Page 8 of Pitcher Perfect

I was pathetic. I hadn’t mentioned the cute guy to Tyler or Dom because there wasn’t much to mention. I’d had a conversation with someone. Ethan understood that it was unusual for someone on the shy side of the spectrum like me, but it was ridiculous to make a big deal out of it.How could I have been so stupid to not think about leaving my number for him?It didn’t matter, anyway. Since we were approaching summer, things were picking up at the brewery, and that required all my focus.

“Quit whining. It was only a pillow. Maybe if you’d use an iPad like a normal person in the twenty-first century, you wouldn’t worry about your precious paper.”

I flipped him off again.

“It’s weekly meeting time, so let’s go. I’ve got plans tonight, and you’re not going to make me late.” Tyler grabbed the notepad from me then marched out without another word.

I enjoyed living with my three best friends and business partners except when they could bodily remove me from my work. God forbid the brewery got between Tyler and getting his dick sucked. I frowned. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Ty’s fault he managed a work-life balance and I didn’t.

But I was on the verge of something. I could feel it. If our winter ale was good, surely people would stop in and visit. Tyler could do some great Christmas promotions. Hell, we could probably get Ethan to wear a skintight elf costume while he served. He would love that. We’d agreed to skip seasonal beers our first year open to get our bearings, but this coming winter would be our seasonal debut. I needed to make it good and only had a few months to create, test, and finalize a recipe.

I sighed then followed Tyler downstairs. The guys were used to forcibly pulling me from work when I got lost in it. They used to take turns dragging my ass out of the library in college to make sure I slept.

Something savory and spicy smelled amazing as I entered the kitchen to get the fruit salad I’d made earlier.

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Dom loomed over a pot on the stove. “This is what you got at the convenience store?”

Tyler grinned. “Hey, it counts.”

Ethan walked to the stove and laughed. “Technically, it does. The theme for our meeting meal is orange, and that looks orange to me.”

Dom gaped at Ethan. “The theme is orangefood. That fluorescent mac and cheese crap isn’t food. It’s like the cockroach of food substitutes. It’ll survive a nuclear blast. You couldn’t even go to the market and get Annie’s mac or something frozen and halfway decent?”

Tyler patted his annoyingly ripped stomach. “You’re always talking about sustainability, Dom. Just trying to bring that vibe to our meal with something that’ll last forever in our intestines.”

I bit back a laugh. One of the best parts about owning a brewery with my friends was our weekly business meetings. It was a natural evolution of our weekly house meetings when we’d lived together in college. Taking turns picking a meal theme for our potluck was fun.

“I’m not eating that shit,” Dom grumbled.

“Pray tell, Mister Fancy Pants, what dost thou grace our taste buds with this eve?” Tyler asked in a horrific attempt at an English accent.

“I don’t think that sentence actually made sense.” Ethan pulled a pitcher of orange liquid from the fridge.

Dom ignored us as he opened the oven, filling the kitchen with that delicious aroma.

“You made your stuffed bell peppers? Damn, Dom. You spoil us,” I said. Those alone were worth coming downstairs for.

With the dining table covered with our dinner contributions, we fell into a well-practiced dance of serving ourselves. Ethan’s pitcher smelled citrusy and amazing. The man had a way with drinks, and we were lucky he loved beer because he could have been a famous mixologist.

Collecting a plate full of natural and artificial orange food and a huge glass of Ethan’s sour orange margarita, I followed Dom into our formal living room-turned-shared office. Between our space at the brewery and the house, we had plenty of room to spread out. With Ethan running front of house, Tyler out and about handling sales and marketing, Dom keeping the brewery admin and finances afloat, and me living among the equipment, we were rarely in each other’s space too.

I settled into one of the four oversized armchairs. To the casual observer, it probably looked like we were four warring kings meeting in neutral territory to discuss troubles in our region, each with our own corner of the room. In reality, comfy chairs were better than the uncomfortable chairs at a dining table or trying to hold a discussion sitting in a row on the couch. Especially since our meetings almost always devolved into a late-night hangout.

I’d never expected to have roommates in my thirties, but we couldn’t pass up the deal. When Ethan’s wealthy grandmother died almost two years ago, she’d left him a sizeable inheritance. We thought it was her way of apologizing for his homophobic asshole of a grandfather who had passed years before. Ethan hadn’t wanted to live on the money and, instead, had decided to make our brewery dream happen. Tyler had used his family connections to get us a great deal on the space, and Dom had sold his house in Gresham and bought the old Victorian fixer-upper for us all to live in. It took a lot of pressure off both us and the brewery to not have to worry about paying rent beyond covering the utilities for Dom and helping him with repairs around the house when we had time.

But since I didn’t have family connections, money from a house sale, or an inheritance, my only contribution was making the best damn beer I could to keep our dream alive. I owed it to the guys.

I cut off a bite of the stuffed bell pepper. The ground beef mixture packed a flavor punch. I was a slut for cumin. “Amazing as usual, Dom.”

He smiled at me. The biggest of us all, Dom had a case of resting bastard face, but he was a big teddy bear for people he cared about. I counted myself lucky to be among that small group.

“Anyone have something else to add to the agenda?” Dom jerked his thumb toward the giant whiteboard mounted on a wall. Beyond the crudely doodled dicks, it helped to have a central place to track things we needed to cover at our meetings.

I read the list on the board. Update on the Fred Meyer pitch, fall marketing campaign, outdoor seating, financials, and simply “event” written in Ethan’s handwriting. That was unnervingly vague.

We worked through the list quickly. The Pacific Northwest grocery store chain Fred Meyer had accepted a sales pitch to place our IPA in a few of their stores.

Tyler’s fall campaign idea centered around a Halloween costume contest featuring some Portland drag queens he knew. It would be amazing if we could pull it off, and if anyone could, it was Tyler. He could charm the pants off a mannequin. He’d been like that since we were kids. I would never forget the time he hit a baseball and broke the mean neighbor lady’s window. When Aunt Carolyn made Ty go over and apologize, Ty came back grinning with pockets full of candy.

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