Page 30 of Tough Luck

Her smile spread. “Yes, somewhere hidden in Clear Creek Brewery is a literal speakeasy. An unlisted, secret taproom accessible only to the true diehard Clear Creek community members. Maybe we’ll even have a secret code word to get in the hidden door, something like…” She thought for a moment and smiled. “The boss is wrong,” she joked.

Once again the room went silent. I couldn’t help it, I just stared at her, completely blown away. It was brilliant. It was interactive, sustainable, fiercely local, and completely impossible for a corporate hack like Leonard Whistler to replicate.

A slow smile crept onto my lips. “Code words? How about, ‘You’re fired?’”

She smiled back at me. “If you know beer?”

“How about, “I’m here to inspect the barrels.” I joked, making her laugh. “That is an absolute home run. It’s got everything they could ever dream of.”

“Really?” she asked, biting her bottom lip, her eyes darting between my face and the scribbled legal pad as if she still couldn’t quite believe how perfectly the pieces had fallen into place.

“Yeah.” I took her shoulders and laughed, the sheer relief and excitement breaking through my chest. “Hell, I want to start collecting my points now. I’d hunt down and clean the whole damn city of CCB cans just to get into that secret taproom.”

Her smile was so bright that I felt my head spin. The pride radiating from her was tangible, flushing her cheeks and smoothing out the last remnants of the defeat she’d been carrying since last week’s meeting. Standing this close, the line between boss and partner felt impossibly blurred.

“How in the hell do we pitch it though?” she asked, her breath catching slightly as she looked up at me.

I laughed again, my gaze stayed locked onto hers. “We have five days to come up with a clear and easy way to show the board your amazing ideas. If this works, you’re not only getting a raise, but I’m also going to make sure you get a marketing executive spot. GSM needs minds like yours. I need minds like yours at my place in California.”

A beautiful, intense silence stretched between us, and the crackle of the fireplace suddenly felt all too loud in the quiet room.

“Marketing executive,” she whispered, the words a tiny, awestruck breath. “You really mean that?”

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” I murmured, my voice dropping into that low, heavy register. I leaned back against the edge of the dining table, crossing my arms to keep from reaching for her again. “But first, we have to build the prototype of the app. We need a visual walkthrough of the interface, a map layout of the trailhead checkpoints, a mock-up of a recycle bin drop-off machine, and we need to come up with a rendering of the speakeasy that we hope CCB will want on their property. We’ll get started first thing tomorrow morning. It’s too late tonight,” I said, seeing the time on the clock.

Sofia glanced over at the clock with a groan, then a fierce, determined spark settled back into her eyes. She picked up her pen, capping it with a definitive click. “Then I guess we better get some sleep.”

“Smart woman.” I smiled, watching as she gathered her legal pads.

“Dishes first, and I want a slice of Bethany’s chocolate cake with some of that ice cream we had last night,” she said, almost challenging me.

I nodded. “Dishes followed by cake and ice cream. Well-deserved treats for someone who just single-handedly saved our butts.”

Once again, we stood shoulder to shoulder as we washed and dried the dishes together. We talked about anything other than work.

After the place was cleaned, we sat by the fireplace eating our well-deserved treat. I told her a few stories of my childhood, and she told me a few of hers. How she and Nova used to run around Golden like wild children.

How had we missed one another? She was only a couple years younger than I was. If my brothers and I hadn’t gone to private school, we would have no doubt bumped into one another in school.

Although I was grateful for my private school upbringing, it did make me feel less like I lived in Golden. Being shipped off to the city for private school kept us from feeling part of something we’d grown up smack in the middle of.

Even as an adult, I rarely stopped to talk to the business owners around my father’s building. People like Bethany. Sure, I’d been in the bakery a couple of times since I’d returned, but not once had I thought to introduce myself or talk to her directly. I’d called her that first day, but after that, I suppose I’d been too busy.

When we were done with our cake and ice cream, I took her plate and motioned to the stairs after she let out a yawn.

“Go on up. I’ll clean these and damp down the fire, and then lock up.”

“I can help,” she said softly, stepping past me to pick up our dishes.

“Honestly, you’re the talent here. I feel like extra baggage. Like you’re dragging me along for the ride.

“You’ve had a few good ideas,” she said, as I followed her into the kitchen with a handful of cans for the recycle bin.

“Like what?”

She stopped and tilted her head. “Like putting the different poisonous spiders and snakes in the area onto the cans,” she pointed out. “I was just excited about the mountain goats and the cougars.”

“Three each. There are roughly three poisonous spiders and three poisonous snakes in Colorado. Six cans total.” I rolled my eyes as she shivered.