Page 63 of Absinthe Dreams
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Genesis…
I had been surprised at his suggestions for building out the patio and planting things above the garage. It was nice though – like he was just picking on something to prove to me that hewanted toand he was all in on this… which wasnice.
I had told him how I’d felt pretty unseen most of my life growing up, and how it’s always been the same with the men I’d dated in the past. How they’d always talked a good game and told me what I wanted to hear, but they never felt fullypresentwith me in the relationship.
Chainsaw was wholly different. I hadn’t known what to expect, but it was nice discussing plants and design ideas and all of that as we wandered through the French Market and had some lunch nearby in the Quarter.
That afternoon, we’d ridden to the club and he’d bypassed the colorfully muraled fence around the side to the back, and the warehouse that was undergoingquitethe renovations. One of which had Cypress on one of the old loading docks, weldingsomething.
I turned from the bright glare of spitting sparks to protect my eyes because light from a welding machine, even with sunglasses on, could be damaging to your eyesight. He stopped and lifted the face screen on his welding helmet to look at us when we rolled up by the stairs leading up to a regular doorway into the building.
“How goes it?” Chainsaw called out.
“Aw, you know – damn thing’s bein’ a son of a bitch – but I got all the Cajun ingenuity and it ain’t beat me yet!” he called back.
“Mind if I take a look, babe?” he asked me, and I smiled and shook my head.
“Not at all, go ahead,” I said.
“Hex and them should be inside,” he said, and he kissed me, then sent me in the direction of the steps up to the double glass doors at the top.
I went in, andwhoa,it wasnotwhat I expected in here.
“Wow.” I looked up into the high soaring ceilings up above and the way that the walls were going up as Hex walked over.
“Well, hiya!” he called.
“Hi, Chainsaw’s outside, helping Cypress,” I said.
“Hey, our castle is your castle, Doc. Come on in and have a look!”
The place was impressive, a bar going in to make a tasting room out here, but in back, where the loading docks were? They were making big changes. There were four, and the two that Chainsaw and Cypress were working on were being retrofitted to take new doors with glass panels, where a big deck would be built out from it to entertain on. A wall was going up past them, cutting off the back works of the distillery – the two loading docks onthatside, remaining in use for trucks to come and go, taking deliveries and shipments to and fro from the building.
Giantcopper stills were in the back and were assembled and ready to go by the looks of things. Saint was on a ladder, a milk crate with spray paint cans hanging from a rope and pulley system next to him, as he worked on a big mural along the cement wall at the back of the building, and it was impressive, so far – a scene of the swamp and of colorful characters that looked to be straight out of voodoo legend.
“I’m sensing a theme,” I said, smiling, and Hex winked.
“Good eye,” he said.
I got the grand tour, Chainsaw joining us a little while later, having successfully troubleshooted the door weld with Cypress. It was nice, the plans they had and how they were carefully using the money from Cor’s settlement with the state to build everything, but still taking on the majority of the work themselves to save as much as possible to bringAncient Spiritsto life. Their bottle label art, the theme of their alcohols, all of it was sourced from their own talent pool. The recipes for the shine had come from Hex, the artwork was from Saint, the build was all of them together. Bennie was running the books, Collier was putting in the work as the master distiller, and getting it all right to satisfy the liquor board.
It was an incredible team effort.
“Your man there wired this whole place for our needs,” Hex declared, and I had kind of figured.
“Definitely worlds apart from line work, but electricity is electricity,” Chainsaw said with a shrug.
“It’s coming along beautifully,” I said.
“It takes up a lot of our spare time, just about every drop, but it’ll be worth it,” Hex said, looking over everything like a proud papa.
“I can only imagine,” I murmured.
“Soon as we get the liquor going, we got some weeks before this can all be finished off, but we’re getting there,” Chainsaw said, hugging me into his side and kissing my temple.
“Seems you’ve got the building and creating bug,” I said, and he chuckled. My thoughts certainly hadn’t been far from all the talk of making my patio into a nice little oasis to relax on.
