Page 72 of Once Upon A Small Town Secret
He nods slowly. “More than I was on the way over,” he admits. He touches the quilt’s edge with his free hand, thumb rubbing the soft, worn binding. “Lemons and stars,” he says again. “I like it.”
“Me too,” I say, squeezing his hand.
Chapter Twenty Six
Ben
I’m at the Pint just as the sun is stretching over the horizon.
The air’s got that wet, river-cool edge that only exists in the early morning hours, and Main Street looks like it’s still rubbing sleep out of its eyes. I fish out my keys, let myself in, and stand for half a second in the hush.
It smells like wood and citrus—the way a bar should smell when it’s empty and clean.
I walk around doing my automatic morning check. Lights up, back hall on low.
Kegs check—pressure’s good. Lines look clean. I can feel the residual chill coming off the cooler when I pull the door, and I do the stupid thing I always do and put my palm against one of the kegs like I’m checking a kid’s forehead.
Hoffman Heritage is in the front row. New keg on yesterday, bright brass coupler glinting like it’s showing off. I touch that too, a quick tap like a superstitious baseball player tagging home plate.
“Morning,” I mutter to it, because I’m a lunatic when I haven’t slept well.
I didn’t sleep. Not really. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw that grainy crescent blinking like a tiny star and Paige’s hand shaking just a little when she slid the printout toward her mom on the porch.
I shake it off and go to find the chalkboard.
The folding A-frame lives behind the coat rack. It’s got remnants of last week’s IPA flight announcement in white. I wipe it down, cough at the chalk dust, and carry it to the front window where the light’s best. For a second, I just stand there, chalk between my fingers, and look out at the bakery next door.
The windows of Sweet Confessions are lit.
The brown paper covering the place has been gone since yesterday, but it still hits me to see it bright in there. The signabove the door—Sweet Confessions—not yet lit up but still bright and cheerful.
I bend, put chalk to slate, and write the thing we talked about: TODAY ONLY: SHOW YOUR SWEET CONFESSIONS BOX, GET 50% OFF HOFFMAN HERITAGE + FREE REFILL. I draw a box with a ribbon and a pint with a little crown of foam—badly, but legibly. Under it, smaller: Pair something sweet with something strong. —The Wandering Pint.
It’s corny. It’s perfect.
The pen-and-paper stuff’s next. Flyers we mocked up on my laptop, printed on the ancient printer in the office that eats color ink insatiably.
There’s one for our door, one for the inside at both ends of the bar, one for the back hall where people catch it coming from the lot. I tape them up and step back to make sure they’re straight because even if nobody else cares, I do.
Lilly texted me five minutes ago—on my way. She and Charlotte will be coming in for the early shift to help with the promo with Sweet Confessions.
Behind the bar, I pull down the Hoffman Heritage tap handle. It’s the only one that isn’t branded by a distributor—the wood’s old, the letters carved by someone who definitely isn’t an artist. The O’s are off, a little egg-shaped. The H’s are thicker at the bottom, like the person who cut them got tired by the end of each line.
Me. It was me. And I’m no artist.
The drink, however, that’s not mine. The Hoffman Heritage was my grandfather’s.
The only thing I know about William Hoffman is that he had a pub in Paducah and he died before I was old enough to form memories. Thirty years is a long time, and my own dad never told me much about his dad.
I was born in Paducah, but when his father died, my dad moved us to Ballard. Then, years later, he moved me back to Paducah, where he was born and raised. The recipe was like a family heirloom, the only one, really.
Maybe I should see if Gwen can print it for one of her squares, I muse.
The Hoffman Heritage. It tastes like biscuit and toffee and a little orange peel if you pour it just right.
At the time William created the recipe, it was unheard of for such flavors to exist in a brew, but it’s persisted for decades.
My dad never had any interest in brewing, but I remember vividly the day he passed me the stained card his father had given him. And how it had put me on the path I’m on now.
