I’ve known Hector since our freshman year at college. One semester in, and we left the dorms behind and got a house. It was a match made in heaven. He’s an eternal optimist, and I’m a sarcastic ass. He’s got a degree in computer science—yes, the unfiltered pervert is a brainiac—but the minute I told him about opening the brewery, he was one hundred percent in. Now he’s my right-hand man, and I couldn’t keep a level head without him. He’s been keeping up the paperwork while I’ve been dealing with the mess.
“Don’t you have emails to send or some shit?”
“Look man, you know I only have your happiness in mind. And this is the first girl since—”
I spear him with a hard look. “Don’t. Stop right there.”
We don’t talk about the accident. Ever.
He drops the bag of Combos on the bar and holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine. Let me just ask you one question.” His boyish features turn firm the way they always do when he’s about to get serious. “When you woke up today, what year was it?”
“Fuck you.”
Hector doesn’t budge. “Answer me, Blaze. What year was it?”
Fine. I’ll humor him. I square my shoulders and face him head-on. “2019.”
“Exactly. 2016 is gone, man. You gotta stop living there. Pack your shit and move on.”
He says that like it should be easy. Take my baggage and run. Run from the past. Run from the pain. But the pain is a beast, an angry, hungry beast, and I’ve been feeding it for three years.
How do you run from a hungry beast?
Service Professional is busy cleaning up the residual water from where firefighters put out the fire. Once that’s done, they’ll check for mold spores, then we can start cleaning up the smoke residue and soot. Then I can get my life back.
This brewery is my home. I gave up everything to chase a dream, and I’ll be damned if I watch it crumble. I’m thankful as shit that fire didn’t make its way past the patio. If it had gotten to my kettles or tanks, I might as well have just cut my own balls off and served them to my father on a silver platter.
As if his ears were burning, my cell phone vibrates in my back pocket. When I pull it out, I see Dad’s name on the screen.
“Were you ever going to tell your mother and me about the fire?” He’s already started with the guilt trip, and I’ve barely even said hello.
Then again, Chase Abbott isn’t one for small talk. He runs a billion-dollar banking industry. His time is literally money.
I grab a bottle of scotch and a glass and fill it to the rim.
Dear old dad continues his rampage. “Hell, Blaze. Levi even knew about it for Pete’s sake.”
Fuck Pete. And fuck Levi.
“Well, I sure as fuck didn’t tell him.” I haven’t talked to my brother in three years, not since the funeral. I could go three hundred more without a word, and it wouldn’t make a shit’s bit of difference to me.
“He saw it on the news.” Of course he did. Fucking media always sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong, especially when it comes to an Abbott. “It’s a sign, son. It’s time to stop playing this little game of yours and come home.”
Home. If home means a twelve-acre estate on the coast of New York where my mother drinks herself to sleep every time Dad forgets an anniversary or works through a holiday, then I’m good where I am. They say alcohol numbs the pain. I guess that’s why I own a brewery.
“It’s not a game, Dad. It’s my life.” I take a sip of my scotch and watch guys in yellow polos clean up what’s left of said life. I’ve been brewing beer since college. It was my thing. It’s always been my thing, and I’m damn good at it.
I started my brewery without borrowing a single penny from my parents. Maybe that’s what pisses him off the most, that my success has shit to do with him.
“Goddammit. Blaze, you’re killing your mother. She’s a disaster.”
I’m killing her? Mom was dead inside before I ever hit high school. He’s not pinning this shit on me.
“I’m not coming home. And I gotta go. They need me to help clean up.” It’s bullshit. Those guys are doing just fine without me, but I’m not wasting another minute on a dead-end conversation. “Great talk, Dad. Tell Mom I love her.”
I end the call and look across the room to the patio area, glancing over the charred wooden beams and dangling wires. Sheets of aluminum from the tin roof hang on the outer edges of the building, and the scent of burnt cedar dominates every breath I take. Two of the walls inside the taproom area are covered in soot along with most of the tables and chairs, but thanks to a wall of double-paned, bulletproof glass that separates the brewing area from the serving area, nothing made it past that point.
I chug the rest of my scotch back in one long gulp. Then I refill my drink and lean against the back counter where the taps are, sipping slower this time, watching as the yellow polo guys set up sump pumps and dehumidifiers.
This is going to be a bitch to clean up. But she’s my bitch, and there’s not a motherfucking thing that could make me let this one go.
If anyone had told me three days ago that I would be sitting at a high-top in the middle of a sports bar drinking beer and eating cheeseburger sliders with Jake, I’d have looked at them like their head was screwed on backward. Yet here I am, watching Jones and Gustafsson on the big screen while all around me men grunt and shout every time one of them connects a strike.
One of the guys in the fight, the blond one, takes down the other guy and the table of men next to us lets out a collective groan. There’s enough testosterone in this building to fuel a small village.
This is our “date.” This is where he brought me. There isn’t enough chocolate or cheesecake—or chocolate cheesecake—in the world for Brody to be able to pay me back for this.
“I hope this is okay. I wasn’t sure if candlelight dinners were your thing,” Jake says as he takes a swig from his Michelob Ultra.
I’m not sure I have a thing. If I do, I haven’t been on enough dates to figure it out, but I know that being alone in the dark with Jake is not it.
“It’s fine.”
He smiles at my response, triumphant, like he’s proud of himself. Jake is not a bad guy. He’s gorgeous, has a good job and most of the time, when he’s not being arrogant and superficial, he’s a decent human, yet I still can’t bring myself to want anything to do with him. Mostly because he’s completely clueless about the female population and what we want.
He points to the two sliders left on my plate. “You gonna eat those?”
Before I finish answering him, he’s reaching across the table and helping himself.
Jake shoves a slider in his mouth then washes it down with the rest of his beer. “I never told you this, but—” Something happens on the TV that makes him jump to his feet and throw both hands in the air with a yell.
The entire bar shouts with him, and I’ve never been more thankful for one dude punching another dude in the face than I am right now. The fight is over. Jones won. And Jake is thoroughly distracted.
“The dartboard is finally open. Wanna play?” he asks, obviously—and hopefully—forgetting whatever it was he was about to say a minute ago.