Page 1 of Single Malt

One

Brody

You would thinkthat a man who makes his living making and selling alcohol wouldn’t have to spend much time in a tux, but you’d be wrong. Maybe that would have been the case if I only sold to bars and liquor stores, but producing high-end whiskey meant catering to a more prestigious crowd.

Which was why I was only one tuxedo in a crowd of many.

To make matters worse, this New Year’s Eve party was at a university. And not just any university. It was Stanford.

Two of my brothers had graduated from here, but that didn’t make things easier. In fact, I was thirty-one years old, had a thriving business, was dressed in what was probably the most expensive tux in the room, and I still felt like an imposter. A gawky teenager everyone liked, but no one took seriously.

Intellectually, I knew that wasn’t the case. I’d left my easy surfer vibe behind me more than a decade ago and had forged my own empire, independent of the business my father had built, McCrae International Research Institute – MIRI for short. I’d used some of the business contacts my family made over the years, as well as the money I received from my shares of the company, but I’d built Shannon’s on my own.

Now, thirteen years after I first thought up the idea, I’d succeeded in making a brand I hoped was worthy of the name it carried.

“Mr. McCrae, I’m glad you were able to make it.”

The familiar voice drew me out of my thoughts, and I fixed a polite smile on my face. I turned to face Dr. Johann Josephs, the British Literature professor who’d invited me to tonight’s party.

Glancing around the room, I wasn’t entirely sure if I agreed with calling this a party, exactly. Especially a New Year’s Eve party. While there were at least two hundred people here, I could still hear classical music playing over the sound system. It was that quiet. Everyone spoke in low, modulated tones that would’ve driven me nuts if I’d been here to have fun. Growing up in a massive family meant that most of my life had been filled with noise. I didn’t associate much of anything quiet as being enjoyable.

Still, I was here for business, not pleasure.

“Good to see you again, Dr. Josephs.” I put out my hand, and he gave it a hearty shake. “How was your Christmas?”

“Productive,” he answered with a smile. “I finished my paper on the prevalence of unnecessary graphic sexual violence in British literature over the last thirty years.Sexing the Cherrywas a particularly useful text.”

If I hadn’t had several conversations with the interesting professor over the last few weeks, I might’ve thought he was trying to make me feel stupid. It hadn’t taken long, though, for me to realize that he was passionate about his work, and that was just how he talked. Still, I had absolutely no clue how to respond to what he’d just said.

Who would bring up a book calledSexing the Cherryat a faculty party?

Better yet, who the hell wouldwritea book with that title?

Fortunately, a vague response was best in this situation since we weren’t here to talk about books.

“Congratulations. My brother Blaze works at John Hopkins, so I know how important being published is in the academic world.”

Dr. Josephs looked confused. “I’m aware of a professor of education at John Hopkins with that distinctive first name, but I thought his last name was Gracen, not McCrae.”

I took a deep breath in preparation to explain about my complicated family. “It is. Technically, Blaze is my stepmother’s nephew who, with his brother and sister, moved in with us after their parents died. My family tree can get a little confusing, so I usually just keep it simple and call them all my siblings. The details are just technicalities.”

“So true.” Dr. Josephs scratched the side of his long nose. “Technicalities.”

I’d noticed that, if he wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to something, Dr. Josephs tended to agree and repeat a part of the statement. It made conversations with him interesting, to say the least. On the positive side, he didn’t require as much finesse when it came to bringing up or changing a subject.

“Have you had a chance to speak to any of your colleagues about the whiskey you gave them for Christmas?”

When he and I first started talking just before Thanksgiving, I mentioned that I had three kinds of Shannon’s whiskey I could supply Stanford with for any of their faculty events. He’d suggested that he purchase two or three of each and give them to his colleagues as gifts, using their opinions about the whiskey to determine if Shannon’s would be a good fit for future events.

Now, as he gave me the rundown of everything he’d been told, I tried to pick out the important pieces and file them away to use when I wrote up my notes from tonight. Even if Stanford decided not to go with Shannon’s, I’d have feedback to look over and learn from.

Halfway through the recitation, however, something happened that wasn’t normal for me.

I got distracted.

Walking behind Dr. Josephs was a drop-dead gorgeous blonde. She looked to be only a few inches shorter than my own six feet, but some of those came from a pair of sexy high heels. They not only gave her height but made her legs look amazing.

The amazing didn’t stop there, though. She had the sort of curves that drew my attention enough that I completely forgot that I was talking to someone about something important. I probably couldn’t have even told anyone my name at that moment. When she finally disappeared from my line of sight, I found Dr. Josephs looking at me with an expectant expression.