Page 9 of Trusting You
Callum was the oldest Quinn brother. He was also hardworking, polite, and deeply invested in his family and his community. Despite working in Boston as a financial advisor for years, he had always lived in Havenport and volunteered and participated in life here. He ran every charity road race and coached the high school science team. He checked in on our parents, shoveled their driveway every snowstorm, and couldn’t walk down the street without half a dozen people stopping to say hello. He looked the part too. Always clean-cut, freshly shaved, and pressed. He was infuriatingly perfect.
Callum rolled his eyes. “Sorry. I was just trying to help you out. I can’t help it if I’m the tallestandthe best-looking Quinn brother.”
Declan looks him up and down. “Yeah, yeah. We’ve heard it all before. That 2005 JCPenney catalog really gave you an ego, huh, Fabio? You may be the tallest and the prettiest, but we all know you have the smallest cock.”
I almost spat out my beer. We loved to give each other shit, but Declan had a special way of just going after Callum that I could never pull off. The three of us started laughing hysterically, and Callum started tugging on Declan’s beard at which point Declan jumped off his barstool and put Callum in a headlock.
For brothers born eleven months apart, they could not have been more different. Where Callum was friendly and upbeat, Declan was a broody loner. He spent most of his time alone with his dog, Ginger, a standard poodle who hated people more than he did. Unlike Callum, who’d headed straight for the Ivy League after high school, Declan decided to follow in our dad’s footsteps and had enlisted in the navy. He’d served for almost a decade before coming home and taking over the family fishing operation. Although he would never say it, he loved being a third generation fisherman and carrying on the work that my father and grandfather started. He spent most of his time out on one of his boats or in his office and he liked it that way. He built himself a gorgeous house on the outskirts of town right on a bluff and spent all his downtime there. We called it his fortress of solitude. I had been there maybe three or four times in the last five years.
Where Callum was usually wearing a suit, or at least a dress shirt, and never had a hair out of place, Declan was shaggy, grizzled, and tattooed. Shorter than Cal, he was broader and stronger, with a thick dark beard and his ever present baseball cap. He was always dressed in Carhartts and Timberland boots and sometimes reeked of fish guts, not that he cared.
He rescued Ginger from a kill shelter near his naval base in Virginia. He brought her home to Havenport, and she had not left his side since. She was tall, imposing, and hated everyone who was not my brother. She went out on the water with him and rode in the passenger seat of his truck. When the taproom was closed, I allowed her in, where she held court from the custom dog bed Declan bought her. He may try to be a nasty hard ass, but anyone who has seen him with his dog knows that he is a giant softy on the inside. Not that I would have ever said that to him. He would definitely have kicked my ass.
My older brothers were two of the most loyal, helpful guys on the planet but they were also my older brothers so they spent the majority of their time messing with me. Despite their differences, Callum and Declan were best friends. They had been inseparable since childhood and always had each other’s backs.
And then there was me, the youngest Quinn brother. Born three years later, I had been the odd man out since birth. It also didn’t help that they were the handsome, athletic gods growing up, and I was a chubby science nerd. My entire adolescence was girls trying to befriend me so I would fix them up with my older brothers. I hit puberty and outgrew my chub, but the insecurities remained.
That’s partially why I loved having them here in my brewery. It made me feel validated. Like the stupid kid brother actually did something good. They would come by and check on me and critique my beers and bust my balls, and I finally felt like I had done something for myself. That I was standing on my own two feet. Somehow, by hanging out here and drinking my beer for free, my brothers were acknowledging me.
“But seriously, Liam, you have got to get out there and snag yourself a girl before you lose your looks, kid. Mom really wants grandkids”—he gestured at Declan—“and we know this lug head couldn’t pay a woman to procreate with him.”
Declan raised his stein in salute. “Amen to that. Women are way more trouble than they’re worth. Ginger and I are doing just fine.” Ginger looked up from her dog bed and barked at him.
I tried to shift the conversation away from my nonexistent dating life. “What about you, Cal? I thought you were dating that realtor?”
“Yeah…no. That didn’t work out. And shame on me. I need to remember not to shit where I eat. I see her around town all the time.”
“What happened?”
“We wanted different things. She wanted to be Mrs. Callum Quinn, and I wanted to never see her again.”
Declan punched him in the shoulder. “You are such a dick.”
“I was nice about it. Since Becca, I just can’t find anyone I click with.” Callum had married his college sweetheart, Becca. We all loved her and welcomed her into the family. Five years into their marriage, she came home one night and told him she was moving out. That was two years ago, and he was still not over it. He had been man whoring around town a bit lately, and I worried about him.
Callum walked around the bar to refill his stein. “And dating is fun. I like meeting new women and getting to know them and having fun. I am clear with expectations. No one gets hurt, at least most of the time. This one just turned out to be way more clingy than I imagined.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so picky, Cal,” Declan piped up. “You’re not getting any younger.”
“And,” I threw in, “you’re getting a bit of a reputation around town. One of these days mom is going to find out about your conquests and then you will be in deep shit.” My mother raised three boys with a fisherman husband who would be away for weeks at a time. She ruled with an iron fist and did not let us get away with any shit. She raised us to be perfect gentlemen, and I could only imagine the tongue lashing Callum would get if she found out about his “dates.”
Callum sighed, his perfect facade shaking a bit. “I had the great wife and the house and was planning on the kids. That didn’t work out. So now I’m thirty-six and just trying to live my life. I’m having fun, and I’m honestly beginning to think I may not be cut out for the family man life.” I can see the pain in his eyes. Pain we would not talk about because we were Quinns and the Irish stoicism ran deep. Instead, I started pouring another round so we could do what we do best—drink.
Sometimes I wish Cal was a dick so I could properly hate him. But I couldn’t. My big brother was as generous as he was handsome. When I launched the brewery, he immediately offered to invest and help with the business side of things. Although I was too proud to take his money, I was not too proud to take his business and accounting advice. I was a brewer, not a businessman, and I needed all the help I could get launching this place and making it successful. So after giving me some tough love yesterday as my finance guy, he was here busting my balls as my older brother.
I was not like Callum, who had always wanted the wife, big house and 2.5 smiling kids. He was just born to be a family man. It was clear as day when he was bossing us around as kids and taking responsibility for everyone and everything. Declan, on the other hand, thought relationships were pointless and would rather be alone. He had always warned me that women would mess up my life and it was better to just focus on yourself. I was somewhere in the middle. I’d had a few relationships and a few flings, and figured it would certainly be nice to find a special lady someday.
Last year I dated Katie, a nurse at the hospital. She was great, but things fizzled when she would get mad about how much I worked. Before Katie it was Brooke, and before Brooke it was Meghan. All great, but all not enough to distract me from the brewery. These women didn’t understand that the brewery demanded every minute of my attention. Getting this place up and going had been my sole focus for the past three years, and we were finally on the cusp of really breaking through a highly competitive and oversaturated market. I had so much work to do to grow this business so we could keep going. I couldn’t possibly make time for a relationship. So rather than disappointing another woman or having the same conversation about work life balance over and over again, I had sworn off women. It had been almost a year, and I had to say, it was going pretty well so far.
Callum clapped his hands. “So let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Tell us what you need, Liam? How can we help?”
Declan piped in, “Yeah. It would be a shame if you closed up shop. This is some damn good beer.”
I hated having these conversations. “I am good, guys. Yes, things are hard right now. But we had a good summer and are going to build on this momentum. I do need help, as I have to be able to delegate some stuff so I can focus on the big picture.”
They nodded. It was the same story I had been telling them for months.
“But,” I added, “I actually hired someone today. A marketing expert.”
