Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Cool,” Sterling said. “We’re headed out in an hour or two. We’ll swing by and pick you up.”
“Works for me,” I said. I might have lost my file on the necklace, but I had pictures. The sight of it—the shape, the colors—was ingrained in my memory. “See you soon,” I said and hung up.
Now that I knew I didn’t have all day, I found some motivation. I filled the time dealing with the dreaded to-do list—approving the beer labels, checking supplies, and making notes of glassware. In the background, I heard clangs and bangs from the tiny kitchen. Finn emerged looking a little dusty, shaking his longish hair out of his eyes, with a grin on his face.
“It’s a mess in there,” he said, but he didn’t sound upset about it.
“Is it too small?” I asked.
“Nah. It’s bigger than a food truck, and you’d be surprised what I could do with a food truck. It just needs a little reorganizing. I can definitely make it work.”
“What about seating?” he asked, his eyes scanning the taproom. It wasn’t a huge space. There was standing room at the long, wide bar, some high-top tables with two or four chairs, and some lower tables, but not as many as you’d have in a restaurant.
“I have small square folding tables in the back,” I said, “and chairs to go with them. I bought them for an event a couple of years ago, and they come in handy. We’ve done a few collabs with food trucks before, and we use them every year for the Halloween party at the Orchard. They’re not fancy, but they get the job done.”
“For now,” Finn agreed, “that’s all we need.”
“How many can you seat?” We walked the space, pacing out where the tables could go; discussed and vetoed the prospect of outdoor seating. By the time Finn headed off to do his grocery shopping, we had a pretty good idea how we’d handle the pop-up in November and a few thoughts on what we might do after that.
I looked at the taproom again, trying to imagine the changes Finn had proposed: the space opening up into a dining room in the same style, outdoor seating that brought the woods inside.
And unlike the hollow feeling I got when I thought about my recipe problem, this felt solid and right. This was going to be great. If only I had a new flagship beer to celebrate with.
Ugh, get it together, Avery. I’d come up with the missing recipe on my own. Mostly. Matt had helped me with the business side and the techniques of scaling up from small batches to commercial levels, but we’d both known my recipes were better than his. When I’d contemplated firing Matt, I’d worried about the mechanics of running the place, but not the beer itself. I wasn’t loving the irony of the intruder taking the one thing I’d assumed I had under control. Whatever. I’d figure it out. I had to.
Chapter Six
AVERY
By the time Sterling pulled up with Emily and Jerry, I was more than ready to get out of my place for a while and focus on something else. I let Dave know I’d be back later and headed out to the parking lot.
Jerry started to unfold himself from the front seat, saying he’d sit in back with Emily, but I took one look at the length of his legs and shook my head. “I’m good. You sit up front. Your knees will be in your chin otherwise,” I said as I slid into the back seat.
Forrest, Sterling’s fiancé, was the CFO of the Inn at Sawyers Bend. More often than not, he was in a button-down and tie, pretty formal for our neck of the woods. I don’t know what I’d expected of his mother, but the pixie sitting beside me with hot pink streaks in her gray hair had not been it.
She gave me a bright smile. “Avery, I had some of your beer last night and it is fantastic. A friend of mine’s daughter is a brewer in Portland.” We fell into a conversation about the brewery the daughter worked for, a place I recognized, and the ride to the craft fair flashed by. Sterling slowed when we got there as a man in an orange vest waved us to the gravel parking lot beside the Convention Center.
Beside me, Emily rubbed her hands together, her eyes wide with glee. “This is going to be fun.” I looked around with fresh eyes and realized it really would be, especially for Emily. We were spoiled by all the artists and craftspeople in this area of the country. After a while, we came to expect it—the beautiful wares and art available all around us; the regular craft fairs bringing in more artists, more opportunity to surround ourselves with lovely things. I forgot sometimes not everybody lived with amazing potters and weavers and jewelers, and painters right next door.