Page 20 of On the Rocks

“How’s the team looking?” I asked after a moment, taking the first swig from my beer.

“Better than last year. The seniors are strong, and we have some good freshman blood rolling in, some sophomores who got tougher while on JV.” He shook his head. “But, still too early to tell how they’ll all work together. It’ll be a long summer of conditioning.”

“And the parents?”

He rolled his eyes. “Still assholes.”

I chuckled, sipping from the can in my hand before letting it drape over the railing again. Jordan was the head coach of the Stratford High School football team and had been for four years now. He was the only man in the family who didn’t work at the distillery, who never had, who neverwantedto. Part of me wished he were there with us, carrying on Dad’s legacy and helping solidify the Becker name in the Scooter Whiskey history book. But, I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to work in a dirty warehouse all day — and I couldn’t do anything but support him when I saw him on that field.

Football was his everything.

He’d played his entire life, and where my brothers and I took our aggression out on each other or enemies in the town or even strangers at a bar, he took his out on the field.

And now, he was teaching other boys to do the same.

He was one hell of a coach, and the parents knew it — whether they wanted to argue about who started and who rode the bench or not. And the single moms in Scooterton?

Well, let’s just say they were more than happy with Jordan’scoaching.

The married ones didn’t seem to mind much, either.

“So, I heard you caused a bit of a scene at the distillery this week?”

I cocked a brow. “Youheard?”

“Look, I try as hard as I can to ignore the football moms chattering behind me in the stands, but sometimes I swear they speak louder just so they can be sure I hear them.”

“Like when they talk about how tight your ass looks?”

“Or when they talk about you pushing your luck giving whiskey to a minor.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “They have no proof.”

“Do they need any? You know as well as I do that the people who run this town can find evidence for anything they want.”

We both fell silent at that, each of us taking a swig of our beer as memories of our father filled the space between us. Crickets chirped to life, the sky taking on a purple glow.

“It was the Barnett daughter,” I said, breaking the silence.

“Mary Anne?”

“Ruby Grace.”

He balked. “She’s like sixteen, Noah.”

“Nineteen,” I corrected, swallowing down another gulp of beer. “And she’s getting married. She was buying one of the single barrels as a wedding gift.”

“Wonder who the lucky guy is.”

“Some young buck in politics she met at UNC.”

“Politics, huh?” Jordan’s gaze drifted somewhere beyond the horizon. “Guess he’ll fit right in, then.”

I nodded, but my stomach tightened as I pictured Ruby Grace’s eyes — wide and taken aback when I asked her if she was ready to get married. I still couldn’t believe I was the first to ask her.

I still didn’t believe she knew the answer herself.

It made no sense, that I harbored some kind of sympathy for a girl who had looked at me like I was the mud staining her designer shoes. She and her family had never wanted for anything, and yet I felt sorry for her, because I knew without being around her for more than even three minutes that she wasn’t happy.