Jonah shivered, disturbed by both the blood oozing out of Carl’s head, and the visual of what had brought them to this moment. He searched for Winona and found her crying into Sacha’s chest. Around her shoulders was Sacha’s expensive coat, while Sacha spoke too quietly to her for Jonah to hear what he was saying.
He couldn’t see Sacha’s face either, and it was as frustrating now as it had been at the office. Or maybe it was something else. Jonah forced himself to focus on Winona, on her tear-streaked face and trembling shoulders. He felt sick, but he didn’t have time to choke on it. Carl was still bleeding and there was no sign of the paramedics a passer-by had called.
Jonah shed his coat and his suit jacket, and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the fitted T-shirt he wore beneath. He yanked it over his head, leaving him briefly bare and exposed to the chilly night air. Loud whistles reached him, but he ignored them, zeroed in on Carl, and folded the T-shirt to press to the wound on his head.
Carl flinched, but grasped the makeshift dressing while Jonah put his clothes back on.
When Jonah looked at him again, his pained gaze was still amused. “What?”
Carl cocked a bloodied eyebrow. “Nothing. Just absorbing the fact that the Russian computer nerd was looking at you like he wants to eat you.”
Jonah forced himself to keep still and not spin around to check out whatever Sacha was doing to make Carl’s face light up. “I don’t know any computer nerds, so whatever you thought you saw is probably the result of concussion.”
“Oh yeah, so why is he even here? I don’t see any other Blutecc weirdos floating around.”
“Don’t call them weirdos. Sacha saved your skin this morning. Without his intervention, you’d have gone into that meeting blind.”
“Sacha now, is it?”
“Stop.” Jonah replaced Carl’s hand on his balled up T-shirt with his own. “Unless you’re mouthing off to distract yourself from the pain, in which case carry on, but at least change the subject.”
“Okay, Lord Reasonable. Still think he was checking you out, though.”
Blue lights interrupted them before Jonah could verbalise a response. Police and paramedics arrived on scene, quickly separating them. Jonah found himself corralled by a burly police officer, but had little to add to the discussion. “I didn’t see anything. I came out of the pub next door when Winona came to find me.”
“What’s your relationship to these people?” The officer gestured to Carl, Nico, and Winona whose face was still streaked with tears.
“I’m their employer.” Jonah dug ID from his wallet and handed it over. “We came out for a drink after a successful day at the office.”
“That went well,” the officer deadpanned. “What about him?”
Jonah followed the policeman’s jerked head to Sacha as Sacha happened to glance in his direction. Their eyes locked. The melee faded, and for a split, heart-pumping second, it was just them. Jonah smiled a little. “He’s my friend.”
Sacha smiled too.
It took an age to unpick the carnage of a quiet after-work drink. The assailant Nico had put down wasn’t seriously hurt. He was arrested and taken away, as was Carl in the back of an ambulance with another FG staff member for company.
Jonah stayed behind to negotiate on Nico’s behalf while Sacha remained with Winona as she gave her account to the police.
An hour had passed by the time Nico was free to leave the scene, the police believing Jonah’s assurances that they could find them all, Nico included, at FG if they needed further information.
“Thanks, boss,” Nico said. “I thought they were going to arrest me.”
“They probably would have if the door staff hadn’t backed you up. They didn’t take a blind bit of notice of me.”
Nico shook his head and rolled his gaze to the heavens. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“About what?”
“Never mind. I’m tired. I’m gonna go home. Will you make sure Winona’s okay?”
“Of course. Do you have cab fare?”
“Yes, Jonah. I’m not twelve.” Nico stomped away, leaving Jonah to find Sacha and Winona who’d decamped to a bench on the other side of the street.
Sacha regarded Jonah, his golden eyes narrowed with something Jonah was too tired to decipher. “I called a car for Winona,” Sacha said. “We go with her, yes? Take her home?”
“Of course.” Jonah dropped onto the bench and wrapped a platonic arm around Winona. “I’m sorry this happened to you. And that Carl and Nico got caught up trying to help. I should’ve been there.”
Winona snorted. “Why? We’re not your children. Stuff like this happens all the time.”
“Well, it shouldn’t. It’s not okay for random drunks to put their hands on you.”
“I know that, but you being there wouldn’t have stopped it happening, and it might’ve been you who took a bottle to the head instead of Carl.”
Sacha made a low noise and stood, drifting away from them and across the road to buy pizza from the cart by the pub.
Winona watched him go. “He’s nicer than I thought he’d be.”
“Why would you think he wouldn’t be nice?”
“Dunno. He seems kind of moody when I see him at the office, and I’ve never seen him smile.”
“He smiles plenty.”
Carl would’ve asked Jonah how he knew, and seen straight through whatever bullshit answer Jonah’s tired but wired brain spat out. But Winona didn’t ask. She put her head on Jonah’s shoulder and stared into space until Sacha returned with pizza slices and cans of lemonade.
The carbs and sugar sobered Jonah to the point he could hardly recall the four drinks he’d sunk before Sacha had joined him. The jolt in his belly when Sacha had walked into the pub felt like it had happened to someone else.
Winona stopped shaking too. She came back to herself and walked to the car that rolled up sometime later with steady legs.
They took her home.
Jonah escorted her into her building while Sacha waited in the car. Winona lived with her brother. Jonah explained the turn the evening had taken, then escaped the fraternal rage-storm brewing and jogged down the stairs. At the bottom, his hand shook on the door handle. He took a breath and retracted it, shoving it into his pocket as he backed up to the bottom step.
He sank down. Nausea bloomed in the pit of his stomach, and darkness threatened his vision. He leaned forwards, hunching over his knees, only half aware of the door opening and light from the street brightening the dim hallway.
“Jonah.” Sacha dropped down beside him and pressed a warm hand between Jonah’s shoulder blades. He didn’t say anything else, just rubbed soothing circles into Jonah’s back as they sat in the unfamiliar hallway, cloaked in a silence Jonah hadn’t known he needed until it was there.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a while. “Clearly I can’t handle my booze.”
Sacha snorted softly. “I have seen you drink more and be fine. Perhaps it is seeing your friends attacked that has rattled you.”
“I’m not rattled.”
“Then you are a liar.”
Sacha spoke without malice, but his hand on Jonah’s back stilled, as if the tiny fib had offended him too much to keep moving.