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CHAPTER ONE: MINA

“Ouch!” I exclaimed as pain radiated through my skull.

My younger sister, Anneliese, or Annie as we called her, rolled her eyes at me in the mirror. Through her lips that were filled with bobby pins, she snorted, “Jesus, you’re such a baby.”

Scowling at her reflection, I grumbled, “I’d like to see how you’d react if someone stabbed you in the head.”

After snatching out another offending pin from her lips, Annie replied, “Seriously? I didn’t even draw blood.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Instead of responding, Annie merely slid another pin into my hair. At my slight hiss, she gripped me by the shoulders. “You have got to chill out! You’re always a pain in the ass when it comes to your hair, but you’re otherworldly today.”

A resigned sigh escaped my lips. “I’m sorry. I’m just so stressed out.”

“Want me to get you a shot of Jäger?”

With an unladylike snort, I replied, “Tempting, but today is the last day I would want to be remotely tipsy.”

Annie giggled. “Oh, the irony of the fact that the gal who wants to someday manufacture her own beer can’t hold her liquor.”

“Tell me about it.”

A ding from my Apple Watch interrupted us. One glance at the new text and my heart leapt into my throat. “He’s twenty minutes out!”

Annie held her hand up. “Easy now. I’m almost done.”

Normally, as a self-respecting thirty-year-old, I didn’t require my twenty-five-year-old sister to do my hair before work, especially considering she wasn’t a hair stylist by trade. However, she was the only one I knew who could execute a perfect gretchenfrisur aka crown braid in English.

Today of all days, I needed to look special. Not only was it the start of Oktoberfest in the alpine-themed town of Helen, Georgia where I live and work, but it was also the day of one of the most important interviews in my life.

Every heartache and setback in the last three years led up to this moment.

The divorce.

Moving back home.

Pivoting my own dreams of owning my own brewery to take over my father’s dream–Haus Alpenhers–Helen’s finest German-owned restaurant.

You could say my life and the lives of my sisters had been steeped in dreams. Specifically the American dream. Shortly before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, my grandparents managed to escape with their adult children from East Germany to set up a new anti-communist life in America. Despite established German populations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California, my Oma and Opa decided on the backwoods of the North Georgia mountains.

And just five years later, my father’s dream of opening a restaurant came to fruition. Second to my mother and sisters, it had been the shining light of his life. At least until cancer dimmed that light.

“What’s the name of the big shot you’re meeting?” Annie asked as she slid in the last pin.

In a reverent tone, I answered, “Rodney Hanes.”

For most people that name didn’t mean anything. But to anyone in the restaurant or potential brewing business, Rodney was a god. His YouTube channel, Brews and Booze, could make or break your business. I’d spent the better part of the last two years just trying to get on his radar.

And then out of the blue, his producer messaged me last week saying he’d loved the samples I’d sent him, and he’d like to take a look at my business. When I’d finally stopped hyperventilating long enough to respond, I’d agreed. And I’d been a bundle of nerves ever since.

Annie wrinkled her nose. “I can’t believe you’ve let that pretentious jackass get you all worked up.”

“He is not pretentious.”

As she began placing flowers into my braid, she shot me a look. “If you stopped drinking the Rodney Hanes Kool-Aid for five seconds, you’d realize he was a total prick.”

“I don’t give a shit how he acts as long as he likes my Vanir.”