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Glancing at him, I grinned. “Archer and Chase pulled it off,” I pointed out.
Adam chuckled. “They’re family, so that counts as we. You and Quinn helped negotiate the contract for this building, and I ran the numbers,” he added.
“Fair enough.” I let my gaze arc about the space. It looked good, really good.
Fireweed Industries had purchased a defunct storage garage on the outskirts of town. We’d needed something big enough to eventually open a small production area here.
It would be a much smaller production and distribution warehouse than the one in Fireweed Harbor. We wanted them to be able to produce small batches of beer for sale right here in the brewery and winery, in addition to local distribution in Anchorage.
Archer and Chase had headed up the renovation. The restaurant and bar looked nice. The space had an industrial vibe. They’d polished all of the visible exposed beams and venting and added additional windows that offered a view of the mountains and a glacial lake nearby.
The space was decorated with fabric arts mounted on the walls and furnished with round wooden tables and a wide polished wooden bar that ran the length of the back of the space with an additional one in the center. The opening event was crowded. The locals had filled the space within minutes of opening.
Archer stopped beside us, lifting a bottle of beer in a mock toast. “We’re busy,” he said lightly.
I grinned. “Seriously. You and Chase pulled off a great opening.”
Archer’s wife, Phoebe, appeared, hearing the tail end of my comment. She leaned up to press a kiss on Archer’s cheek, the love and pride shining in her gaze. “That’s what I told him. This was a lot of work, and you did an incredible job.”
“We had a lot of help from David,” Archer replied. He gestured toward David, the longtime chef for the winery restaurant in Fireweed Harbor who had shifted into an administrative role within the past year or so. He was talking with some staff behind the bar. “David organized most of this, while Chase and I handled the local logistics and staffing. Blake was a huge help as well.”
“He’ll be your main point of contact for getting the production up and running here,” Adam commented.
“I’m going to let Chase lead that,” Archer said just as Chase, our half brother, appeared beside us.
Our father had a summer fling with Chase’s mother before he met our mother, but none of us knew about him until McKenna did a genealogy test for fun.
“Chase is leading what?” Chase prompted with a grin.
“Production,” Archer replied.
“Oh yeah. I’m actually looking forward to that. As it is, I’ve just been doing whatever is needed around here.”
“I told him he’s been like you for us here,” Archer said, nudging his chin toward me. “The everything guy, like an everything bagel.”
“Oh, I love everything bagels,” Phoebe enthused. “They are the best.”
We collectively chuckled. Just then, Quinn appeared in my line of sight. She weaved her way through the crowd, stopping to say something to Blake and Fiona by the bar in the center. Every cell in my body fired up when my eyes landed on her. My entire system felt like engines revving at the start of a race.
I recalled her comments before we left about no PDA and how she wanted us to be a secret. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand. I did. But it chafed. More so because I understood her hesitation about me.
Adam said something beside me, dragging my attention away from Quinn. Being my twin, we had a closeness that I didn’t really share with anyone else. When you were a twin, a bond, a closeness just happened. Twins ran in our mother’s side of the family. Our family tree had several sets in the generations above us.
I wasn’t even present when Adam broke his arm playing baseball in middle school, so I didn’t know exactly what happened. It wasn’t quite like that. Yet that day, I had told a mutual friend in school that I thought something happened to Adam.
I avoided sharing the deep cynicism I felt about love with anyone in my family. We all carried collective survivor’s guilt about what happened to Jake. As much as I loved my siblings and believed that family was important, my way of coping was becoming the one who fixed everything. I was the fix-it guy, the guy who smoothed everything over. I didn’t have enough faith in myself to have kids. I carried a deep worry that, somehow, I just couldn’t be everything for everyone, certainly not for someone I loved.
Quinn knew that about me, and I knew her understanding of my fears was the reason she had her doubts. I couldn’t imagine life without her now. I still couldn’t believe what I’d proposed, that we see what happened. Now, I wanted itallwith her. Yet that deep-seated fear that I couldn’t be enough made me fear that I truly couldn’t, that I would be the one who would make it all fall apart. While Quinn worried about what other people might think if things didn’t work for us, I worried that I would feel like I had not been enough for her, that I might fail her.
I forced my attention to the conversation around me, just as a few of Chase and Phoebe’s friends from their days as hotshot firefighters appeared. They both still filled in on the crews in a pinch. Conversation carried on, and I managed to fall into the easy rhythm of casual talk.
A few minutes later, Quinn appeared, standing beside Wyatt. It was good to see Wyatt, always. He glanced down at her, giving her a friendly smile. “Well, hey Quinn, smartest woman in the room,” he said with a wink.
“Why do you always say that?” she asked in return.
“Because I’m pretty sure it’s true,” he said.
“You don’t really know that, though,” she pointed out
