“First of all, you weren’t impaled,” she said. “It was little more than a scratch.”
She stepped away from the desk, then stopped short before she erased his calendar with her back. How Jamie worked in such a cramped space was beyond her. He must knock stuff off shelves on a daily basis.
Brynn sighed. Wild gestures weren’t Jamie’s thing. He was too even-tempered, too controlled for something like that.
“It required stitches,” he argued.
She laughed at his use of the plural.
“Two,” she reminded him. “Two stitches and a girlfriend. You’re welcome.”
She did feel bad about him having to take a taxi to the ER, but Annie, her friend and owner of Two Stories, had just run to the bank to make a deposit. Brynn couldn’t leave the store unattended. Now she wondered what would have happened if she had gone, if she’d been with Jamie when he met Liz. Would it have been anything more than an ER visit? This line of thinking wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
She set the mug on his desk and helped him collect the markers.
“Sorry,” she said. “About almost killing your mug.”
They alternated dropping markers back into their makeshift container. For as long as they’d been friends, Brynn had only ever been reckless around Jamie, and it was never intentional. He just had a way of pushing her buttons…or scaring the shit out of her. Sometimes there were casualties, but she’d never, before her office incident, drawn blood.
“What’s this one for?” she asked, holding up a brown marker. “A new brew?”
Jamie smiled, the kind that was full of pride when he got to talk about his work. She’d always known he was brilliant at math and science. When, in college, he started experimenting with brewing, he quickly changed his major to business while simultaneously enrolling in online brewing classes and apprenticing with a local brewmaster. It was funny. She used to be the one who took all the chances, saw the cup as half full. But her outlook changed after high school, and now she was happy to play it safe—steady job, reliable yet moderate income, and surrounded by people she knew would always be there, like Holly and Annie and Jamie.
“That,” he said, pointing to the whiteboard calendar behind her, “is for my chocolate stout. We’re going to launch it in the new year.”
Brynn licked her lips. “I get an early preview, right? Before the general public.”
Jamie kissed her on the forehead, and she sighed with relief. He wasn’t really still mad about the whole stabbing thing. The warmth that spread through her, that gave her a little tingle, that was the security of having Jamie as a friend. An accidental stabbing was nothing. They’d weathered worse.
“Of course. How else will I know if it’s ready for the masses?”
“And when do I get my Blue Moon?”
Jamie groaned, but she knew it was an act. He’d always promised he’d top her favorite beer, a Belgian-style white ale from a brewer in Colorado. That’s what having Jamie in her life did. It made her a beer aficionado whether she wanted to be one or not. Forget the watered-down crap they’d drank for two bucks a cup in college. Now she could tell the difference between a lager, ale, stout, porter, IPA, you name it, and Brynn’s favorite was a beer Jamie still didn’t brew.
“I’m not going to do it until I get it right,” he said. “You know too much now. Too sensitive of a palate. If I fuck it up, I could lose you as a customer.”
She smiled at his appreciation of her beer knowledge. It was going to be a good night. She could feel it. In fact, she was already believing tonight’s glass would be half full.
“Hey. What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the words “Road Trip” followed by a question mark on the calendar. “You going on a trip without telling me?”
He shrugged. “It’s just this beer thing in California that’s happening in a couple weeks. I was maybe going to drive cross-country. I don’t know. It could be good for business, but I’m not sure I should take that much time off. I’ll probably skip it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Jamie. You never take time off. You might actually enjoy relaxing for once.” She bit her lip as she contemplated her next question and then mustered up the breeziest voice she could find. “Would…Liz go with you?”
Her stomach clenched as soon as she asked the question. But she reassured herself that any friend would be curious about this type of progress in a relationship. Jamie road-tripping with Liz? That would be huge, right? The forced intimacy of being in a confined space with someone for a prolonged period of time—that could make or break a couple.
He shook his head. “She definitely can’t take off that much time. I don’t think residents actually get any time off, come to think of it. Nah. It’d just be me and my truck.”
He put his hand on the door knob, and Brynn took a deep breath and smiled.
“Good,” she said. “I mean, some you time would be good.”