Chapter Fifteen

ANA’S UBER DROPPED HER at Denver International Airport at the yawn-inducing time of four fifteen on Monday morning. Bryan had gotten a deal on tickets from Denver to St. Louis, but the hitch was that the flight left at a quarter to six. No wonder it hadn’t been filled. The sun wasn’t even thinking about peeping over the horizon yet.

She pulled her roller case through the glass doors, rummaging through her shoulder bag for her driver’s license, which she would need immediately for going through security. Like she normally did when she traveled, she’d split the difference between polished and comfortable: dark jeans, a lightweight sweater, and ballet flats. Nothing with any metallic parts, nothing to hold her up in security. Even the sticks thrust through the bun on top of her head were wood.

“Ana!”

She turned at her name and saw Bryan jogging toward her, a large backpack on his back. “Hey. I was waiting for you near the check-in desk.”

Ana held up her phone. “Checked in online.”

“Of course you did.” He smiled. “Ready for an adventure?”

She laughed as they fell into step together, bypassing the escalators that led down to the security lines in favor of bridge security —a local traveler hack that shaved dozens of minutes off the wait. “I’m not sure I would call this an adventure.”

“We’re flying eight hundred miles to look at a twenty-thousand-dollar piece of used equipment, which we may or may not be bringing home in a U-Haul. How is that not an adventure?”

“This coming from a man who routinely flies around the world and hitchhikes in foreign countries?”

He winked at her. “They’re not foreign if you go enough.”

Ana just shook her head and tightened her grip on her suitcase. He was awfully chipper for this early in the morning, even if he looked rumpled enough to have just rolled out of bed. Jeans, T-shirt, wrinkled canvas jacket, Converse. He clearly hadn’t shaved in several days, because the beard was starting to make a comeback. It was such a far cry from the polished professional who had showed up to the meeting with Adrian, it was hard to believe he was the same person.

And she was hard-pressed to say which version she preferred.

She cleared her throat. “So, how is this going to work exactly?”

“The seller is expecting us late this morning, so we’ll go straight to his warehouse and check out the roaster. If we like it, I get a cashier’s check, and we go get a U-Haul to drive it home. It’s a twelve-hour drive, so I figured we’d stay overnight in St. Louis and drive home tomorrow morning. We should be back in Denver by dark.”

“Okay then.” She threw him another glance. “How sure are you that this is what we need?”

“Absolutely sure, assuming it’s in good condition. And he’s including the ventilation system, which saves us thousands. I’ll just need local installation and we’ll be good to go.”

“Wow.” This whole time, the business had been somewhat abstract in her mind, an exercise to keep her busy while she was on leave from her real job. Maybe that was because her job was abstract. After all, she routinely dealt with things like publicity and reputation, which were completely mental, not physical. But in two days, Bryan would have four thousand pounds of green coffee beans from a farm that he owned in Colombia . . . and hopefully something to roast them in.

That was about as substantial as one could get.

“What’s wrong?” Bryan picked up on her musings as they approached the TSA officer at a little stand. Ana moved forward, handed her license to him, and set her phone facedown on the scanner. It beeped when it accepted her boarding pass QR code. He nodded and waved her through.

Ana waited for Bryan on the other side while he went through the same procedure with a paper boarding pass, then picked up the conversation again. “I just started to think about how much work is actually ahead of us. I mean, once you get the roaster and the beans, we have a physical product. We need to be able to sell it within a reasonable amount of time, right? Beans don’t stay fresh for that long.” She plopped her suitcase onto the belt for the X-ray machine and toed off her flats.

Bryan followed suit, revealing gray socks emblazoned with penguins. The funky design barely registered through her sudden anxiety. “I’ll just be doing test batches for now —we’ll foist them off on our family and friends until I’m done fine-tuning the roast. But yeah. We need distribution. Like, yesterday.”

She blew out a breath. “Okay. Then that’s what I’ll focus on. That means as soon as we get back, we’ll need at least some basic marketing collateral. And I’ll need samples to take around to interested coffee shops and restaurants. Half-pound bags should do it. Or at least that’s what all the internet forums tell me.”

“You’ve been reading those too?” Bryan grinned at her. “There’s some really bad advice in there.”

“But some good advice too.” Ana went through the scanner without a beep and then waited at the end of the line for her suitcase and handbag.

Bryan found a place next to her to wait and glanced down. Then he smiled. “You have flowers on your toes.”

Ana looked down quickly, inexplicably embarrassed by the white glittered flowers on her pink toenail polish. “Yeah, I got a pedicure on Friday.”

“It’s nice.” Then he seemed to realize why she’d gotten the pedicure and lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t ask. How was the date with Adrian?”

“It was fine.” She stared at the tip of her suitcase peeping out of the X-ray machine as if she could will it to move faster. Then it got sucked back in for a second look. She sighed. “It was good, actually. The Cellar is a great restaurant.”

“I see.” He crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “You going to see him again?”

She didn’t look at him. “Nope.”

“Why not?”

There were a million ways she could answer that question. It wasn’t a good idea to mix business and personal. She didn’t have time for dating. The truth was, there just wasn’t any spark. But she was reluctant to state it that flatly, because it would only draw attention to the fact that she was feeling sparks toward the one person she couldn’t act on them with.

“He drives a Tesla,” she finally said. “The expensive one.”

A smile quirked up the corner of his lips. “You have something against electric cars?”

“No, the car is fine.” She rolled her eyes while she tried to explain. “Everything about him was just so calculated, you know? I mean, he’s gorgeous and he’s actually a nice guy. He doesn’t need to try that hard.”

The suitcase finally got released from security purgatory and slid down the rack of rollers toward her. She was so focused on getting it and her purse off the rack and out of the way that she almost missed the expression that flitted across Bryan’s face. Once more, it looked suspiciously like jealousy. Because she commented on Adrian’s looks? Come on, anyone with eyes could make that determination. It wasn’t a preference; it was just a dead-on fact.

“I asked him how he knew you, and he said he was one of the kids crowd at your parents’ functions.”

“Yeah,” Bryan said. “He always stunk at pool.”

“Still does,” Ana said, and they both laughed, the tension broken.

Bryan’s backpack finally came through the machine, almost the exact opposite of Ana’s Vuitton luggage —it was battered green nylon, the seams held together by duct tape, the bungee laces starting to fray across the back. The irony of criticizing Adrian for being concerned with appearances struck her. No, not irony. Hypocrisy. How was she any different? She fixed images for a living. She crafted her own to display exactly what she wanted to show the world. The designer duds, the expensive car, even the French luggage. Bryan, on the other hand, had never pretended to be anything other than what he was. Even when she didn’t necessarily agree with or like that person, he was a hundred percent honest about himself. And now that he’d changed, he was honest about that too.

“What’s it like?” she asked as they moved away from security and down the sloping ramp to the A concourse, where they’d pick up the train to their gate.

“What’s what like?”

“Coming back and starting over. Being a different person.”

Bryan considered it seriously. “Hard. Everyone expects me to act like I did before, and when I don’t, they figure I’m working an angle.”

“That must be frustrating.”

“It is. But it’s no less than I deserve.” At her sharp look, he said, “No, I’m not punishing myself for my past mistakes. I just mean that we have to accept the consequences of our decisions. At least until we manage to completely reinvent ourselves and convince everyone else.”

“Yeah,” Ana said softly. “It takes longer than you think.”

“I’m finding that out,” he said with a smile, and she was grateful he didn’t push further.

Given how early it was, security had taken them almost no time at all, and they were at their gate a full hour before their flight left.

“I’m going to grab some coffee. You want anything?”

Ana plopped into one of the seats at the gate. “Just a drip. I’ll watch our bags.”

“Are you sure you want a drip? This is airport coffee. You might want to dilute the taste a bit.”

“A latte, then.” Ana laughed. “You’ve become a coffee snob, huh?”

“Of course; I’m a third-wave artisan roaster. Or at least I will be if this trip is successful.” He dropped his backpack on the ground beside Ana’s suitcase. “I’ll be right back.”

Ana watched him go, surprisingly pensive. He never ceased to surprise her. She’d known him for two years, so she’d thought she had his number. But she was beginning to feel that there was a lot more going on inside that he didn’t let on. Yes, he might be honest. But he wasn’t exactly transparent. For all the illusion of shallowness, she figured she hadn’t even come close to seeing the bottom.

Bryan came back a few minutes later with two paper cups and a white paper bag. He handed over the coffee and then pulled out a paper-wrapped bundle.

“What’s that?”

“Spinach and egg-white wrap. I couldn’t remember whether you ate wheat or not, so I went with the gluten-free tortilla. Hope that’s okay.”

“Thanks,” she said, surprised. “I eat almost everything, but that was thoughtful. What did you get?”

“Sausage and cheese. Though if you prefer this one, I’m willing to trade. I was making no comments on your figure.”

Ana laughed. “I didn’t think you were. And you’re right. When I’m not with Rachel and Melody, I eat very clean.”

“You’d have to with those two as friends,” Bryan commented. “Speaking of . . . Do you think they’d do a trial run with our coffee at Bittersweet?”

“Of course. I’ve already asked. They say send them the beans when you’re ready. They also asked about display signage, so we’re going to want to get on that pretty quickly.”

Bryan paused with the burrito halfway to his mouth. “I don’t even know where to begin with that.”

“Don’t worry; I do. Or at least I know someone who does.” She’d done enough marketing work on the side to have a pretty good handle on the graphic designers she could depend on. Before she moved over to the crisis management division, she’d worked a lot with smaller companies who really needed a full-service marketing firm, not just a publicist. But she’d kept them at Massey-Coleman by finding independent contractors who could do the work for a fraction of the cost.

That was another reason her leave rankled. She could guarantee not another associate in the business had gone to that sort of trouble. And now they were getting her clients. Never mind that she didn’t particularly like them. She’d laid all the groundwork, so it wasn’t fair for someone else to get all the credit.

If she were going to have to start over with her list anyway, what was to keep her from going back to the business publicity department? Even better, what was to stop her from pitching a marketing arm to Lionel? She’d already been doing a fair amount of strategic marketing with her publicity clients. The firm might as well get paid for it. It would expand the business, something that Lionel was always looking to do.

And Solid Grounds would be the perfect proof of concept. She would handle all the marketing and publicity, build as much buzz as possible, and use that as her case study. An example of what she could do when there was a consistent vision applied across a company’s communications.

“Ana?” Bryan asked, looking into her face curiously.

She realized she was chewing the burrito mindlessly. “Sorry. You got the wheels turning. I need to get all of this written down while it’s fresh in my mind.”

“You know, there’s still the issue of the value of your advisory shares,” Bryan said quietly.

“I know. But I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You’ve done a lot. I’m thinking —”

Ana waved a hand. “Nope. Not yet. Once I actually do something worth paying me for, we’ll discuss it. All I did was get you a meeting, and I would do that for any friend. You’re the one who gave a great presentation, and you’re the one who convinced Adrian to invest. As far as I’m considered, my stake in this is still zero.”

Bryan didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t press, which was good because her mind was on other things —all the work they’d need to do in a short time to get this business off the ground.

Which was exactly where her mind belonged. On work. And off him.