Page 17 of Santa Baby

I had to raise my voice above the clattering of pipes and rushing water as I followed behind her along a narrow metal bridge overlooking the distillery below. She clutched the railing, and her cup of coffee, for dear life, taking nervous steps until we reached the far end of the room and met a narrow set of stairs.

I followed her down and stepped in front of her again, leading her through the maze of brewing equipment until we reached another set of doors. I noticed she was slightly flushed, her eyes locked on the noisy equipment. I was sure she had some idea in her mind about what this place looked like. A romantic notion, probably. Everyone did.

But as I opened the doors to the still room, her mouth popped open, and her eyes glittered nearly the same color as the four massive copper stills taking up the majority of the room.

“The still room,” I said.

“Whoa,” she murmured, catching her reflection in the polished metal. “These are huge.”

I nodded. “We make a lot of whiskey.”

She hung back as I walked forward, checking on a few things while nursing the impossibly sweet drink in my hand. I was nearly to the far end of the room when she finally caught up with me again, following me through yet another set of doors.

“This reminds me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” She smiled as I shut the doors behind us. The maturation room, the final step in the distilling process, bloomed around us. Everything was dark wood, and the smell of charred oak hung heavy in the air as she gazed up, and up, at the racks of full-sized barrels arranged on shelves.

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Really?” It wasn’t lost on me that we were the only people in the enormous warehouse housing thousands of barrels of young, aging whiskey. My foreman, Roger, was at the other warehouse for our clear spirits today, which was the reason why I’d reached out to Fia to see if she was available for a tour this morning. We’d be alone with plenty of time, and privacy, to talk about the finer details of our arrangement.

In reality, I’d been thinking about her since Saturday night and hadn’t been able to get her out of my head. I needed to figure out why.

“Did you always want to make whiskey?” We walked through the room toward a plastic table, chairs, and a row of counters with a coffeemaker. She hopped up on the counter with ease, crossing her ankles with her hands curled around her coffee cup.

I chose to sit in one of the chairs, facing her. “No, I didn’t grow up with the dream of turning a bootleg operation in college into all of this.”

She sipped her coffee, smiling around the rim. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“Are you going to ask my favorite color next?” I chuckled. “What did you want to be?”

She rolled her eyes, giggling a bit. “A cat doctor.”

“A veterinarian?”

“No, a cat that was also a doctor, but now that my frontal lobe’s developed, I’ve been debating actually using the degree my parents spent so much money on and getting a real job.”

I chewed my lower lip, hiding the smile that threatened to spread across my lips. “You’re a photographer. That’s a real job⁠—”

“What did you want to be? Before this?” She skillfully cut me off before taking another sip of coffee.

“A pilot,” I breathed, slouching, finding it hard not to feel comfortable around her. “Commercial, actually. I wanted to fly all around the world in the biggest cargo plane known to man.”

She smiled, swinging her legs. “King of the Skies.”

“Precisely.” I swished the coffee around in the half empty cup before setting it down on the table beside me.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’m colorblind.”

“Really? Like a dog?”

I shot her a playful glare. “The FAA doesn’t take too kindly to their pilots not being able to tell the difference between red and green.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, nodding enthusiastically. “That’s it! I’ve been wondering why you hated Christmas so much, ever since you threw that horrible Christmas party for your office.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, noticing the devilish look in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

She nodded certainly. “You can’t even see Christmas. Red and green are the official colors of the season, you know.”

I ran my tongue along my lower lip. “You’re not what I expected at all, truly.”