“Somebody has to do all the hard work if we’re making this brewery happen,” Kemp said happily, and I let him feel superior for a few more minutes, the anticipation of telling him about Chloe’s investment making it impossible for me not to smile. “The conference was worth every dime and then some. What’d you bring?” Kemp asked, eyeing the six pack of home brew in my hand.

“Couple of surprises,” I told him. Understatement of the day. Kemp was going to shit himself when I told him about Chloe’s investment.

I set the cardboard six-pack on the kitchen counter as we entered the room. I was almost as anxious to show off the strawberry-lemonade pale ale as I was to tell him the news.

He got two beer glasses down and I took out two bottles of ale, then put the others in the fridge.

“Where’s Natalie tonight?” I asked about his sister. If she was home, she usually surfaced to say hello as soon as she heard me. “I know she’s not working.”

“Studying at a friend’s, and unlike you and me, that girl is actually for real studying.”

“No surprise there. She’s smarter than both of us put together,” I said. “She’ll go far, no doubt.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this out loud, but sometimes I wish she’d take time for fun. She acts like she’s forty.”

Kemp and Natalie’s parents had died several years ago when Natalie was only twelve years old. Kemp, then twenty-eight, had stepped up to become her guardian and had never looked back. Natalie had been his priority ever since. Now she was a senior in high school, just about to graduate. She was headed off to college in the fall, and we would feel the loss at the restaurant, where she worked the host stand like a boss.

Kemp poured beer into the glasses, while Baxter and Mack swarmed us, as they usually did, whacking people and things with their tails, soaking up all the pats Kemp and I doled out.

“Come on, mutts,” Kemp said. “Outside.”

The dogs knew what that meant, and they beat him to the back door. Kemp let them out to the fenced-in yard and closed the door, and the entire house felt less frenzied and a lot calmer.

“They’re going to be like that for the next day, trying to make up for when I was gone,” Kemp said.

“Those two are a bigger handful than your sister.”

Kemp laughed. “Natalie’s never been a handful. I’ve got so much shit to show you from the conference, man,” he said. He went over to the breakfast bar, where his carry-on sat. He dug into the main pocket and pulled out folders, pamphlets, pens, and promotional pieces. “The session about start-ups was worth the price of admission alone. We’re on the right track in a lot of ways.”