Page 87 of Relief Pitcher

Ireallywanted to turn around and beg him to talk it out with me now, but more than that, I wanted Ty to know I wasn’t easily rattled. That when he said he needed to get his shit together, I respected that.

I needed a distraction to stop myself from making any rash decisions.

“Hey, Siri, call Danita.”

CHAPTER38

TYLER

Coop: Good luck today! You’re going to kill it. And if she has the baked white cheddar popcorn in the blue bag, you should totally try it. You’ll thank me later.

Ty: Thank you! I’m looking forward to some celebratory popcorn in my future [smile emoji]

Coop: Let me know how it goes?

Ty: Of course. Hope you have a great day.

* * *

“As you can see on this chart, our sales at these grocery retailers are consistently high. We’ve been profitable for Fred Meyer, Safeway, and Roth’s, and we have every reason to believe this trend would continue in your store. We’ve also placed our beers in two other markets of similar size to yours in Portland and have seen steady sales, though we only have one month of data. I’m confident the trends from the large grocers would carry through to The Pitted Olive.” I made brief eye contact with Danita, who glared me down.

“Stop being a chickenshit.”

I ignored her and flipped to the next slide. “Since we’re in June, we’re in the midst of marketing our summer seasonal ales. As we move into fall, our marketing will shift toward our fall and then winter seasonals.”

Danita bocked like a chicken, and Dom snorted as he reached for another maple bar. I shot him a dirty look. Danita added her arms to the mix and began flapping them like wings while continuing to make chicken noises at me. I had to admire her commitment to the bit. She’d been on my ass about Coop since I’d come in for our pitch meeting, but I wasn’t there to talk about him or us. I was there for business.

I tugged at the collar of my button-up. The small office at the back of her store was toasty.

“She’s not wrong. You’re a chickenshit.” Dom leaned back in his chair and licked his fingers clean.

“You too? You’re supposed to have my back.”

“Pretty sure in this situation, calling you out is having your back.”

Danita pointed at Dom. “He’s the brains between you two.”

“No, he’s the asshole,” I grumbled.

“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about how you’re being a chicken,” Dom said.

When the guys had brought up Coop last night after our team meeting, I’d dodged their questions. Ethan’s and Austin’s heart eyes were more than I could take while trying to sort my shit out. They’d both lost it when they saw what Coop had created for my parents. I figured of all the guys, Dom would be the one to leave it alone. I hated being wrong.

I clasped my hands in front of me on the table and turned toward him. “I wonder what Hayden is up to today. I should invite him over for dinner to thank him for all his work.” I narrowed my eyes.

Dom narrowed his right back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do that and you’ll be sleeping on the back porch. Have you seen all the spider webs back there?”

“Who the hell is Hayden?” Danita looked between the two of us.

“Ask him.” I jerked my thumb toward Dom, then groaned and dropped my head into my hands.

“What’s wrong?” Danita pulled my hands from my face.

I squeezed my eyes closed and sighed before looking at her. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She smiled softly. “Well, that’s not completely true. You’ve been doing a damn great job on the team, and you know what you’re doing with the brewery. It’s a damn good pitch.”

“What are you saying?”

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