Page 76 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"Why not? He's not doing anything. He works right there."

"He's just really busy right now. The brewery's got a lot going on." The lie slides out so easily it scares me a little, built entirely out of true things, and I hate how naturally it lands, hate that I've gotten good enough at this that neither twin questions it.

Josie studies me a second too long, the same look she gets when she's decided the math doesn't add up but hasn't found the exact place it breaks. "He always has time for us."

"I know. This is different." I busy myself with the pan so I don't have to hold that look a second longer than I have to. "Eat your breakfast. You'll be late."

She lets it go, mostly, and I carry the rest of the morning around telling myself that's the same thing as believing me.

This is the fourth ask in the better part of five weeks. First it was the town fundraiser, where I told him a crowded parking lot full of parents with phones felt like exactly the kind of photograph Priya warned us about. Then it was the two of us skipping the diner on a night half the town eats there, because apparently a booth by the window reads differently to a judge than it does to anyone actually sitting in it. Then it was picking the twins up myself from a birthday party three streets from the brewery, close enough that Rafe offered before I could even ask. I said no before I could stop myself, quick and flat, and watched something in his face go still and careful in a way I recognized and didn't want to. Now it's Career Day, and I haven't even asked yet, and I already know exactly how it's going to land.

I call him at lunch instead of waiting, because waiting only makes it worse.

"Hey." His voice does the thing it's been doing lately, warm on the surface and guarded underneath, like a door that still opens but doesn't swing all the way. "Everything okay?"

"We're okay. I need to ask you something, and I already know how it's going to sound."

"Go ahead."

"Eli wants you at Career Day. Every parent in that gym with a phone, every teacher who could end up testifying about what they saw, watching you walk in like you already belong there." I say it fast, all in one breath, like speed might make it hurt less. "I think you should sit this one out."

The pause on his end goes on a beat longer than it should.

"Copy that."

"Rafe."

"What do you want me to say, Jenna? You're right. I know you're right. I've agreed with you every single time you've been right for three weeks running." Something in his voice has gone flat in a way I've only heard once or twice, the sound of a man holding a line by sheer force of will. "It doesn't sit any easier just because I agree with it."

"I don't like saying it either."

"I know." A breath, and when he speaks again some of the edge has gone out of it, replaced by something more tired than angry. "I've got to get back to the floor. I'll talk to you tonight."

He hangs up before I can find anything else to say that wouldn't just be another version of sorry, and I sit at my desk with the dial tone still ringing faintly in my ear, wondering how something so careful and so necessary keeps feeling like a door shutting a little further every time.

I call Maggie on my way to pick up dinner, mostly because I need to hear a voice that isn't asking me for anything.

"You sound wrung out," she says, no hello, straight to it, the particular skill of a woman who's poured coffee for half this town's secrets.

"I'm fine."

"You're the second worst liar I know, and Dot's home sick, so congratulations on the promotion." Something clatters on her end, a register drawer maybe. "Talk to me."

"I keep asking Rafe to disappear a little more every week, and I don't know how to make it feel like anything other than what it actually looks like."

"Does he understand why you're doing it?"

"He says he does. Saying it and actually feeling fine about it are two different things, though. I think we both know that."

"Give him room to be human about it. Understanding a thing and living inside it comfortably are two different animals." Maggie's voice softens, the noise behind her dropping away for a second. "You're both carrying something heavy right now. Doesn't mean you're carrying it the same way."

I hang up without feeling any lighter, which tells me everything I already suspected.

I don't see him again until after the brewery closes, twins fed and down at Maggie's for a sleepover Josie negotiated weeks ago, and I tell myself I'm driving over because I miss him, which is true, and not because some anxious, unsettled part of me needs to see his face and confirm we're still okay, which is also true.

The taproom's dark except for the light over the tanks, and I find him in the brewhouse doing inventory he clearly doesn't need to be doing at this hour, clipboard in hand, moving down a row of kegs with the kind of focus that isn't really about the kegs at all.

"Hey." I lean in the doorway, arms crossed against the chill that followed me in. "Thought I'd surprise you."