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“Certainly feels nice not to worry about driving home in the blizzard.”
I grabbed a glass. “Any preference on the beer?”
“Brewer’s choice,” Chase said. “Nobody seems to know beer better than you.”
I nodded. “Damn right. No one in Jade River, at least.”
“How did you actually get into brewing?” he asked. “I know you worked on the farm with Sawyer before doing this.”
I started pulling the tap on our best wheat beer. “I’d been brewing at home for years. I was a little obsessed with it. Dreamed about beer, talked about it way too much to everyone at the farm. When I heard that Old Man Rushing was looking to hire someone new here at the brewery, I jumped on it as fast as I could.”
“You were ready to get off of the farm, huh?”
I glanced up at him, sliding the glass of beer over the bar top. “No. I loved the farm. Loved every moment of it, other than mosquito season. I just knew brewing beer was my dream job.”
“Was Sawyer sad when you left?”
I paused, turning over his question in my mind. “Was the first fight Sawyer and I ever got in, actually,” I said, deciding there was no reason not to be honest.
Chase’s eyes went comically wide. “You? And him? In a fight?”
I nodded once. “He was right to be upset. I didn’t tell him that I applied to the position here at the brewery because I was dumb and superstitious. I didn’t want to tell anybody at all unless I got the job. But I should have told him. I told him everything before that, and everything since.”
“That’s a tough one,” Chase said. “So he found out when you got the job, and you were leaving the farm?”
“Still makes me sad. But yes,” I said. “I still remember the look on his face when I told him I wouldn’t be working with him every day anymore.”
“Well, I can tell it only made your relationship with him stronger,” Chase said. “It’s good that you have Sawyer in your life, even if you do swear to high heaven that you guys are just friends.”
“We are friends,” I said. “And I am lucky to have him. I don’t deserve him. Never have.”
Chase cocked his head to one side. “That’s why I still think you’ve got a shot with him.”
I grunted, grabbing a nearby pint glass and polishing it with a cloth even though it was already spotless. “He’s straight. He’s always been straight. End of story.”
Chase nodded slowly, sipping his beer. “Listen. I’ve only known Sawyer for a little while, but I get the impression that he second guesses himself a lot. He seems like the nicest human being on the planet, but I don’t know if he really trusts himself.”
I chuckled softly. “Yeah. That’s him.”
“I’ve known people like that, and sometimes it takes them much longer to come to terms with who they really are. To be comfortable owning what they like, who they love. I have no idea if Sawyer’s straight as an arrow or not, and it isn’t my business. But I know he loves you even more than you realize.”
I waved a hand through the air. “I know he loves me.”
“No. He really loves you,” Chase emphasized. “Every time he talks about you, it’s like he has stars in his eyes.”
I glanced up at him. “Sawyer’s been talking about me?”
Chase lifted his eyebrows. “He mentions you a lot, Harlan.”
The back doors to the deck opened up at the side of the bar, and one by one, the Fixer Brothers guys filed in, all of them brushing snow from their hair and shoulders. Sawyer came in last, his hair adorably damp and messed up from the snow and his cheeks flushed pink.
“There’s the man himself,” Chase said as Sawyer came and took the bar stool next to his.
“I forgot there was going to be a blizzard tonight,” he said.
“You forgot?” Chase said.
“Sawyer can be a little forgetful sometimes,” I said, giving him a kind smile.
“To say the least. But I haven’t seen snow this heavy in at least a couple of years,” Sawyer said. “It’s awesome.”
“You going to head home soon?” I asked.
“The guys convinced me to snag one of the hotel rooms that the production company offered,” Sawyer said, a sheepish grin on his face. “Normally I’d refuse, but they told me to treat myself. Figured I wouldn’t mind a stay at the Jade River Inn, anyway.”
The inn was just down the road from the brewery, a Spruce Street staple.
“You know, I’ve actually never stayed a night at the inn,” I said. “My mom used to stay there, when she visited. And I’ve been inside many times. But living so close by, I’ve never once slept there.”
“Do it,” Chase encouraged. “Tonight. We’re all heading over there tonight, we’re going to have the coziest night in and hunker down for the blizzard.”
