Honey Red

by Liz Crowe

  Ian scrambled to his feet and got as far from them both as he could. Nick stood, unclenched his fists, his face a mask of agony. “Get away from me Ian before I really hurt you.” His voice was hoarse. Brutus was plastered to his side, staring at Ian.

  “No, no, I’m fine. Do you need…medicine?” Ian put a hand to his bleeding nose and ignored the nauseating sound it made when he touched it. Dear God, the man could have killed him with his bare hands. But as he watched Nick crumple to the floor, hands over his face, his body curled in on itself and heaving with sobs he knew he had to help him. Had to drag the incredible person he’d once been back into the light of day. The dog whined again, standing over Nick’s heaving body, looking at Ian as if trying to get him to do something.

  He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and staunched some of the bleeding, pulled on his jeans, then crouched down on the floor, his hands hovering helplessly over Nick’s large, quivering form. It reminded him of his son, when the kid would break down after a particularly dramatic tantrum, spent and sobbing. He put his hands on Nick’s shoulders, tried to get him to roll over onto his back, but he curled in tighter, his hands over his ears. Ian sighed, pulled a blanket off the bed and covered Nick’s naked body. Brutus bumped into his hand, as if trying to tell him something. But he hadn’t felt this helpless since being handed a screaming infant and told it was his. He got some ice for his nose and fell onto the couch, contemplating how much he wanted to help but how little he’d done so far.

  He must have slept, because the next thing he knew the dog was whining and pacing the living room, whimpering and panting, staring at him. Ian watched the display for a minute, then when the dog hauled off and barked he jumped up and followed the animal back to the bedroom. Terror gripped him, sending shockwaves down his spine when he saw the empty prescription bottle and smelled the sour tang of bourbon. Fuck, how long had he slept? His nose and jaw hurt like a motherfucker, but his chest was tight with fear and dread.

  “Nick!” He banged on the bathroom door, jiggled the handle not surprised it was locked. “Open up you son of a bitch. You are not allowed to do this. Do you hear me?” he yelled, threw his shoulder against the solid oak door praying the nineteen-twenties era lock would give. It didn’t. He slammed into it over and over, while Brutus started howling like a wolf and scratching at the floor outside the door, shooting him looks of, “Hey, human, try those useful things you call hands and open the door already, would ya?”

  Ian took a deep breath, put his ear to the door and heard it then. “Go ‘way. Leave. Get the fuckout.” Slurred to be sure, but definitely still alive. His heart pounded, his nose started bleeding again from his efforts. He heard water start up behind the door while he bruised his shoulder trying to slam up against it and get the thing open. “Nick, you asshole. Get up, and open the fucking door, I mean it. Open the door!” He pounded on it, sending the poor dog into more paroxysms of howling and panicked scratching. The water kept flowing. Finally, Ian got his wits about him and dialed 911. Then he called Gavin, thinking if Alyssa were here Nick would listen. But he knew they’d gone back to Gavin’s house, which was a solid thirty minutes away.

  He leaned on the doors training his ears for sounds of life. When he looked down and saw water oozing out from under the door his vision darkened from the edges. “Nick!” he yelled. “Please don’t do this!” he heard the words leave his mouth, then the siren. He ran to the front door after throwing a shirt over his bare torso. The EMT took a look at his squashed, bloody nose and streaming eyes then pushed past him to the back where he pointed, defeated, sore and aching all over. “Nick,” he whispered, sinking to the floor, his head in his hands. Blood dripped from his nose to the dark wood.

  “Sir!” one of the paramedics barked from the doorway. “Can you please control this dog? It won’t let us near the door.”

  Ian jumped to his feet and ran in, grabbed Brutus’ lead and held him back. He tried to calm the animal with words and hands while the two men used a sledgehammer to destroy Alyssa’s guest bathroom door before barreling in, speaking in low and clipped tones as they pulled Nick’s limp form from the full bathtub. Ian buried his face in Brutus’s fur, praying as hard as he could remember from his mother-enforced years of parochial school. He heard the paramedics barking orders, trying to revive the man laid out on the bedroom floor.

  Time stopped, then rushed forward as he held on to Nick’s dog for dear life. He looked up when Alyssa ran in screaming Nick’s name. Gavin tried to pull her out of the way. The EMT’s were working, doing mouth-to-mouth, chest compressions, hooking up IVs and all sorts of shit. Ian clearly saw how blue his fingernails were, and finally took the dog and tried to drag him out. But Brutus put all of his nearly eighty-five pounds of Labrador muscle into staying put, whining and trying to claw his way over to his master.

  “Alyssa, honey, let them do their job.” Gavin tried to keep Alyssa calm but she was shrieking her brother’s name, hitting Gavin while trying to escape his grasp, finally she broke down and sobbed, letting Gavin hold her. Ian watched as if from a million miles away as the men worked to revive Captain Nicholas Traynor, Purple Heart and Navy Cross recipient, but nothing seemed to be working.

  Then, one of them put his stethoscope to Nick’s chest, yelled for the other one to hook up the oxygen and prep for an on-site intubation. He had a faint heartbeat, but they wanted to get him breathing one way or another. Ian gripped Brutus tighter. They all watched as a tube went down Nick’s throat, was hooked to an oxygen source and his chest started to rise and fall.

  “Oh, God,” Alyssa moaned. Gavin let go of her. She dropped down to her knees and brushed Nick’s hair back from his forehead, murmuring to him, kissing his cheeks, holding his hand. She looked up at Ian once, anger in her gaze. “What happened? What the fuck did you do?”

  Gavin started to step into it but Ian held him back. He handed the dog over to his brother and got on his knees next to Alyssa. “He woke up in a nightmare, beat the crap out of me,” she touched his sore nose but he shook his head. “But when he really woke up and realized what he’d done, he just…snapped. I thought he went back to sleep so I covered him up and left him alone and later the dog came to get me, and…,” his voice broke and he looked down at Nick’s washed-out face. One of the medics had turned off the water but they were still kneeling in it. “I think I…,” he muttered into Alyssa’s shoulder when she held him close. “I can’t do this…” he stood, and walked out without another word to anyone, the sound of the dog’s howling piercing his ear drums all the way out to his car.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hannah glared at her reflection in the small bathroom mirror.

  “Hannah!” her mother’s voice floated out from the kitchen. “Hannah, where are you going? Did you make coffee? Can you feed the cat? Hannah!”

  “God, mother what are you doing up this early? I have to go to work. Yes, the coffee is ready and I’ll deal with the cat later, he’s sound asleep on the couch last I saw.” She rolled her eyes at herself, yanked her hair up and tucked it under a cap, then turned, observing herself another minute. Her scalp tingled at the memory of Ian Donovan’s angry glare, his touch, his voice. Jesus, everything about the man did things to her she had no reason to justify.

  She blew out a breath. Ian was gay. She knew it, had known it, and besides she was just marking time until she found a real marketing job anyway. She had student loans and the brewery gig had come up quick and she’d leapt at it. It kept her local which she needed. All the justifications she’d used for the past six weeks crowded her brain.

  She smoothed her shirt down over her jeans, took a breath and walked into the kitchen. “Honey, really, why so early?” Her mother whined.

  “Brewing mom, I’m supposed to learn the process, you know so I can talk about it intelligently.” She poured a travel mug full of coffee and headed for the back door.

  “You will never get a real man selling beer you know.” Her mother called out, always needing the last
word at the expense of Hannah’s non-existent love life.

  “I know mom. I know.” She climbed into her piece of shit car. The engine sputtered to life, and she pointed it towards the outskirts of town. She only lived about ten miles from Ypsi Brewing, and the trip over gave her no time to contemplate why she even agreed to this ass-crack-of-dawn brewing session. She sighed and forced the memory of Ian’s huge green eyes, his mop of thick blond hair and the amazing span of his shoulders out of her head. He was all man, without a doubt, and one who preferred his own sex. She squared her shoulders. She’d been told in no uncertain terms by the bar manager that she was definitely not Ian’s type of gender. What she couldn’t quite figure out, was why every time she was around him, his masculinity seemed so…profound.

  She sipped her coffee while driving the few remaining miles to the brewery berating herself. It’s no wonder you think he’s hot. He’s the closest thing to a guy you’ve allowed yourself to consider for, what? Nearly seven years? Had it been that long? She sighed, and flicked the broken left turn signal manually. Yeah, it had. Seven solid years at least since she’d even had a second thought about a member of the opposite sex and a good thing too. She had piled up thousands of student debt dollars but had her MBA to show for it. And she sold beer for a living, or had at least attempted to for the last few months. There was no time for men in any way other than professional. She sat, clutching the steering wheel and pep-talking herself a minute before climbing out and unlocking the back door.

  The burble of fermentation and the ping-ping of warming up and cooling down stainless steel vats of beer met her ears. The smell was a pleasant combination of malty yeastiness now familiar and comforting. She stretched trying to shake the cobwebs out of her brain. She glanced at her phone –only five ten. She was early, as usual. She sighed and opened her laptop to peruse the sales numbers from the week. But the longer she stared the more the screen blurred, so after ten minutes she got up and walked into the giant cooler where their lagers were sitting in yet more huge stainless steel tanks. Kegs with the distinctive Ypsi Brewing label were stacked to the ceiling. She let the cold seep into her bones and get her good and awake, then pushed the doors open, assuming Ian would already be out there.

  She glanced around the corner, but the place was still empty. After checking his small, glass framed office that was still dark, she shrugged and decided to make coffee. She sat, watching it burble, as the clock eased past five-thirty. Then poured a cup and looked at her email. The usual mix of people asking for her ad money, donations for events, and distributors wanting point of sale swag filled it, but it had not changed since last night.

  Gritting her teeth, she forced herself not to dwell on her lack of a life. Between her loan payments, the rent, utilities and her mother she did nothing but work and pay bills and placate. She’d found herself in this job, knowing less than nothing about beer but willing to take the salary just to have an income. It had been fun and irritating in equal measure, mainly because of the man she’d dragged her ass out of bed for this morning, who was still a no-show.

  She sighed, sipped more coffee, and stared at the phone clock. Once it hit ten after six she cursed and grabbed her keys. But something held her back. Telling herself it was to put in a few hours of work before heading home, at the same time she acknowledged she was waiting for Ian to show up, pure and simple.

  By the time the door flew open, hitting the concrete wall with a bang, she was deep into her pity party, staring at the charts and graphs she’d created to drag the company into a more organized sphere of marketing. She jumped, looked over and sucked in a breath at the sight of him. His hair was sticking up as if he’d been running his fingers through it, his eyes wild, and his jaw brown stubbled more than usual. And his nose looked…crooked…and one eye was swollen shut. She clenched her fists under the table and looked away. “You’re late,” she said, closing her laptop. “I’m leaving.”

  “Wait, I’m…sorry.” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been partying or something given the state of his face, all night.

  Hannah sighed, tucked her computer into its case and stood. She would not be played, not even by the first guy in nearly a decade that made her wake up in a cold sweat, wondering why she had gone so long without getting laid. She jumped when his hand landed on her shoulder and shrugged away from him on reflex. Her skin was crawling, her brain burning and she had no reference for how much she wanted him to keep touching her.

  “Hannah, listen, I’m….” She turned, hearing something in his voice that made her hesitate before speaking. Her heart pounded. A long buried nurturing compulsion made her walk over to him, put a hand on his arm.

  “You okay? Shit, Ian… your face.”

  He looked down and then walked away from her. “Let’s get on with this.”

  She sighed. He’s gay Hannah, get a fucking grip.

  “Sure, okay, so, what’s first?”

  The next two hours were a total blur. She heaved giant malt bags, tested water pH, calculated something called “plato” and “original gravity,” stirred heavy malt beds, nearly singed her eyebrows off checking the temperature of the wort, measured and weighed hops, and let herself get utterly immersed and enthralled by the process and the man teaching it to her.

  At one point she looked over at him as he stared into the dark, one hundred twenty degree sugar water swirling around in the huge vessel. His eyes were haunted, his hands shook as he dipped the long thermometer into the liquid. Something was not right with him. She let him boss her around, watched as he ran the almost-beer through the heat exchanger, super cooling it to less than fifty degrees in a matter of minutes. He made her add the yeast at the bottom of the giant vessel, frowning when she screwed up and the stuff spewed all over her face. “Sorry,” she muttered. He cursed and went into the cooler for more yeast in solution.

  “Here, damn it, move, let me do it.”

  She stood, wiping the sweat from her forehead, pissed but unwilling to let on how much. His shoulders flexed and she bit her lip watching as he hooked everything up, shifting hoses, clamps and other random shit she was only just understanding until the yeast was “pitched.” He adjusted the temperature gauges and propped both hands on the vessel. It took her a half a minute to figure out his shoulders were heaving. She put her palm on one, loving the play of musculature under his shirt. But when he turned to face her, agony etched in every line of his handsome face, she gasped.

  He grabbed her, yanked her to him and buried his face in her neck. She gulped, patted his back, nervous and unsure, then took a chance and touched his hair. He felt so flawless in her arms it made her nearly choke. “Sorry,” he muttered, but kept holding her close, too close, making her react in an entirely scary way. He tightened his grip, molding her into his tall, strong frame.

  Oh, yeah, this was totally bad. But she closed her eyes, threaded her fingers in his thick hair and let herself have the moment.

  He pulled away and stared into her eyes but kept his amazing arms around her. She felt herself sink into him, until his next words. “I think I’m in love,” he muttered. “And he, uh, well, he tried to kill himself last night so I’m kinda doubting my existence. And you…you’re here and I, I’m…shit. Sorry.”

  “Oh, well, um…,” Hannah heard herself stutter, unable to respond in any coherent way. So she shut her mouth, disentangled from him, and allowed herself time to stare at his wide shoulders, strong arms, large hands at the moment resting on his hips. He was probably six foot four or five she’d guess, and didn’t appear to have an ounce of fat on him anywhere.

  And. He. Is. Gay, Hannah, snap out of it. He just told you he was in love for Christ’s sake.

  “So, now we clean,” he said, startling her out of the fantasy loop in her head—one starring this amazing man and herself. She shook her head and took the giant shovel-looking thing he held out. “Let’s go, this is the really hard part.”

  Ian dropped onto a ratty barstool and watched the young woman s
truggle with the trowel and wet, heavy spent mash they’d created when they drained the sugar water off the malt. He raised an eyebrow when she dumped an entire shovel full of the sticky stuff down her front, but stayed put, let her learn. That was the point of this—well, that and he had planned to seduce her. He groaned and put his head in his hands. When his phone buzzed on the worktable, he nearly fell off the chair.

  “Hey,” He said, dreading what Gavin was going to tell him.

  “Nice disappearing act. What the fuck was that about?”

  Ian sighed.

  “What are you a teenager? Seriously man, why did you just walk out?”

  He could hear hospital noises, and the guilt nearly bowled him over. “Sorry. I, uh, well….”

  “You are a lame fucker is what you are. Jesus.”

  “How is he?”

  “Why do you care? Alyssa was ready to come after you and gouge out your eyes. And I wasn’t inclined to stop her.”

  “Gavin, listen….”

  “No, you listen. This guy is damaged. We all know it. And you seducing him then bolting when things get messy is….”

  “I didn’t do that Gavin. Jesus. He…I…fuck.” He put his head down on the desk and let his brother berate him a few more minutes. “Can I see him?” Suddenly he wanted that almost as much as he wanted to get the hell away from the whole scene a few hours before. He was running on exactly zero sleep, his nose and jaw were killing him. His whole world was upside down. He wanted Nick, so badly, wanted to help, but something about that moment when Alyssa had looked up at him, wild fury in her eyes as she knelt over Nick’s lifeless form had triggered the sort of flight response he’d not experienced in years. He was not that guy anymore. He couldn’t be. He was a father, a responsible adult. Suppressing a groan he leaned over on his shaking hands.

  “Ow! Um…help?” He looked up to find Hannah nearly doing the splits, hanging on to the opening at the back of the mash vessel. She had one leg on the pallet holding the garbage bins and it must have slid in all the mess she’d made trying to empty the thing.