When We Go Back Again (Mason Brothers Book #1)

Chapter 2

FLETCHER

“Fletch! Mom said family meeting in the back office in ten minutes.”

I looked up from the bar well that I was cleaning and glare at him, “Another one?”

“You know she wants to do these weekly now. Just grin and bear it. I’m sure she’ll get tired of it eventually.”

I rolled my eyes, finishing up my current task and wiping my hands dry with the towel hanging from my shoulder. “Something tells me that is never going to happen.”

My older brother Damon picks up a case of liquor that was just unloaded and starts taking it to the storage in the back. I go back to work on the long list of tasks I have behind the bar. After cleaning the wells I get to work weighing all of the liquor bottles that are in the bar with this new ordering system that Cade insisted we had to get because he saw it on some reality TV show. I wouldn’t admit to him that it made tracking and inventory easier. He didn’t need his head getting any bigger.

I’ve been working at this bar most of my life. When I first took over we were just guessing how much alcohol we were using and hoping we’d have the brands that we needed and didn’t run out. Only one time we ran out of tequila and tried to substitute vodka. Cade wouldn’t let me live in down, hence the new ordering system.

Glenwood Springs is a town of roughly 10,000 about three hours away from Denver. I was born and raised here and have pretty much given up any chance of leaving here. That wasn’t the case at one time in my life, but this place is so engrained in my soul now, I can’t imagine leaving for anything. My parents were born and raised here and their parents before that. My family dates back to this place until sometime around the Gold Rush. It’s the place I proudly call home.

Although our town has grown steadily over the years, you still can’t beat the feel of the old school downtown Main Street. The best part, in my completely biased opinion, of the entire city, but especially Main Street is The Mason Jar. My mom and dad opened The Mason Jar shortly after they got married. It was always a dream of my dad’s to own a bar and they put every cent they had into making his dream come true.

I was raised in this bar, all my siblings were. The joke around town was even some of us were conceived in this bar. Parker, my youngest brother, was born in this bar. This bar is the Mason family. So when mom and dad decided that they were getting too up there in age to run the bar full time, my brothers and I all stepped up and took over the day-to-day running.

Damon handles the kitchen, I manage the bar, Cade deals with the numbers, and Parker works on entertainment. Our little sister Melody is in her second year in college studying marketing and business management so that she can take over that part of the bar once she graduates. We don’t get to see her as much as we’d like, but I respect the hell out of her for getting an education. She’s smart as fuck.

The only thing that has driven us all a little crazy since they handed over control are the weekly meetings my mom likes to have before we open the bar on Fridays. I love my mother like nothing else in this world, but nothing she says at these meetings are things we don’t already know. But we all grin and bear it for her sake. We knew she misses the full-time work here.

I pull up with a cup of coffee next to Damon and make sure to push Cade’s feet off the desk before mom comes in and yells at him. “Coffee at 3 in the afternoon?” Cade side-eyes me.

“Coffee is a 24/7 drink,” I retort.

“You sound like a girl.”

“Nothing wrong with being a girl!” My mom says as walks through the open door of the office. Our brother Parker is right behind her, grinning that Cade got caught by her.

“Nothing wrong at all, mom,” Cade says, quickly trying to recover.

Mom rolls her eyes, not buying his response at all. “Stop being a suck-up.” That perfectly summarized Lydia Mason. She may be grayer with a few more wrinkles, but we’ve never been able to get anything past her. Raising five kids while owning the most popular bar in the city gave her the toughest skin in the state. She was as sweet as sugar and loved with all her heart, but you weren’t getting anything over on her, especially if you were one of her babies.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cade sink into his chair, knowing that making any comment back was pointless.

Mom sat on the love seat in the corner of the office and opened her notebook, right down to business it was. “Alright, you boneheads, I know you hate these meetings, but I do appreciate you coming to them every week.”

Damon chuckled, “You just insulted and thanked us in the same sentence.”

“That’s pretty much what mothers do.”

For the next hour, we go over sales, future events, and took a good look at the budget. The bar will never make us millions, but as long as we can pay everybody and put a little in the joint nest egg we feel good about things. It helps when we’re the only real bar in the entire city. Another place opened up on the south side of town, but it doesn’t have the small-town feel that we have here. It was opened mostly for the resort visitors, people that wouldn’t make their way into town just to get a drink. At The Mason Jar, we’re down to earth and want this place to feel homey like your living room.

By the time our meeting is over the wait staff has arrived and we’re ready to open. The weekends are pretty much non-stop around here, so we open late on Fridays to give us the day to prep for the weekend. By the time the businesses in Glenwood Springs close, this place comes alive. 

“Fletch, I need more glasses!” The other bartender, Toni, yells at me from her side of the bar. She’s been working as a bartender for almost six years now and there are times I forget that she technically works for me. I love to bartend, but I also know that as a part-owner I need to play bar back every now and then to keep things moving. Toni had zero problems reminding me of that.

I give her a little salute to let her know that I’m grabbing them and I head back to the kitchen where stacks of glasses straight out the dishwasher are waiting for me. I grab as many as will fit on the cart and start heading back to the bar. I’m mid-stacking the glasses when I hear my name called from the bar.

“Fletcher? Is that you?” I turn around and tilt my head to the side. The woman that is sitting up at the bar is downright gorgeous and I rake my brain trying to figure out where I know her from. There is a familiarity in her eyes and I can’t help but wonder if she was a random hook up from my past. I don’t make a habit of hooking up with customers often, but I am a red-blooded man after all.

“Um, yes I’m Fletch,” I move over closer to her and wipe down the area of the bar right in front of her. It is an automatic response of mine to always be wiping down the bar.

The woman smiles and then slightly bites the bottom of her lip, “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

Nervously, I chuckle. I’m still trying to figure out who she is and now I’m scared that I’m going to give the wrong answer and start a whole thing in my bar on a busy Friday night. “That’s a really dangerous question to answer, I’m not sure I want to go there.”

She giggles and rolls her eyes a bit. “You always were very pragmatic. Nice to know that some things never change.”

I lean on the bar to get a closer look at her face and I try to run it through my brain’s facial recognition system, but I’m coming up blank. “Give me a hint.”

She stands up and for a split second I worry that I’ve insulted her and she’s going to leave, but she doesn’t leave. Instead she moves her tank top up just a little bit and pulls down the waistband of her shorts down just a bit to show off not only her creamy skin. I have to suppress the growl growing in the back of my throat. It has been way too long since I’ve been with a woman and seeing that skin is almost too much to handle. I take a deep breath and focus on the hint that I’m supposed to get and that is when I notice the tattoo on her hip. 

The tattoo itself is a small cluster of cherries. At first, it doesn’t do anything to jog my mirror, but then a small detail about the tattoo that floods my brain with all the memories. The stems of the cherries have a special characteristic, they are formed in the shape of a small heart. Just like the necklace that I gave to the first girl that I loved….and maybe the only.

“Eden?”