Page 27 of Turning Up the Heat

“It’s okay, we can work off the calories later,” he said, winking at her.

“Maybe sometime I’ll actually get around to cooking you a meal.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“Thanks for your help here. I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own.”

“I’m glad I was here for you.” He looked around. “Man, it’s great to get back into the distillery.”

“You distill?”

“Yeah. Well, I used to. Wiping down the tanks was my first job. But I learned to work alongside our master distiller, when we had one. I would have gladly stayed down there, too. But when we started mass-producing, we shut down the small distillery and moved to a factory. I hate being in the office. The floor is where I was happiest.”

“Why don’t you go back to it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have time. Also, the way we manufacture now doesn’t really require many hands.”

She frowned.

“You disapprove, don’t you?”

“It’s not for me to say. But I always think about rum as an art. It takes passion, skill, love. I was worried about quick-distilling because I was afraid there would be less of me in my product.”

He watched her. “I love hearing you talk about rum. You have a passion that I once felt for it.”

“You miss it, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Are you any good?”

“At what?”

“Basketball,” she said, deadpan. “No, rum. Distilling, dumbass. Are you any good?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t blended anything in years.”

“Why don’t we have a little competition? We’ll see who makes the best batch.”

“Who makes the best between me, who hasn’t mixed a batch in over a decade, and you, who was just recognized as the best distiller in the world?”

“What? Are you afraid?”

“Afraid, no. I’m just realistic. I’m not a man who wastes his time.”

“It’s not a waste of time if you’re having fun. You said yourself, the distillery makes you happy. Okay, I have a better idea than a competition,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Why don’t we mix a batch together?”

“Why? You’re afraid I’ll beat you?”

“Shut up,” she teased. “I just don’t want to embarrass you too badly,” she said.

A couple of hours later, they sat at the workbench in the distillery, eating their pizza with their new rum in a fermentation tank.

“Why rum?” he asked. “There aren’t many women in the field at your level.”

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