She narrowed her eyes at my assumption. “I’ll make it just fine. I’m just surprised you don’t have… options for your clients. Especially considering the price of the product I’m here to inquire about.”
The words were strange as she spoke them, holding a level of arrogance but softened by the lilt of her Tennessee twang. It was like she was still a little girl, playing dress up in her mom’s heels, trying to be older than she was.
I stopped abruptly, and Ruby Grace nearly ran into me before her heels dug into the gravel.
“I could carry you,” I offered, holding my arms out.
Her little mouth popped open, her gaze slipping over my dirty t-shirt. Even though she was eyeing me like a mud puddle she had to maneuver around, I noted the slight tinge of pink on her cheeks, the bob of her throat as she swallowed.
“I don’t need you to carry me, sir.” She adjusted the bag on her shoulder. “What is your name, anyway?”
“Does it matter?”
I started walking again, and she huffed, hurrying to catch up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
It means, I know you don’t give a rat’s ass what my name is and you’ll forget it as soon as you walk out of this distillery and back into your little silver-spoon world.
I sighed, biting my tongue against the urge to be an asshole.
“Noah.”
“Noah,” she repeated, rubbing her lips together afterward, like she was tasting each syllable of my name. “Nice to meet you.”
I didn’t respond, reaching forward to unlock the warehouse door, instead. Once the lock clicked, I tugged it open, gesturing for Ruby Grace to enter.
She stepped through the doorframe, pushing her glasses up to rest on top of her head as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The distinct smell of oak and yeast settled in around us, and when the door closed, Ruby Grace’s eyes found me, wide and curious.
“Wait,” she said as I flipped on a few more lights. “You’re Noah Becker, aren’t you?”
The skin on my neck prickled at the way she said my last name, as if it said more about me than my dirty clothes in her mind.
“What about it?” I turned on her, and she was so close, her chest nearly brushed mine. She was still a few inches shorter than me, even in her heels, but her eyes met mine confidently.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, taking a tentative step back. “I didn’t mean it in any way. It’s just, I used to sit behind you in church. When I was little.” Her cheeks flamed. “We would play this game… oh gosh, never mind. I feel so silly.”
She waved me off, stepping even farther away as her head dipped. She clasped her hands together at her waist, waiting for me to speak, to lead us through the towering rows of barrels, but I just stared at her.
It was like seeing her for the first time.
That one apology, that awareness of herself, it was genuine and true. It was the young girl she actually was, slipping through the façade she’d painted so well.
And I smiled.
Because I did remember.
I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t put two and two together, but then again, how could I recognize the stunning, classy woman before me as the same freckle-faced kid who used to kick the back of my pew? She’d been just a girl then, and I had been eighteen, fresh out of high school and just as bored in church as she was. I couldn’t even remember what the game was that we played, only that it used to make her giggle so hard her mother would thump her on the wrist with her rolled-up program.
I smiled at the memory, and then it hit me.
I’d just checked out a woman who used to be the annoying little kid behind me in church.
New low, Becker.
“You were a little shit,” I finally said.
Her eyes widened, a small smile painting her lips. “Says the Becker. You boys are notorious for causing trouble.”
“We like to have fun.”
She laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”
Her eyes twinkled a bit under the low lighting as she assessed me in a new way. She didn’t look at me like I was dirty and beneath her, but rather like I was an old friend, one who reminded her of youth.
She was only nineteen, but the sadness in her eyes in that moment told me she lost her innocence a long time ago.
I didn’t realize I was staring at her, that we’d gravitated toward each other just marginally until she cleared her throat and stepped an inch back.
“So,” she said, eyes surveying the barrels. They were stacked thirty high and a hundred back, each of them aging to the perfect taste. “Which of these beauties is mine?”
“The single barrels are back here,” I said, walking us down one of the long rows of barrels.
Ruby Grace’s eyes scanned the wooden beasts as we walked, and I opened my mouth to spout off the usual selling points of a single barrel — how limited they are, how no one else would have a barrel of whiskey that tasted like hers, how each barrel was aged differently, for different time periods, and at different temperatures. But the words died in my mouth before they could come out, a question forming, instead.
“So, you’re buying a barrel for your fiancé, huh?”
Her eyes were still on the barrels, the corners of them creasing a little as a breath escaped through her parted lips.
“That’s right.”
I eyed her ring again.
“When’s the big day?”
“Six weeks from Sunday,” she sighed the words, fingers reaching up to drag along the wood as her heels clicked along in the otherwise-silent warehouse.
I whistled. “That’s pretty soon. You ready?”
Ruby Grace stopped, her fingers still on the wood as she eyed me under furrowed brows. “What?”
I arched a brow. Did I say something wrong?
“For the wedding? To be married? You know, commit yourself
