Page 10 of On The Rocks

“If it takes me all summer, I’m going to kick you of that habit, Justin,” I said, as I cracked the seal on the shaker.

“Yeah, yeah.” He frowned at me as the clear liquid came out as I evenly poured between the four glasses.

I pulled out a can of seltzer and added to each glass then pulled out the hot sauce. I did a drop and a half for Beckett and pushed his in front of him.

He glowered, but he took the glass.

Kain and Justin got three, and I stared right at Griffin as I held the bottle over his.

The toothpick swung back and forth toward the middle of his full lower lip and the corner of his mouth. “Do your worst, darlin’.”

I added a fourth and was tempted to do a fifth, but I wanted the drink to still taste good. I doctored what was left in theshaker for me with the scraps and added four dots of hot sauce. “Cheers.”

Everyone lifted their glass and took a sip.

Four was definitely too much for my smaller amount of product, but it was a damn tasty drink.

Justin whistled. “Proven wrong as always. Dang that’s good. Heat’s sitting right there for a minute.” He fished out a cucumber and crunched on it. “Man, you are a wonder. If I can ever get my brother to come out of his damn lab, I bet you guys would be dangerous.”

I laughed. “Hayes can keep his chemistry set to himself. I just like playing with his final results.”

Hayes, the more introverted and science-brained Manning brother, tended to keep to his lab, which was located near the bottling room on the far side of the orchard.

“How’s yours, bud?” I grinned at Griffin, who had a bit of sweat at his temples.

“Perfect.”

“Sure you don’t need some milk?”

“Absolutely not.” He cleared his throat and manfully took another sip.

I laughed when Kain slapped his arm. “You okay?”

Griffin coughed and slid off his stool as all of us laughed. I pulled a Dixie cup of ice cream out of my little freezer and stabbed it with the wooden spoon.

He frowned, but he picked up the ice cream and scraped out half the cup and put it in his mouth.

“Aww, too spicy?” Beckett sipped at his. “Mine’s perfect.

Griffin couldn’t speak, just flashed the bird at all of us as he ate the other half of the ice cream cup.

Laughing, I cleaned up after myself. “Thanks for letting me try it out on you. I’ll toy with a few less four-alarm fire versions before we get to the St. Pat’s opening.”

“I’m doing the big, corned beef extravaganza, shepherd’s pie, and some hand pies, both veg and savory.”

“What’s the Hawaiian twist?”

“Nah, we appreciate the Irish because we like to drink too.”

Griffin sat back down on his stool. “Beer, beer, and more beer in Oahu.”

“We added some green food coloring to our Firefly, and I have a dozen of the Ginger Ciders ready to go. Depending on the turnout, we should have plenty.” Beckett drained the last of his drink. “This was amazing. Now if you could teach Helena to keep the spice at this level, I’d be grateful.”

I snorted. “Baby.”

“Damn right.” He slid off his stool. “And now I’m going to go home and shower off this mud. Great to see you back at the orchard, Lennon.”

“Thanks. Happy to be back.”

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