Page 67 of Love Is Brewing

“Everything is going well there?” West said. “No problems?”

He frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

“What’s going on?” West asked. “Normally you say no and instead you asked us why, so something happened.”

There seemed to be no secrets even when his siblings were far enough away.

He didn’t think Talia would have said something to their mother that he was on a tear last week giving people shit over accepting a shipment of the wrong product.

If heads could have rolled he would have been swinging axes left and right.

At least in his mind, he was.

But he didn’t raise his voice as much as he would have liked.

Accidents happened and someone made a mistake.

It still pissed him off.

“Not a big deal. Had to get rid of a few batches of brew.”

“A few batches with the way you make things and the size means a few days’ worth of sales,” West said. “Did something get contaminated?”

“No,” he said. “Not like you might think or worry. We got a large shipment of the wrong barley. Someone signed for it without checking or verifying the change.”

“Who authorized the change?” Braylon asked. “Or did the vendor substitute it?”

“I’m still trying to figure out how it all happened. It seems innocent enough.”

Though he still didn’t understand it.

“Just carelessness?” Braylon asked.

“I guess. When the order went in, someone hit the wrong brand. When it was delivered the person checking it in didn’t do what they should. They were so used to just signing and getting to work they didn’t check the crates carefully. When the batches were being made, the guys thought nothing of it because they figured it’d already gotten past two or three other people.”

It still annoyed him that not one person thought to ask when they knew how particular he was about everything.

“That’s a lot of innocent pieces falling into place,” West said suspiciously.

“I know,” he said. “Tony caught it during the fermentation stage. It smelled bitter and he tried it. I don’t need my base tasting different.”

“No,” Braylon said. “Not at all.”

“If I had to change supplies I would or I’d alter my product to get it right. Anyway, we dumped a lot.”

“Did you feel as if you were bleeding out?” West asked.

Normally West didn’t crack too many jokes.

“Yes,” he said. “The good news is we were developing something new, and we used most of it for that. Since it hasn’t hit the shelves yet, there was no worry we changed a product.”

“Smart,” Braylon said.

“I’ve been known to be. So we don’t have to ship it back. I can use it on a few other new ones or a limited edition one and we got more of our normal barley sent fast.”

“Glad it worked out,” West said. “Nothing else going on?”

He rolled his eyes. “Who told you?”

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