Mutual Release (19 page)

By the time they got back to Evan’s house, driven by one of the club caddies because they were both too drunk to walk much less drive, Evan was laughing so hard he almost pissed his pants.

Jack leaned against his kitchen counter, nearly falling sideways before he righted himself. ‘That bitch throw you over today or what?” he asked, coming right to the point.

“Nah. I just… misunderstood what we were about. I guess.”

“You guys aren’t…” Jack stumbled over to the table and dropped into a chair.

“I’m gonna take a break from the club, I think, for a few weeks.” Evan dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and poured a giant glass of water for each of them.

“No, don’t do that. Don’t let her keep you from having fun. Then the bitch wins, right?”

“It’s not about that. It’s like… I can’t keep from bonding or something with these women, then… they cut me loose. I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I get you. But you gotta learn to fuck ’em and walk away, you know? It’s the best way.” Jack stared gloomily into his water glass.

Evan glanced over his shoulder at his friend. “I can tell you’re so bloody happy.”

“Oh, I am. I just… oh, fuck it, where’s the goddamn remote?”

Evan stared at the television a while; then when he looked over to find Jack sound asleep on the couch, he got up and took a long hot shower and decided to call his parents. He had no idea what prompted it. Even before Damian arrived and upset the Adams applecart, they’d not been close. His father worked long hours supporting the family at his job as head counsel for a large insurance firm. And his mother… well, her odd combination of smothering and ignoring them had left both he and Olivia in turns ecstatic and confused.

He sat at his desk in the small second bedroom he used as a home office and stared at his phone. When he finally dialed and put the thing to his ear, his chest hurt. He felt so utterly alone at the moment, that he was willing to reach out to people he’d been ignoring even after his mother’s revelation about Olivia’s diary.

“Evan?” his mother answered. “Honey, is that you?”

He put his head in his hands. “Yes, Mom. It’s me. Just… checking in, I guess.”

“Oh Evan, it’s good to hear your voice again.”

“Is Dad there?”

“Um, no, he’s not. He’s in hospice.”

“
What?
” Evan jumped out of his chair and paced. “What the hell, Mom? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Your father absolutely forbade it. Said if you couldn’t be bothered to stay in touch, then he didn’t care if you knew…” Her voice broke. “What happened to our family, Evan?”

“What hospice? Where? I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“No, honey, don’t. It will just upset him and he’s frail.”

“I will see my father before he dies, Mom. You can’t stop me.” He was already jumping around, yanking on jeans and trying to figure out how he’d get any-fucking-where since he’d left his damn car at the country club. He sat, listening to his mother relay the story of pancreatic cancer spreading to liver and lymph nodes. His eyes burned. “Shit!” He picked up a heavy law book and heaved it at the wall.

Jack appeared in the door, rubbing his eyes. “Whoa, man, what’s up?”

“I need to call a cab. I gotta get over to Plymouth. Hospice. My Dad is… he’s…” Evan sat forlorn while Jack snapped to and sorted everything out.

They got a cab to the club, and Jack climbed behind the wheel of Evan’s car and drove him the thirty miles east to sit at his father’s bedside and watch him die.

Chapter Eighteen

Six months later, Evan presided at a large table surrounded by the twelve employees of Big House Brewing and welcomed them to a new company – one where he would be running things. The brewers could expect new equipment, the Tap Room a complete renovation, and the building in general a spruce-up. But they were going to have to cope with a more formal mode of operation. Time clocks, production deadlines, quotas, and sales meetings were part of the new world order.

Leland Adams had left a very clear and tidy will. His wife would have the house mortgage-free and enough money to live on comfortably for the rest of her life. Evan received the stock portfolio, three vintage Jaguars, commercial real estate valued at over four million dollars, and their condo in Vail. With Jack’s help he went on a selling spree, getting top dollar for every bit of his inheritance, and plowing it straight into buying the brewery.

The weekend before he quit Harrison and Winter, he paid a visit to The Suite, at Jack’s insistence, to celebrate. He watched, staying in the background, as Sophie entered the room on the arm of one of the tallest, movie-star-handsome men Evan had ever seen. The man took no time in being chosen by her. When he tossed her over his shoulder, and they disappeared into the gloom Evan swallowed hard and met Jack’s eyes. His friend shrugged, mouthed “women” just as two very lovely ones crawled their way towards him.

Evan sighed, looked down and tilted the chin up of the young woman who sat at his feet. He crouched down to be on her eye level. She was thin, too thin for his taste, but earnest and good-looking. He hated to be a jerk, but…

“Sweetheart…” He kissed her hand and brought her to her feet. “I’m really in a bad place in my head. I would do you a disservice tonight. I’m sorry.” He gave her a hug, looked around, and steered her towards an older man who stood nearby. “Be good to her,” Evan muttered before walking out.

He sat talking with Kyle, sipping the hundred-year-old bourbon the guy kept stashed somewhere. He listened while Kyle told him his own sob story, about the man he had loved who had left for no better reason other than to keep from hurting him. Evan knew that man was Rob, Jack’s friend from college who had moved to Chicago to put his chef school skills to work. “God damn, we are sad sacks, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, but we have got some kick-ass booze.” Evan raised his glass. Kyle clinked it, and they chatted and waited until Jack emerged, a little wobbly, from the private rooms in the back.

“Fuck you, bastard, holding out on me. Pour me one of those.”

“Hell no, Gordon. I can’t have you getting drunk and hurting my subs.”

“Damn, son, those two nearly ripped me in half. And we are all done, thanks. So pass that motherfuckin’ bottle.”

“Fine, ya pussy.” Kyle smiled and poured Jack a portion.

“I bought the brewery,” Evan blurted out.

“I heard. That is really great. I’m sure it will be a huge success.” Kyle smiled and raised his glass in salute.

“And this asshole just made his first million selling over-priced Ann Arbor houses.” Evan pointed to Jack, who held up a hand in mock modesty.

Kyle pointed to him, still gripping his glass. “You guys are always welcome here. No charge.”

“Oh, the hell with that. We are all entrepreneurs now. I will pay the going rate,” Evan claimed.

“Well, maybe I was trying to wrangle some free beer out of the deal.” Kyle mock-pouted.

“Nope,” Jack said, putting his empty glass down for a second serving. “We are men of honor. We pay our way. But listen, Kyle, I’m not sure about those two freak shows I just left back there.”

“You make them that way, Gordon. They only turn freak-show crazy around you.”

* * * *

And now here he sat, ready to start down this new, utterly unknown path. His head was clear as he looked around at his new employees. “This won’t be easy. I’m learning as I go, but so are you. And I swear to you we will turn Big House Brewing into Michigan’s most successful commercial brewery.” He lifted his glass of dark porter, smiling when they joined him.

He hit the first real snag within twenty-four hours. The complex distribution laws that Evan had been studying for weeks meant one thing: He needed a full-time marketing director, someone creative, forceful, and willing to wrangle extra effort out of the two distributors they had, as well as find him another one for the Detroit market. He shuffled through a stack of resumes, put them aside to ponder the giant bills for renovation of the Tap Room, then decided to contemplate upgrading the point-of-sale and payroll systems. Finally he gave up when it hit six o’clock, and went out to the beer bar, still half uninhabitable thanks to the ongoing construction work. The remaining half, about two-thousand square feet of converted warehouse industrial space, was standing room only on a Tuesday.

Evan smiled, sat at the bar and relaxed, watching the bar staff work and the beer drinkers come and go, laugh and flirt and generally enjoy themselves. When he looked up a couple of hours later, Jack was there, a huge shit-eating grin on his face.

“Holy hell, this brewery thing was a great idea, Adams.” He sat next to Evan and heaved a sigh. “What a giant, lube-free, ass-fuck of a day this was. Get me a beer, wouldya?”

“Ever the poet,” Evan muttered into his glass.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Jack pulled out his phone to check the time. “I found your marketing director.”

“Really.” Evan ignored him, distracted by a lovely blonde woman sitting and drinking alone. He had sworn off BDSM clubs, Dom/sub lifestyles, the whole thing. He just wanted to run his business and maybe find a girlfriend. He needed stability, not volatility.

“Yeah, and she just walked in.”

Evan looked up and shook hands with Suzanne Baxter, a petite red-headed woman, one of Jack’s college buddies. He liked her instantly. She was smart, facile, had done her homework about the industry and his company in particular. After a couple more beers, he shook her hand again. “You’re hired.”

She looked startled, glanced over at Jack who laughed and pulled her in for a hug. By the time Evan looked around again, the pretty blonde had left.

Chapter Nineteen

When Suzanne Baxter took over sales and marketing, everything changed. Evan was amazed by her boundless energy, creativity, and enthusiasm for all things Big House Brewing. She whipped their social networking into extreme shape, hired two sales flunkies, and had the brewers bitching about her in no time – just as it should be. It left him free to get his head around the actual life cycle of craft beer. He brewed several times, screwing up just enough to learn. The inner workings of city utilities, garbage collection, and other small things that become giant problems if they are not dealt with became his nightly companions.

He worked behind the bar on a few busy nights, getting thoroughly in the weeds and finding his own way out. After one particularly grueling Friday night, he sat slumped in a seat, his feet and back throbbing. He had never felt so utterly exhausted and happy from the inside out. Even his lack of a girlfriend didn’t hurt so much. He’d had a few hookups, none of them memorable in any way. But they kept him on a slightly even keel, except for the occasional dream involving Felicia, Sophie, floggers and spanking benches. Evan believed himself firmly in control of his inner sexual deviant, although at times he missed the rough energy of a hard session with a willing submissive.

He had even gotten to a comfort point with their potential output and was ready to bring on a metro Detroit distributor. The one he wanted – Dawson Associates – had agreed to meet with him, although the president’s assistant had left little hope he would be taken seriously. So he and Suzanne crunched the numbers and put together a killer presentation. The brewers packaged two cases of their existing products and mockups of their proposed bottles filled with exclusive tastes of upcoming brews. He was ready.

* * * *

Monday dawned bright, clear, and cold, even for an October morning. Evan ran his usual route around the west side of his newly adopted town, relishing how strong he felt and looking forward to his workday – the one where he had a tight grip on his own destiny for a change. After a long hot shower, two huge cups of coffee, and an apple, he grabbed his presentation thumb drive and laptop and headed out.

One of the things he’d inherited from his father was a love of classic English cars. He had sold two of the three Jags, kept his favorite and bought an MG Spyder, not giving a shit at how much it cost to keep the damn thing running properly. As he sped in his sports car across Interstate 96 on his way to the far-flung Northern Detroit suburbs to sweet talk, finagle, and wow the big-time distributor, he was on top of his own personal mountain. Nothing would spoil the day. He refused to allow it.