Page 81 of Raised On It

“You are.”

“Sorry, but they’re just so…”

He kisses me to shut me up. His method is effective, and I’m no longer thinking about his grandparents.

“Mason?” he says against my lips.

“Miles?”

“Will you please look to your right?”

“Okay…”

I interrupt myself this time with an audible gasp.

Turning my body away from him and toward Elsie Lake, I never could have expected this.

A lake with a long dock taking you over the water and ending with two white Adirondack chairs.

It’s the EBC logo.

In front of me is a living, breathing Eastlyn Brewing Company logo that I’ve taken a hundred pictures of.

Only the reality is so much better than the label.

The breeze is blowing the weeping limbs of the trees hanging over the lake. The water ripples from the graceful landing of a goose. The sound of frogs echo in my ears, and a golden retriever is basking in the sun in the grass in front of us.

It’s beautiful.

Without a word, he takes my hand, and we walk through the grass until we reach the dock where he stops us.

“You said one day you wanted to sit here and drink a beer with someone special. I have the beer, and if I’ll do for that someone special, what do you say we have that beer?”

“Miles, I don’t even know what to say.”

For some reason, my eyes fill with tears, but I only let one escape. Am I crying over a beer logo come to life?

“Come on,” he says, not calling attention to the tear.

Walking on the wood planks with my hand in his is surreal, to say the least. When we reach the two white wooden chairs, he says, “Take your pick.”

I take the one on the right because that’s the one I always imagined sitting in, but I don’t sit down. He pulls two bottles of EBC out of his shorts pockets along with a bottle opener.

He pops the top of each bottle, puts the caps in his pocket, and hands me my beer, lifting his up in the air.

“Cheers to dreams coming true, baby.”

I tap the neck of my bottle with his. “Cheers to dreams coming true.”

We each take a sip, and then I turn and just stare at the chairs.

“Go ahead, it won’t bite,” he says, giving my shoulder a little nudge with his.

“You sure?”

“Uh, that’s what they’re here for. Sit, woman.”

Doing as instructed, I sit in the chair on the right, and when my butt has finally hit the seat, he takes the chair on the left.

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