Essence of Time (11 page)

Blake waited for Evan to remember he was still in the room.  “So, ah, you didn’t mention a female brewer.” He needed to know more about her, now.

Evan started and looked back at him. “Oh, no that’s the marketing director. She's the one who manages the sales staff and, sort of, you.”

Blake frowned. “Oh,” was the best he could utter.
Smooth, Thornton. Very smooth
, he grimaced at himself. Evan rallied and they finished their paperwork. Blake started on the task of getting the chaos that was the operation of Big House Brewing in order. His brain buzzed for hours with the sheer amazement that he’d done this and with a burning need to catch sight of Suzanne once more.

Finally, about two hours after he’d managed to work himself into a sweat moving pallets of bottles and packaging materials around so he could begin brewing the next morning, he wiped his brow, looked up and saw her. She sat on one of the tall stools at the long worktable that held a couple of laptop computers and the usual detritus of brewing: Order forms, hops samples, invoices, and bottles of beer for testing. Blake took a step back into the shadows created by the towering stacks of boxes and observed her for a minute.

She was on the phone, laughing, then serious. He watched as she then put the phone down softly on the stainless steel surface. She sighed, looked up at the ceiling and put her face in her hands. Blake stared intently at her, and realized her shoulders were shaking. She was crying. The natural “fixer” in him rose to the surface but he wrestled it away, knowing he had no business stalking her from the shadows. After a minute or two she wiped her eyes, ran her fingers through her long red hair and stood. The way she squared her shoulders made Blake’s heart clench for some reason. He had no explanation, but an absolute need to help her roared through him. How he knew she required his help was also a mystery, but his entire body buzzed to be near her, to comfort, and to touch.

 When she leaned over to adjust her shoe, he had entirely different physical reaction. He groaned to himself and took another step back between the boxes willing his cock down.  He concentrated on calculating the specific gravity of his first batch of Big House Brewing lager and tried to get himself under control. By the time he stepped back out, sweat still beaded his face, and he nearly plowed right into her turning the corner.

“Whoa there handsome. Watch where you’re going.” Her voice was soft, but firm. He gripped her arm, then let go, embarrassed by his need to touch her.

Blake was no fool nor was he blind to the gigantic diamond on her left ring finger. He straightened up, and grinned, pulling off his baseball cap and running a hand through his close-cropped hair.  She stepped back, crossed her arms and cocked her hip shooting him a completely unreadable look.

“Damn you really are cute. Gonna get interesting around here. Gotta dash, but I’ll see you tomorrow morning, seven a.m. First official sales meeting with our new brewer. Eat your Wheaties, big boy.” He stared as she turned on one high heel and departed.  A knee jerk combination of anger, pride and raw lust made him shiver. He worked until past nine p.m. emerging into the Tap Room to meet the staff and have a few beers before heading home.

****

Within weeks Blake realized something. Suzanne was indeed making his new life as head brewer for Big House a living hell. Mainly it was because her sales team was fantastic at their jobs, but also because she was so infernally bossy. He spent the small percentage of time he wasn't fantasizing about fisting his hands in her long red hair and kissing her smart god damned mouth so hard she’d whimper, utterly furious at her. It made for interesting times indeed, just as she had predicted.  One thing he’d come to learn about Suzanne, she loved being right.

His sister had teased him relentlessly. “Oh, it’s cute. You’re like in middle school with a crush on the teacher.”

“Shut it,” he’d glared at her over wine one night on her small back porch. Sara had saved him when he’d returned to Ann Arbor with nothing but the clothes on his back and a degree worth nothing, at least according to their father. He probably could have saved the “oh by the way Dad I’m bi-sexual” convo for a different moment but had taken a perverse pleasure in the way Matthew Thornton’s face had reddened so alarmingly that his mother had made him leave the house.  He had moved into Sara’s small condo and taken over the second bedroom with promises of moving out as soon as he had about six months' worth of salary in the bank.

She had just quit her stable and lucrative job with a major pharmaceutical company to take up life selling houses at one hundred percent commission. Luckily, she had been their father’s perfect, do-no-wrong daughter, so he’d bankrolled her for a while until her new career had shot into the stratosphere like everything she ever did. It made Blake’s teeth ache with frustration, but since he’d been Sara’s champion and defender her whole life it also on some bizarre level, soothed him. The conversation they’d had the night before ghosted through his head.

“He’d help, you know, if you would ask him.” She defended their indefensible father.

“Not fucking likely,” had been his answer. “You do know ‘real estate agent’ ranks just below ‘used car salesman’ and barely above ‘lawyer.’  Why in the hell would you do it? You made great money selling drugs.”

She’d shrugged. “I wanted to stay close to home. I hated all the stupid travel with the drug thing. Besides, I call my own hours this way. I'm master of my own destiny, as it were.”

He’d scoffed but smiled at her. They’d been close their whole lives, weathering the various storms that made up their parents’ relationship. Separated by a mere eighteen months, they looked enough alike to be twins.  He worried about her, too much probably, but it was part and parcel of loving Sara. She hurt, so did he. And now that he was foundering, she’d stepped up. “I’m sorry.” She had patted his hand last night. “I don’t mean to make fun of it. Besides what happened to Jeremy?” She named the man he’d lived with the last year of school on the west coast. Blake shrugged.

“We drifted apart. Actually he drifted straight into one our professor’s beds. They are still together, I think.” He sipped, ignoring the niggling voice in his head that reminded him of how hard it had been to accept that Jeremy was, most likely, a straight man just experimenting. It had been his first true relationship with a guy and had ended badly. “Whatever.”

****

Blake glared at Suzanne as she sat across from him during their weekly seven a.m. sales and production meeting. She met his stare, her odd-colored eyes dark with intensity and anger—at him. “What the fuck do you mean you are gonna run out of the amber?” The rest of the team shifted awkwardly. Blake’s ears got hot.

“What part did you not understand?” He kept his voice even. He did not need to be pushed around by a bunch of sales people. Evan had said it himself. This was his brewery to run. He called the brew schedule. They made a lot of lagers which implied time in storage and he was determined to get his head around some of the bad batches they’d had come out of here before he arrived. That meant time. That meant her precious fucking amber ale was delayed.

She closed her eyes, obviously trying to keep her cool. He smiled at her, his level of horniness ramping up a thousand fold at the sight of the fire in them when they re-opened. “The part about the amber ale being my best off-premise seller and you being out of it, you ass. That part.”

“Well, I need the storage space to do some krausening on the blonde, to make sure it’s ready for summer, and to work out the shittiness you guys had going on in your pilsner.” He took a breath, willing his hardening cock soft.
I really need to get laid.
He gritted his teeth.  “I call the shots back here, Suzanne. Remember?”

“Yes, Blake, I do.”

He shivered as she spoke his name, but let fury rule the day as she continued.

“But, you have no fucking shots to call if I—if we—don’t sell.  If my customers want the Big House Amber and I have to tell them, 'Our brewer is too busy dicking around with a perfectly good recipe just to feed his own ego. Sorry, you can’t have it. I’m sure you will find another good microbrewery to replace us with.' That makes me very unhappy and makes the numbers at the end of the month an ugly red color. You do know what that means, right, brewer?”

He stood, nearly blinded with anger, knocking into the half-assed table they used to conduct their meeting. Coffees and profanity flew. But he never took his eyes from hers. “Fine. I’ll readjust. But, my ego is gonna be tied pretty fucking closely to this place soon. You’d best get used to it.”

By the time he’d sorted through the complications of changing the brew schedule to accommodate the increased demand for the amber, he’d calmed down. The two assistants he’d hired were scurrying around doing their various busy-work as he concocted the next day’s recipe. She was right, but he would be damned to hell and back before he admitted it to her. Before he knew it, the clock stood at nearly seven p.m. He’d been at it since 7 a.m. with only about an hour’s break.

“For a guy who’s been at work for nearly twelve hours you look pretty fresh.” He jerked his head back and up and connected nicely with the hard stainless of the brew vessel he was checking for leaks.

“Son of a fucking…” he muttered rubbing the rapidly growing knot on his skull.  “Oh. You.” He muttered ignoring the zinging that flew through his veins at the sight of her jean-clad form by his side. The music that he and the brew boys kept on all day swirled around them. She held a fresh pour from the Tap Room.

“Peace offering?” She smiled. He tried not to match it
.
She had to know how pissed he was at her little stunt in the meeting.  He stripped off his heavy-duty gloves and hung them beside the brew house, ignoring her as best he could, but her very presence encompassed him, making him tense, horny and unhappy all at the same time. “C’mon Blake. Have a beer with me?” She held it out, pouted a little. He knew she was manipulating him. He felt the basic male in him react, but he wrestled it back down. He would not be played.

“No. Thanks. Got a date. See you tomorrow.” Without looking at her, and risking being a pussy, he left.

Chapter Two

Two Months Later

“Blake!”

He grunted, rolled over, tried to grasp where he was and who was with him. The phone chirped. “Blake!” The strange voice coalesced in his brain, reminding him he’d gotten laid last night.

“Phone!” The guy held out his device.

He grabbed it and hit answer. “What!”

“Where the fuck are you?” Suzanne’s voice shattered his sleepy haze.

“Uh, home?” He sat, rubbing his hand over his face. He’d managed to find a pretty good rental deal on a downtown condo, given the current shitty real estate market and thanks to his sister. “Why? Jesus, Suzanne, it’s Sunday.” He groaned and flopped back on the bed, watching the taut backside of the guy he’d picked up the night before. At that moment, he could not even remember the man’s name. He put a hand over his eyes.

“God dammit Blake, we were going to…”

He groaned. “Oh shit. I totally forgot.”

“I can see that. I’m here. On a Sunday. It’s nine a.m. My sales staff is here. Ready to brew. You are apparently still in bed?”

“Yeah.” He had no answer. She was right. Damn her. “Give me twenty minutes.” He was supposed to be running a mini brew school.  That morning at eight thirty. Shit. He’d spent so much damn energy avoiding her he’d even let himself forget this “special” Sunday event for the staff.

“Never mind. I sent them all home.” Blake put his head in his hands. “Obviously not a priority for you, so…”

“Listen, Suzanne, I’m sorry. I can make it happen I swear. Call them back. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“Do whatever you want.” He stared at the phone that had gone dead in his hands.

“Fuck!” He hurled it down on the bed, leapt in for a record-setting shower before heading for the door.

“Hey…” the man tried to waylay him with a kiss. Blake cut it off, put his hand on the guy’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I usually don’t, uh,”

“Fuck and run?” The guy smiled at him and patted his rough jaw. “It’s okay lover. I get you. Have a nice life. I can see myself out.”

Blake winced and cursed himself all the way to his truck and during the short drive to the brewery. He usually did not pick up strange men, or women, for that matter just for a quickie. For once he was grateful he had, taking the edge off his extreme horniness. He felt equipped to handle Suzanne without letting his overworked libido get in the way.

He squealed to a halt outside the brewery, jumped out of the truck and threw the door open. The place was dark. “Shit,” he muttered. No matter how he felt about her, blowing this off was a big deal. He ran a hand down his face.  Might as well get ready for next week. He’d pulled the amber ahead on the brewing schedule so he had to double up on Monday to fill the larger fermentation vessels with the other beers that he could move out of the way in order to match her sales staff’s success with the mild red brew. A small sound made him look up.  He took a step further into the room. Burbling buckets next to each fermenter made their usual noises and the pinging of the air compressor did its thing. All noises he knew well. He cocked his head to the side, listening for it again.

A sniffle, a hiccup, and then… he tossed the clipboard on the table and strode between the tall, stainless steel vessels. He stopped when he saw her with her hands propped on the lab table and shoulders shaking. He cleared his throat and she whirled around. The look in her eyes startled him. A combination of fear, anger, and, was it relief? Blake felt something start buzzing in the vicinity of his lizard brain. The part of him that needed to protect, to shield her from whatever it was that had her so upset, nearly made him stumble closer and grab her. But he stayed put, gritting his teeth.

“Sorry,” she wiped at her eyes.  “I um…,” glancing down at her phone she sighed and held up a hand. “Hang on.” She put the device to her ear. “Yes?”