The seed money for Rusty Anchor Brewing Company—the name Kemp and I had finally made official—had come through, and Kemp and I had hit the ground running. Kemp’s full-time job was construction, so we’d sat down with his boss, Levi Dawson, even before the money was in our account, to go over the blueprints we’d previously had drawn up by an architect.

Levi’s work calendar was pretty full, but since he was a personal friend of ours as well as a big fan of good beer, he, Kemp, and I had planned to work evenings and weekends on the old Bergman building, gutting it and turning it into a state-of-the-art brewery. Then, as if God himself couldn’t wait for some good beer, a large home addition on Levi’s calendar had been canceled at the last minute, so we were moving into that spot. We had a week to demo the inside before the professionals showed up, and I’d spent a few hours this afternoon ripping out shelves and removing junk.

We’d ordered our brewing equipment, which would take a few weeks to arrive, and we’d moved ahead with all the other facets of setting up a business—getting the corporation in place, meeting with a branding expert, permits, marketing ideas, plans for personnel.

It was already a full-time job and a half for both Kemp and me, and neither of us had quit our day jobs yet. That was coming soon, and though Henry’s was in my blood and always would be, I couldn’t wait. I told myself I wasn’t exactly quitting Henry’s, because Rusty Anchor and Henry’s would become intricately entwined and have a symbiotic relationship as a brewpub going forward.

On top of all that, having Chloe in my bed every night didn’t suck at all. We were both so busy with our careers that, some days, we didn’t see one another much until we collapsed in bed. We spent just as much time talking and catching up as we did burning up the sheets, and I wouldn’t trade either of them. The one thing we weren’t getting was enough sleep, but we could sleep later.

My life was full right now, and I was loving the shit out of it while things were so good.

Tonight, my brothers and I were meeting after Henry’s closed to have a long overdue celebratory toast to Rusty Anchor Brewing. It was a Wednesday, one of our slowest evenings off-season, and Cash and I had worked till close, while Seth, our eight-to-fiver, was coming back in for the occasion. I’d finished totaling the receipts for the night and put the cash bags in the safe in Seth’s office, then grabbed a new bottle of Grey Goose from storage since Berwin Jepp had just about emptied the old one this evening.