Page 79 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"You're thinking too loud," Jenna says into the dark, her voice half asleep already. "I can feel it."

"Just thinking."

"About the hearing?"

"About all of it." I press my mouth against her hair, and she settles closer, like she's trying to borrow some steadiness from me even though I know for a fact I'm running low myself tonight. "We should talk. Actually talk. Not just this."

"I know." Her hand tightens slightly over my heart. "Tomorrow. I promise."

"Tomorrow," I agree, and I mean it when I say it, though a quieter, more honest part of me already doubts it's going to happen the way either of us wants it to.

She's asleep within minutes, worn out in the particular way that comes after a day like the one we both just had, and I lie there a long time after, staring at a ceiling I can't see in the dark, running through everything I should have said tonight instead of everything I did. Somewhere out past the window an owl calls twice and goes quiet. Whatever it needed to say, it said it and was done.

Morning shows up uninvited, sunlight cutting through the curtains before either of us is ready for it, the twins already awake down the hall arguing cheerfully over which cartoon wins this morning's vote, and Jenna's up and moving before I've even fully surfaced, pulling on clothes with the brisk, distracted efficiency of a woman whose whole day just got a deadline stamped on it.

Josie's voice carries clean through the wall, indignant and fully awake. "You picked yesterday. It's my turn. That's the rule."

"The rule's dumb."

"The rule's the rule, Eli."

I almost laugh, the first real one in two days, and for a second the whole weight of the hearing and the fight and everything unsaid between Jenna and me gets crowded out by two eight-year-olds litigating cartoon rights with the seriousness of Supreme Court justices. Jenna catches my eye in the mirror, something easing loose in her expression for one whole breath, before the day comes rushing back in behind it.

"I've got to get them fed and dressed and out the door in forty minutes," she says, already pulling her hair back, quick and efficient, the version of her the whole world sees. "Priya wants to go over my testimony one more time before we head to the courthouse tomorrow."

"I know. Go handle the troops."

"We didn't talk last night." She says it plainly, no accusation in it, just a fact she's setting down between us to deal with later. "I mean actually talk."

"No. We didn't." I sit up, elbows on my knees, watching her move around the room like there's still a version of this morning where we find twenty minutes neither of us actually has. "I don't think there's time for it now, either."

"There isn't." She turns to face me, and just for a second the busy motion stops, letting me see exactly how tired she is underneath it, how much of last night's fear followed her straight into today. "I still meant what I said. All of it."

"So did I."

"Then we'll figure out the rest after tomorrow." She crosses the room and kisses me, quick and certain, nothing desperate left in it now, just something steadier trying to hold on through everything neither of us has said. "We have to."

"We will."

I watch her walk out to wrangle two kids into shoes and backpacks, and I sit alone in her bedroom longer than I probably should, the ache from last night still sitting exactly where it was when I woke up, unfixed, unsaid, riding shotgun straight into the one day neither of us can afford to get wrong.

By the time I let myself out, Eli's already lost the cartoon argument and made his peace with it, and Josie gives me a wave from the kitchen table like nothing about this morning is any different from a hundred others. Maybe for them it isn't. I climb into the truck and sit there a second before I turn the key, watching the porch light finally click off against the daylight, and I head back toward the brewery with that same unfinished conversation riding in the seat beside me the whole way.

39

JENNA

The courthouse parking lot fills up faster than I expect for a weekday morning, rows of sedans and pickups angled in like everyone already knows exactly how much is riding on being on time. I sit in my car two minutes longer than I need to, both hands wrapped around the wheel, running through everything Priya told me to remember and watching half of it slip straight through my fingers anyway.

Maggie has the twins for the day, no explanation beyond a fierce hug at the door and a whispered order to go get my life back, and I hold onto that instead of the alternative, the version of today where I walk out of this building with less than I walked in with.

Priya meets me on the courthouse steps in a gray suit I haven't seen before, sharper somehow than her usual calm, like she dressed this morning for a fight she's already decided how to win.

"You ready?"

"No."

"Good. Ready people get sloppy." She falls into step beside me, heels sharp against the concrete. "Tell the truth today. That's the whole job. I'll handle the rest."