Page 44 of Better Luck Next Time

“How’d you meet River?” she asked. “When I vetted you with Dottie, she said I should be sure to ask you.”

He laughed, the sound genuine and unstudied. “You vetted me with Dottie? Was that before or after our visit to the psychic?”

“After I told you I’d help with the art show.” Okay, so it had all kind of happened on the same day. “In any case, she suggested that I ask you about meeting River or, more accurately, how you came up with the idea for Big Catch.”

It only then occurred to her she’d jumped from one prickly subject to another, but he took it like a champ, his rich laughter filling the super spacious and luxurious interior of the car. “Dottie loves that story. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you herself.” His hand shifted on the steering wheel. “We met at a beer competition.”

“Like Brewfest?” she asked. That was the competition the Buchanans were supposed to place in next March. If they didn’t make it to the top five, the brewery would forfeit to River.

“Actually itwasBrewfest,” Finn said. “River had been job hopping for a few years, but at the time he was working as a bartender at a local restaurant. He’d been making home brews since he was a teenager. We ended up standing next to each other outside of the tent for a popular brewery. Both of us had a tasting glass of their lemon sour, and as soon as we tried it, we gagged at the same time. We got to talking about the different beers we were tasting, and he was so knowledgeable. The guy’s got a great sniffer.”

Adalia laughed. “Did you mean for that to sound so dirty?”

He chuckled. “Um. No. But there’s no doubt his nose can pick out flavor profiles in a beer that other people wouldn’t even notice. Which means his palate is pretty sharp too. He just has a built-in intuition, or maybe it’s from all that time he spent brewing beer with Beau. I knew within hours of meeting him that he was a genius. The blue ribbon he won for his home brew lager only cinched it.”

Adalia smiled at how animated he’d gotten while recounting their meeting.

“We just hit it off. We had this instant connection that felt more like a brotherhood than friendship. Or at least it’s what I imagine having a brother would be like. I don’t have any siblings.”

There was a hint of loneliness in his tone, and she almost commented that siblings weren’t all they were cracked up to be, but it would have felt too flip.

“Anyway,” he said, tapping the side of the wheel, “I was living in Charlotte, looking for a project. And after hanging out with River for eight hours I knew, deep in my gut, that this could be something amazing. I wanted to start something from the ground up, to be part of building it, you know?”

She was surprised by the passion in his eyes, and a spark of recognition lit in her chest.

He was more like her than she’d realized.

“I do,” she said softly. “I use paint or discarded items to make art, and you gather talent and make a business.”

He shook his head. “No. What you do is special.”

He pulled up in front of a house on what looked like a double lot surrounded by a picket fence covered in peeling white paint.

She wanted to argue with him, to tell him that they were both builders, creators, in their own ways, but it wasn’t the kind of conversation they should have outside a stranger’s gate.

“So that’s how you met him,” she prodded. “Dottie said to ask you where the business was born.”

He put the car in park and turned off the engine, shifting in his seat to face her. “The official version or the real one?”

“Uh…have we met?” she asked, placing a hand on her chest. “Both.”

He laughed and his whole body seemed to relax, any residual tension from her secret girlfriends comment draining away. He snuck a glance at the house through her passenger window before turning back to her. “The official version is that we came up with the idea at dinner and hammered out the terms the next day.”

“And the actual account?”

He grinned. “I came up with the idea in a porta-potty line. River thought I was pulling his leg at first, because I told him the idea was nothing without him, but I was dead serious, and once he realized it, we just kept bouncing ideas off one another, even when we were in the bathroom stalls, although I admit it was hard to hear each other. We may have been a little drunk. But I knew it was a good idea, and we did officially hammer out the details the next day…while nursing hangovers.”

“Why, Finn Hamilton,” she said, barely containing her glee. “There’s the answer to how we can find your next project. I need to get you drunk on beer.” Then she opened her car door and got out, leaving him to follow her to the fence gate.

He caught up, flipping open a nice leather binder, and looked at his notes inside. “This is Stella Price. She’s a painter. Dottie says she’s, quote, ‘extraordinary.’”

“This should be interesting.” But then she turned to Finn, suddenly nervous. “What do you want me to do here? Tell you if she’s any good?”

“That,” he said, his expression softening, “and give me your overall impression. I’ve been to more than a few gallery events, but I don’t know what sells.”

“I’m not sure I’ll have the answer to that, Finn.” The wind blew a few tendrils of hair in her face and she batted them away. “If I did, then I’m not so sure I’d be driving around a car that needs Band-Aids.”

He smiled at her and tucked the hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to know. Just tell me what your gut says.”

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