've even answered it.

"Rafe. Got a minute?"

"For you, always." I lean against the bar, arms crossed, already reading the tone under the tone. "That's not really a question, is it?"

"No." Something rustles on her end, a folder opening, maybe, the same brisk sound she makes right before she hands me something I don't want to hear. "Hearing's set. Five weeks out."

Five weeks, she said. I do the math without meaning to, count it out in days the way I used to count out deployments. Thirty-five, give or take. Short enough to survive. Long enough to lose my mind over.

"Okay." I say it steady, the way I say most things I haven't decided how to feel about yet. "What do you need from us?"

"That's actually why I'm calling. There's a piece of this I want to walk you through before you hear it from anyone else." Her voice shifts, careful in a way I've learned to brace for. "It's about you specifically."

"Go on."