Page 61 of Bad Luck Club

When it came time for Lee to leave, Jack saw him off with a pat on the back. “You’ll do great. You can start spreading the word about Home Sweet Home. Get some buzz going for us. Let me know how it goes, okay? Call me while you’re on the road. We can figure out strategies together.”

As brother-to-brother talks went, it had gone great, not that Lee had much experience with those. The beginning of the week didn’t measure up.

Tuesday was rough. He didn’t make a single sale, and most people refused to let him get more than a minute into his stilted presentation. After the fourth time someone commented on his clothes, which apparently marked him as the outsider he was, he visited a mall and bought several pairs of jeans and oxford button-down shirts in white and light blue. And a pair of sneakers.

On Wednesday, in his new clothes, he did better…in that no one kicked him out before he finished. But still no sales.

On Thursday, he stopped by a bar in Jacksonville, his third stop of the day, and the manager, Angie, a middle-aged woman who looked like she didn’t take crap from anyone, made it very clear she wasn’t buying anything from Buchanan either.

“What’s it going to take for you to give us another try?” Lee asked.

“The brand’s tired,” Angie said, leaning back in her office chair. “It’s old. When people think of Buchanan, they imagine their parents drinking it at a backyard barbecue. And while it’s nostalgic, that’s not what they’re lookin’ for when they show up at a bar.”

“What if I can get people excited about it?” he asked, raising his brow in a challenge. “Tonight?”

She gave him a long look before she responded, and at first he thought it was going to be another no. Instead, she said, “Okay, pretty boy. Let’s see what you’ve got. It just so happens tonight is ladies’ night. If you can get people excited about Buchanan, I’ll put in an order before you leave the premises.”

This was what got Lee excited about sales. The feeling of anticipation that came when he was close to closing. He could work with this. He extended his hand. “Deal.”

So he came back at eight that night with two mini kegs of Hair of Hops and Home Sweet Home. The manager had let him set up at a table by the restrooms—not an ideal spot, but Lee was determined. He poured on the charm, offering samples of both beers to patrons—mostly women—and asking them to vote for their favorite. He’d brought a fishbowl for their slips of paper, an idea inspired by the Bad Luck Club, by Blue, even if he didn’t want to admit that to himself. He told them the names of the beers but refused to reveal the name of the brewery, only saying they’d find out after voting ended. In the back of his mind he could hear his father telling him, “You’ve got to sell them on the mystery, son. Then you can get them to buy anything.”

Like properties that didn’t exist.

He shook the thought away as he handed out samples and feigned smiles, something he’d gotten pretty good at over the years. He’d brought a 2x3 foot whiteboard to tally the results. By nine o’clock, he had fifty votes with a nearly even split, Home Sweet Home edging slightly ahead.

“Home Sweet Home,” he announced, to a round of applause from the patrons who’d voted for it. He’d collected their names with their votes, promising they’d get another small glass of their favorite if it won. “Now, who do you think brewed it?”

“Big Catch,” one woman called out, making it a double entendre with a wink.

“Perplexity,” suggested another.

Multiple other names were mentioned, but no one guessed Buchanan. Lee filed that into his memory bank.

“Buchanan Brewery,” he told them with a wide smile. “We’re not just your parents’ beer anymore.”

He ended the night with a drawing for a six-pack of Hair of Hops, asking patrons to post a picture of themselves on social media with the hashtag #Buchananisback to be considered.

When he left the bar at ten, he’d done so with an order for all three beers he’d brought on the road.

“I’ll give it to you, pretty boy, you did well tonight. Keep this up and you’ll be back on taps everywhere. Just don’t forget who got you started again.”

“Not a chance, Angie.”

He also left with the numbers of two ladies who had dropped them into his drawing bowl, one with a wink and the other with an aggressiveness that reminded him too much of Victoria. He promptly threw both of them into the trash when he got back to his room. It had nothing to do with Blue—he just wasn’t interested in dating or even sleeping with women right now. He needed to stay focused on work.

Friday was a harder sell. He got two flat-out rejections, and the manager of a bar in Wilmington, which had once been their second-largest account, refused to let him do a contest. But Lee played on his heartstrings, reminding him of the long relationship he’d had with the brewery back in Beau’s day, and he allowed Lee to give out samples to the evening crowd. Every time he handed out a sample, he made the customer guess who brewed it, and again, no one guessed Buchanan.

The manager wasn’t as impressed as Angie had been the night before, but he’d thawed significantly. Lee filed the bar under “work in progress.”

After the failed sale, he went to the motel and headed straight for the workout room. He’d splurged on a Hampton Inn after his previous day’s success, having spent far too much time on his ass in the car. It had been a long day, and he needed to work off the tension from not closing the sale.

If he were truthful with himself, he was working off the tension from something else too. Or more accurately,someoneelse.

Forget Blue. Forget the Bad Luck Club. Forget everything except work.But even as the thought passed through his head, he knew it would never be enough. He saw Addy with Finn and Georgie with River. Even Jack and Maisie. He’d never been stupid enough to think he and Victoria were a perfect love match. Sure, there had been an initial attraction, but that wasn’t why he’d stayed with her. His father had spouted a line about Victoria being a good match, saying they could be greater together than they were individually…and Lee had bought it hook, line, and sinker. Because his father and mother had started out as a love match, and their marriage had caused nothing but misery for both of them.

Lee wanted no part of that.

He was better off alone.

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