Page 47 of Golden Touch
“Never know,” he says sleepily, closing his eyes again. “If he comes around, I’ll be ready. Night, Livia.”
I stare at him for another long beat. I’ve never met anyone like him. “Goodnight, you stubborn man.”
He grins without opening his eyes.
CHAPTER 19
NASH
I do not recommend the pumphouse sofa for a good night’s sleep.
Then again, maybe it isn’t the sofa’s fault. I spend half the night having dirty dreams about a certain bookkeeper with a smart mouth and a smile that makes me want to push her down onto a bed. Or a chair. Or any nearby surface. I’m not picky.
I eat breakfast and carry my coffee cup into the brewhouse a few minutes before seven a.m. I’m wondering if my father is really going to call and tell me his precious recipe.
My phone rings at exactly seven o’clock. For all the old man’s faults, he is prompt. “Morning, Dad,” I answer, adjusting my air pods. “How are you doing today?”
“Still trapped in this damn hospital. You got the mash tun all cleaned out and ready?”
I guess we’re skipping the small talk. “She’s ready. The water is heating. What temperature you want?”
“One fifty-two on the mash temp. You ready for the grain bill? I need you in the storage room. Don’t write this down…”
I roll my eyes. “I’m going.”
When I get to the storage room, he starts calling out types of grain faster than I can load the bags onto a battered old industrialcart. Each bag contains fifty pounds of milled grain, sealed tight. The mix he gives me is about eighty-five percent English pale malt, five percent caramel malt, and the rest is white wheat and dextrose.
I write that shit down on a sticky note in my own personal shorthand. Fuck his paranoia.
“Got it all?” he asks as I steer the cart toward the masher. “Better count twice.”
“Oh, atleasttwice,” I grumble. Getting the world’s favorite cult beer wrong is not on my bingo card today. “You want to call me back in fifteen? It’s going to take me a while to slice all these bags open and pour them into the hopper.”
“You get started and we’ll talk.”
“Fine. It’s your funeral.”
“It almost was, so…”
I grin at my dad’s trenches humor and grab a utility knife from my apron. Then I heft the first bag into the grist hopper’s open window and slice the end of it off.
And, fine, it’s satisfying to hear the dry sound of grain running through the hopper. The toasty scent of malt hits me like a memory.
“One down. A million to go,” I grumble.
“Cheaper than a gym membership,” my father says. “Why do you think I still have guns?”
This also makes me grin in spite of myself. I keep up the pace, emptying bags of grain, counting them again as I go. “Is this a bad time to point out that this part could easily be automated?”
“It’s always a bad time for that,” he growls. “People don’t wait in line for beer that’s automated.”
“Depends on what you’re automating,” I say carefully. “Your canning line doesn’t affect the brew process at all. And yet you could improve the efficiency of your end-stage process by, like, seventy percent?—”
“No,” he clips. “I know you mean well, but I can’t make any changes to the building.”
Hell. I should have known he wouldn’t listen, even if I have years of experience with things like this. In fact, he probably won’t listenbecauseI have those years of experience. His ego is too fragile.
“Concentrate on the beer, son. And be careful with the hose from the hot liquor tank. There’s insulated gloves for this.”
