Page 23

Chapter

Fourteen

“Good morning, sunshine,” Noah says warmly, dodging raindrops as he jogs to meet me at my car. It’s a sweet greeting for a gloomy Monday, but I don’t mind the weather. It’s impossible to dampen my enthusiasm now that I’m finally getting started on this mural.

“Hey!” I’m usually a ghost without my first cup of coffee, but my excitement has me practically dancing on my toes with energy.

I can’t imagine what caffeine will do to me next.

With my latte in one hand, I offer Noah an identical paper cup.

I don’t know how he likes his coffee, but Busy Bean’s cinnamon spice latte is my favorite, so I got two. “Had your wake-up potion yet?”

His expression brightens. “I have, but I’ll never turn down another.”

Noah helps me gather my supplies from the back of the car, hefting Liam’s borrowed projector under his arm with ease.

As we walk into Alchemist, I hold a yardstick out before me like a sword while shouldering a small bag of masking tape, chalk, and pencils.

It’s not much, but it’s all I need for the first day of work.

Armed with a piece of chalk and my half-finished latte, I balance the projector on top of the bar and turn it on. My finalized outline for the mural flashes to life on the opposite wall above the fireplace.

Making use of the deep green that already coats the brick, I drew out a scene centered in a forest. Dark emerald and violet trees creep up the edges of the wall, looming over a small clearing.

A horse is left to graze to the side, tied to a tree branch.

Far off in the distance and deep into the trees are two glittering yellow eyes set in the face of a white, golden-antlered stag, hidden among the foliage.

Near the middle of the image sits a traveler with a steel tankard in one fist, his features shrouded by his cloak’s hood.

But it’s the campfire at the center that’s truly the star of the show.

I drew it so that tongues of orange, gold, and white flame appear to emerge from Alchemist’s electric fireplace, illuminating the traveler and warming his outstretched hands.

A campfire is a place to take a break, to sit and rest for the night.

It’s home, even if just for a little while.

That’s the sense of comfort I want people to feel every time they visit the brewery.

“I get so excited every time I look at it,” Noah breathes, his eyes wide as he takes in the projection. “But seeing it like this—fuck, it’s going to be incredible, Sadie. It’s spooky for a second, if you only look at the trees and the shadows, and then…it’s warm. It’s welcoming.”

“That’s what I’m going for.” I roll my coffee cup between my hands, letting what heat is left seep into my palms. Seeing a glimpse of what the art might look like in a few weeks…I can’t tell if it’s the coffee or the project making me giddy. Probably both.

Probably Noah, too.

All morning we’ve done a graceful dance around each other, but with each moment of contact—my shoulder bumping against his side as he holds the door open for me, or his fingers brushing mine when he passes over the projector—I’m transported back to Saturday night.

I can still remember the way his laugh felt while my arms were wrapped around his waist, and how he was close enough on the porch that I could feel his breath against my cheek.

I wonder if the memory of it hangs over him, too, but before I can determine whether I’m brave enough to ask, the bell over the entry door tinkles merrily.

Noah takes a sudden half step in front of me; he’d locked the door behind us. But it’s just Dan, smiling sheepishly as he takes off his damp beanie and walks over. “I know I told y’all I won’t be comin’ in on Mondays, but—I just couldn’t help myself. Wanted to get a peek of your first day at work.”

“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Noah says, gesturing to the projection.

Dan lets out a low whistle, rocking back on his booted heels until his back connects with the bar. “You really found us somethin’ special, Noah.”

My cheeks warm as Noah tosses a wink in my direction. “We got very lucky,” he agrees.

Dan pulls out his laptop while Noah and I set to work on our separate jobs for the day.

Noah wanders off to the back of the brewery to do beer things —I remind myself to ask him sometime what happens in those great big vats where he brews the stuff—as I start outlining the projected sketch with white chalk.

Dan sets the speakers to fill the building with a funky, jazzy indie band I’ve never heard of while I allow myself to relax into the blissfully mindless task of tracing.

Hours later, I stand atop Alchemist’s small ladder, finishing the stag’s curling antlers in the upper right corner of the wall when someone clears their throat below me. I nearly jump out of my skin, and Dan lurches forward to hold the ladder steady.

“Sorry—didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to give you a heads-up that we’ll need to start wrappin’ things up soon.”

I check the time—nearly evening. Already? “You got it. I’m almost done here.”

He nods but insists on staying, with one hand braced on the ladder. He seems content to let me continue working in comfortable silence, but my curiosity gets the better of me. “Noah says you’ve been friends for a long time.”

That brings out a grin hidden only somewhat by his overgrown mustache. “Oh hell, it’s gotta be a decade at this point.”

“What was he like? In college?”

Dan pauses. “Different,” he says eventually. “You’d think most folk—me included—would’ve had their wildest days back in college. But I think he’s livin’ them right now, what with all of his adventuring and such. Back in school, he spent a good deal of his time keepin’ me out of trouble.”

I laugh at the thought as I descend the ladder. Dan trades places with me so that he can install the temporary curtains that will hide my work in progress from view. He’d insisted on keeping the mural a surprise until it’s complete.

I pass up the dark curtains as he needs them. “It must feel great to work on a project like Alchemist together after planning it for so long,” I say.

Something in Dan’s gaze softens. “It’s a dream come true, Sadie,” he admits. “Now I’ve just gotta try and keep him around long enough to really get it off the ground.”

“He seems to love it here, though. You really think he’d take off so soon?”

When Dan shrugs, he does it with his whole body. He tosses his hands upward. “Couldn’t say,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve never known anyone who could slow him down. And who am I to ask him to, anyway?”

Dan’s words burrow uncomfortably into the back of my mind. But Noah interrupts my thoughts as he comes to stand behind me, squeezing my shoulders and taking one last look at the chalk outline before Dan tugs the curtains into place.

“Looking good, Sadie,” Noah says. “Supply run tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” I agree.

The second day of working on the mural leaves me squeezed with Noah in the back of his van, out of breath and soaking wet.

We’re halfway through checkout at the home improvement store when a peal of thunder cracks above us, causing the teenage employee wielding the scanner to cast a worried glance toward the door.

With our cart piled high and heavy with an assortment of paint cans, brushes, primers, and more, we head toward the exit and are brought to an abrupt halt by the mess outside.

From where we cower under the awning, Noah’s van is nothing more than a distant smudge of blue through the near-horizontal sheets of rain that pour from the sky.

“We could wait it out,” I suggest.

Five minutes pass, and—somehow—it only gets worse. The cart shivers in a gust of wind.

“Fuck it,” Noah huffs, tightening his grip on the cart. He looks to me, raises his eyebrows. “Fuck it?”

Feeling reckless, I laugh. “Fuck it.”

We sprint across the concrete. Noah plows through puddles and potholes, bracing the cart as a battering ram before him while I run ahead to throw open the back doors of the van.

It has tons more space than my little Civic, which had been the whole reason we’d brought it at all.

But I don’t have the keys—of course I don’t have the keys—so I just stand there, laughing my ass off in the rain until Noah arrives to jam the key into the lock, his slick fingers fumbling the whole way through.

“Shit, Sadie!” I can’t tell if he’s breathless from running or from laughing. “Terrible idea. Worst idea!”

Finally he swings the doors open, and we shove the bags and cans in as quickly as we can.

Although Noah’s mattress frame takes up the width of the van’s interior, he’d cleared out tons of storage space underneath.

When the cart is empty, I quickly look to Noah—and then to the lightning that illuminates the clouds above us from within.

A clap of thunder follows soon after, and Noah snorts.

“Like hell I’m driving in this. Just get in, Sadie. ”

“What?”

“Get in!”

There’s really nowhere else for me to go but right on top of the blankets, so I scramble inside, and Noah slams the doors behind me and runs to return the cart.

On the way here when we’d ridden in the front, the interior was shielded from view by a curtain.

Now I sit with my knees pulled to my chest, my drenched clothes soaking a folded quilt, a shocked loop of Oh god, I’m in his bed running on repeat in my head until Noah swings the doors back open and clambers in next to me.

He doesn’t bother to try to minimize the damage of his wet clothes.

He just flops back onto his pillow, panting, and laces his hands behind his head.

We share one long, silent stare before dissolving into rib-cracking laughter.