Mom always said Dad would have been proud, but I’d never know for sure.
“Seriously, though,” Marty continued. “That’s three times now you’ve creeped out of Daphne Swan’s house with the cocks waking up the sun behind you. Gotta be a record for you.”
“He’ll be buying a ring soon,” the last member of our team piped in. Eli was just a few years older than me, and he knew better than anyone that I didn’t do relationships. But that was where his knowledge of me ended, because just like everyone else, he assumed it was because I was a playboy.
They all assumed I’d be single until the end of time, jumping from bed to bed, not caring whose heart was broken in the process.
But I wanted to settle down, to give a girl the Becker name and have a few kids to chase after — maybe more than anyone else in Stratford. Only, unlike all my friends, I wouldn’t just do it with the first girl who baked me a pie. There were plenty of beautiful girls in our small town, but I was looking for more, for a love like the one my mom and dad had.
Anyone who knew my parents knew I would likely be looking for a while.
“Daphne and I are friends,” I explained, stacking up the next barrel. “And we have an understanding. She wants to be held at night, and I want to be ridden like a rodeo bull.” I shrugged. “Think of it as modern-day bartering.”
“I need a friend like that,” PJ murmured, and we all laughed just as the shop door swung open.
“Tour coming through,” our manager, Gus, called. He kept his eyes on the papers he was shuffling through as his feet carried him toward his office. “Noah, come see me after they’re gone.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, and while the guys all made ominous oooh’s at my expense, I wasn’t nervous. Gus had nothing but respect for me, just as I had for him, and I knew maybe too confidently that I wasn’t in trouble. He had a job that needed handling, and I was always his go-to.
The door swung open again, and the teasing died instantly, all of us focusing on the task at hand as my brother led a group of tourists inside.
“Alright, remember now, this is another area where no pictures are allowed. Please put your phones away until we venture back outside. Since we’re one of the last breweries that still makes its own barrels, we don’t want our secrets getting out. We know at least half of you were sent from Kentucky down here to spy on us.”
The group laughed softly, all of their eyes wide as they filtered in to get a better look at us. Marty hated tours, and I could already hear his grunts of disapproval, like the group was sent with the sole purpose of ruining his day. But me? I loved them, not only because it meant Scooter Whiskey was still a household name, and therefore — job security — but also because it meant a chance to rag on my little brother.
I had three brothers — Logan, Michael, and Jordan.
Jordan was the oldest — my senior by four years. Mom and Dad had adopted him before I was born, and though he might not have looked like the rest of the Becker clan, he was one of us, through and through.
Michael was the youngest of us at just seventeen, only one summer standing between him and his senior year of high school.
And Logan, who just walked through the door with the tour, was the second youngest. He was two years younger than me, which meant he was my favorite to pick on.
He was my first little brother, after all.
Once the entire group was inside, Logan gestured to us with a wide smile.
“These are the fine gentleman known as our barrel raisers. You might remember learning about them from the video earlier. As it mentioned, each of our barrels is crafted by hand, by just four upstanding gentlemen — Marty, Eli, Noah, and PJ.”
We all waved as Logan introduced us, and I chanced a smirk in the direction of the hottest girl in the tour. She was older, maybe mid-thirties, and looked like someone’s mom. But her tits were as perky as I imagined they were on her twenty-first birthday, and she was looking at me like a hot piece of bread after a month of being on a no-carb diet.
She returned my smile as she twirled a strand of her bright blonde hair around her finger, whispering something to the group of girls she was with before they all giggled.
Logan continued on, talking about how the four of us as a team made more than five-hundred barrels every single day before sending them down the line for charring and toasting. He explained how Scooter Whiskey is actually clear when it’s first put into our barrels, and it’s the oak and charring process that brings out the amber color and sweet flavor they’re accustomed to today.