Page 104 of Break My Heart
‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘Go take care of the bar. I can handle this.’
When he’s gone, Gina storms into my apartment. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?’
‘Find out what?’
‘This!’ Sheshoves her phone in my face. All I see are some social media posts.
‘What is it? I don’t know what you’re showing me.’
‘Then let me read them to you.’ She clears her throat and reads from her phone. ‘Don’t go to G’s Brewhouse. It’s not the local microbrewery it claims to be. The owner isn’t even from Haydon Falls and has made no effort to be part of the town.’ She scrolls through her phone. ‘The beer at G’s Brewhouse isn’t even made there. It’s shipped there from a brewery in Milwaukee. You want real locally made beer? Go to Kanfield Brewery.’
‘Let me see that.’ I take her phone and read the next post. ‘Worst beer I ever had was at G’s Brewhouse in Haydon Falls.’ Then I read the one after it. ‘The owner of G’s Brewhouse has to run specials because the beer is so bad. If you’re in Haydon Falls, avoid G’s and go to Kanfield Brewery.’ I hold up her phone. ‘I didn’t write these.’
‘Yeah, you hired someone to.’
‘I didn’t. I swear.’
‘Why would I believe you?’ She snatches her phone from me. ‘You didn’t believe me about Ryder. Why would I believe you didn’t hire someone to write these posts?’
‘Who did it? Who’s it from?’
She looks back at her phone. ‘Beerfan98716, but they should’ve just called themselves the person Sawyer hired to put me out of business!’
‘Gina, I swear, I had nothing to do with this. I don’t know who this person is, and I had no idea they were posting that stuff. How did you find out about it?’
‘Aria told me. She was at the gas station and heard some guy telling his friend they should go to G’s for a beer. His friend said he’d heard all this bad stuff about it online and that they should go to Kanfield Brewery instead. After Aria told me that, I did somesearching online and that’s when I found all these posts. It’s been going on for weeks! Now it makes sense why I’m only getting a few customers a day.’
‘Gina, I’m telling you, I didn’t do this.’
‘Then who did? Who else would care if G’s stays in business?’
I don’t give her an answer because I don’t have one. I honestly don’t know who would want G’s to close that bad that they’d spend time trying to keep people from going there.
‘Exactly!’ she says when I don’t answer. ‘There’s no one else! You’re the only one who wants G’s to close down. It’s just like when we were kids. You couldn’t stand it when I won and you’re the same way now. You couldn’t take the competition so you put me out of business!’
‘Gina, that’s not—’
‘We’re done, Sawyer.’ She storms past me to the door. ‘Don’t ever talk to me again.’ She leaves, slamming the door behind her.
Who would have done this? My family wouldn’t. None of my friends would. So who did it? Would her ex do it? To get her to move back? But he helped her open the place. He wouldn’t do all that work just to shut it down, would he?
I don’t know who else it would be. But I need to find out.
Chapter 23
Sawyer
‘You think you can find out who it is?’ I ask Jeremy. We went to high school together. He does tech work for small businesses. He helped me set up the computer system for my brewery and is the only person I could think of who could find out who’s posting that stuff about G’s.
‘I probably can, but I’ll need some time. When do you need an answer?’
‘As soon as possible. If we can find this person, maybe we can get the account shut down and G’s can stay open.’
‘I still don’t get this. Why are you trying to keep your competition in business?’
‘I don’t want people coming to my brewery just because some asshole is spreading lies online about G’s. If Gina and I are going to compete for customers I want it to be a fair competition, and right now it’s not.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. If I can track down the IP address I should be able to find out who’s behind this.’
