“Anybody want to try this?” he said, holding up the gin.
Blake nodded. “You’re drinking on a school night?”
Connor grinned. “Was one of the medal winners the other night. Wanted to try it. Figured sharing it with you guys was better than sitting in my apartment drinking alone.”
Charles slapped him on the back. “Told you you were a loser. What did it win?”
“Best in Class. The packaging is crisp and bright, totally stands out on the shelf…a smart touch by whoever created the design. If it tastes as good as it looks, which the medals suggest it does, then the distillery is onto a winner.”
“Is this one of the distilleries you’re thinking of buying?” Ben asked.
“Undecided. Meeting with Dad tomorrow to discuss.” His friends didn’t know his father’s history with the distillery; there had never been reason to share his dad’s business with them. They took his comment at face value.
And he certainly wasn’t ready to tell them about Emerson Dyer. He looked at the gin bottle. Should he find a way to contact Emerson and tell her what he thought?
If his father could get set off by simply knowing Connor had drunk Dyer’s gin, he could only imagine what his father would say if he knew about the thoughts Connor had harbored about Emerson Dyer.
He’d spent several frustrated hours reminding himself it was none of his business if she’d gone back to Sven’s room to geek out on the tonnage of seaweed required for ten thousand bottles of gin. Or perhaps to slip out of that black dress to reveal the body Connor had lost sleep imagining. He’d eavesdropped as they’d spoken to one another after her win, only to be interrupted by his father’s call. Not knowing what Emerson had done after he’d left was gnawing at him.
He rubbed his hand along his cheek and grimaced.
The woman had him in knots, and she didn’t even know it.
Needing to change the topic from Dyer’s Gin Distillery and distract himself, he reached for the poker set and placed it on the dining table.
“Who’s ready to play?” he said.
And attempted to push Emerson Dyer to the back of his mind.
Emerson groaned. “Why did I decide to do this? And how was I able to convince you to join me?” she asked Ali, her patient best friend, as she sweated through every available pore.
“Because it’s the only way I get to see you,” Ali replied, the sentence punctuated by gasping breaths as they finished their final set of burpees before the trainer allowed them to collapse on their mat.
When Emerson’s father had died, it was Ali who’d stayed with her that first week. It was Ali who made sure she functioned enough to keep the distillery going. And Emerson had thanked her by diving headfirst into running a business she was barely capable of, leaving little time for her friend.
“I’m sorry. It’s been a lot.”
Ali sat up on her mat and crossed her legs, her long, blonde ponytail swinging. “I know it has. I was only teasing.”
Emerson wiped the sweat from her forehead. “I’m serious. I’ve got to get on top of all this, but I still feel like I’m drowning in stuff I didn’t do yet.” She stretched her legs out and reached for her toes. “I’m like a novice skier heading down a double diamond on their first day out.”
Ali stood and pulled her foot to her butt. “What can I do to help?”
“Meet me at the six a.m. class for the foreseeable future?”
Laughter bubbled from Ali. “I can do that. Outside of the amazing medal wins, how was your trip?”
Connor’s face flashed in Emerson’s mind. “Interesting.”
“The way you drew the word out says there was something specifically interesting. Care to elaborate?”
Emerson changed to a different cooldown exercise. “There was this guy—”
“Oh, the best stories start with that. Tell me.”
As they finished their stretches, Emerson found herself telling Ali everything that had happened.
“And you didn’t get his number?” Ali practically yelled as they walked to the showers.
Emerson shouldered her friend gently. “What part of he disappeared from the ballroom did you not understand?”
“Urgh. You are useless. You could have called down to the hotel desk, asked for his room, and spoken with him.”
“And even if I’d thought of that, I wouldn’t have done it because that is spectacularly creepy. If a guy did that to me at an event, I’d have to change hotels!”
“Fine. You’re right. It would be weird. But a quick search online would tell you where his office is, and I’m sure you could come up with something to say.”
Perhaps she could.
After she showered and went to the distillery, the thought kept rattling around in her mind.
“Hey, Emerson,” Jake said, sticking his pen behind his ear as he popped his head into her office. “Cash flow. I’m placing a botanicals order. It’s a big one. Am I good to go?”
She shook the thought of Connor from her mind. “You’re fine.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any sign of the insurance check for the events hall yet, is there?”
Shit. Did she notify them about the change of ownership? Abruptly, she stood. “Not yet. But I can’t even remember if they were contacted. I’ll check my list. There were so many documents to sign and names to change over the last two months. I know Dad said it would take a while before we heard anything from them.”
Once they had that check, she wouldn’t need to worry about cash flow to place orders or pay overtime.
“Em, relax. If you didn’t, then we need to fix it, that’s all. It shouldn’t stop them from processing the claim in the meantime.”
Emerson sighed, the tightness in her chest was replaced with low-grade anger. It was easy for Jake to tell her to relax. Liv hadn’t been in any state to help, and Jake was needed on the production floor. She’d already been carrying her own job and Liv’s. And then she took on the burden of her father’s work. Basic math said that was untenable. “I’ll get on it. They won’t tell me the status until they have my name on the forms.”
Jake threw his arm over her shoulder. “It’s okay for us to make mistakes, you know.”
Emerson shrugged. “Not when there’s a lot of money at stake.”
Jake let her go and ran his fingers over the award statuettes that stood on the newly cleared top of the filing cabinet. “I can’t believe we pulled it off.”
Emerson cheered a little. “You pulled if off, Jake. You. Dad always said you had talent. Remember how when we were little, Mom always used to play that game over dinner? What did she call it?”
“Guess the Ingredients,” Jake said with a grin. “I always crushed it.”
“It was always some stupid herb or something. Like she’d sneak chopped, fresh oregano leaves into pasta. You could always taste them or smell them.”
“So, what you’re saying is that there’s finally a place for my talents.”
Emerson smacked his arm playfully. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, pity it counted for shit at school.”