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And then, of course, there was sex with Beth. Secret, smutty, comfortable sex with Beth.
Eric grabbed a broom and swept soapy water over to the drain in the center of the tank room, grinning like a madman the whole time. There must be something in the ventilation system at the brewery. He was just as lovesick as everyone else.
Startled by the thought, he froze, the broom still poised above the floor. That wasn’t what she’d meant by comfortable, was it? It wasn’t about falling in love. Sure, he liked her. A lot. What was there not to like about the woman? She was gorgeous and smart. Soft and sexy. And maybe even comfortable, despite the fact that he still wished she’d chosen a different word.
“No,” he said aloud, resuming his sweeping. He wasn’t lovesick. He was just obsessed with the best sex he’d ever had in his life. Totally normal. It’d be weird if he wasn’t walking around with a smile.
Nodding to himself, Eric hung the broom up and headed to his office. Jamie would be in soon, and Eric wanted to talk to him before he got too caught up in his plans to bring in a chef to interview tomorrow. “Tessa?” He stuck his head in his sister’s door.
She covered the phone with her hand. “Yeah?”
“When Jamie comes in, would you two come to my office?”
She frowned at him, but nodded as she got back to her call.
The strange calm he’d felt for the past twelve hours was still with him. When Jamie knocked on his door a few minutes later, Eric looked up with a smile. “Hey.”
Tessa pushed past and dropped into her chair with a glare. “What’s going on, Eric? I don’t like this.”
“Don’t like what?”
She pointed at him. “This.”
“Everything’s great.”
Tessa’s green eyes narrowed and she shook her head. “Whatever you think you’re doing, don’t do it.”
“Calm down. I just wanted to apologize to Jamie.” He looked at Jamie, who’d taken a seat in the other chair and seemed much less concerned with the meeting. “What you said the other day… You were right. I haven’t been truly supportive of the changes you’re making. I’ve spent the past thirteen years trying to do exactly what I thought Dad would’ve wanted for the brewery. Every decision I’ve made has been about his vision, what he planned, what he valued.”
Jamie stiffened. “I care about his memory, too.”
“I know. What I’m saying is the only motivation I’ve had is doing things the way Michael Donovan would’ve done them.”
“Why? I don’t get it.”
Eric sighed. “Yeah, I know. You don’t get it because you don’t have to. You don’t need to constantly wonder what he’d do, because you’re his blood, Jamie. You come by it naturally.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jamie grumbled.
“I’m talking about this.” He pushed the sketches forward. “He never talked about this. Not with me, anyway. But it turns out Dad had the same ideas you did, Jamie.”
Tessa picked up the sketches with a frown. “What are these?”
“I went through some of Dad’s old things last night. I haven’t looked at them in more than ten years, and the last time I did, I was just searching for help on keeping the brewery afloat. I wasn’t thinking about expanding. But he was.”
Jamie took the papers that Tessa offered and frowned down at them as he paged through. “Okay,” he said, obviously not as blown away as Eric had been.
“Look at the plans, Jamie. They’re rough and simplistic, but some of his sketches of a dining area look almost exactly like your plans.”
“I guess.”
“Don’t you get it? He was considering adding food. Not pizza, but an actual restaurant. I’ve been thinking that it’s wrong to change the brewery this way—to change his brewery—but I’ve just been stubborn. I’ll stop resisting. I’ll completely support your ideas for changes from here on out. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking maybe we haven’t gone far enough.”
Jamie looked up from the sketches, his eyes hardening. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I think you’ve come up with a great rollout plan. Artisan pizzas cooked in a real stone oven. It’s a great idea. Better than anything I could’ve come up with. But if it goes well, maybe we should think about expanding next year. We could add more items, extend the hours. Heck, we could even consider adding a sun-room that we could use in the winter and the summer. I could oversee a second expansion while you run the restaurant.”
Jamie set the sketches down, taking the time to carefully align the papers with the edge of Eric’s desk. “Are you serious?”
