Chapter Ten

Damian

I shook my head and gritted my teeth as the door closed behind the girls. I hated when people tried to manipulate me into doing what they wanted, and Alex had perfected the art. Hell, she might as well have learned at my mother’s feet, she was so good. She just smiled, led, and people followed.

Granted, that smile was distracting as all hell, but I would not be manipulated. I knew she didn’t want me messing with the way they ran the brewery, but she had to understand if they streamlined some things, all those lists on her clipboard wouldn’t be so impossibly long.

In the past two and a half years, GSC had created and improved several businesses like Ice’s Brew Pub. We’d learned the hard way that existing businesses always underestimated what a tax an expansion would be on their personnel. If the expansion was done right, it almost always meant more money and profit for the business, but it also came with a whole slew of new problems.

I started digging into the sales files for the brewery. While some of it was on the computer, way too much of their invoicing was done the old fashioned way—through mail and paper billing, which meant files...lots and lots of files. Who actually mailed things in this day and age?

I couldn’t make sense of any of it.

That was the problem with a certain beautiful brunette who kept invading my thoughts, distracting my ability to think. I closed my eyes and could only see her magnetic, green-eyed gaze in my mind. I couldn’t concentrate. The fact that this office still smelled like her distinctive perfume didn’t help one little bit.

Dammit.

I threw the file down on the desk, frustrated. The walls were beginning to close in on me. I needed to get out of here, to move. And I needed to go do what I’d promised Walsh, talk to the crew and see what I could figure out about who might be sabotaging the business.

I could do that now, since my head was too wound up for paperwork.

Fuck. My back muscles tightened, pulling that scarred skin at the thought of confronting strangers. I stood from behind the desk. I knew from experience that putting it off just made my anxiety worse, not better. I needed to go and face them.

Yes, I’d seen them all—and more importantly, they’d seen me—just a few hours ago. But that was different. I hadn’t been their focus, and I was able to turn toward the wall so my scars were less visible.

I was tempted to throw my sweatshirt back on so I could wear the hood, but the temperature in the building had climbed steadily all afternoon. All the windows were wide open, so we caught the fresh mountain breeze, but if I wore a sweatshirt, I’d be dripping with sweat in minutes. I searched for another idea and noticed a Naked Brews cap thrown negligently on a high shelf.

I reached up and snagged the tan cap featuring an embroidered burnt orange Naked Brews logo down. With a slight adjustment to the snap-back, I tried it on for size, pulling it low over my forehead. This could work. At least I wouldn’t feel so exposed.

I grabbed the folder that held the shipping schedule for the month and headed back toward packaging. As I walked through the brewing room, nobody paid me much mind.

Several people worked in here, including the head brewer, Harlan. I wondered how he felt about Lake taking over the brewery. He seemed like a nice guy, but he was in his mid-fifties and had been working with Pat, Lake’s father, almost longer than she’d been alive. Had he resented someone like her, someone so young, taking over?

With the noise from the machinery, Harlan nodded his head at me in acknowledgement but let me walk by without discussion as he pointed something out on his clipboard to Colby, one of the other brewers.

Colby was younger than Harlan, probably in his mid-thirties. He was a quiet guy, and I hadn’t gotten a good handle on him yet. He’d stayed withdrawn at the wedding reception and watched most of the proceedings as a viewer rather than a participant. He wore a wedding ring, but I hadn’t seen any signs of the wife. He might be someone to get to know better.

Less than twenty people worked at Naked Brews. If someone here had a problem with management, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.

The break room was empty, which seemed odd. Granted, I hadn’t been back here a whole lot, but every time I had, it seemed like someone was hanging out, napping, or playing on the game system.

As I approached the door to the bottling room, I glanced inside through the glass window at the top of the door. The two young guys that had been joking about the fire earlier with Lake and Walsh were going at one another. One held the other in a headlock, both their faces tight and red with anger.

I rushed through the door just as Joe threw a punch that landed hard against the side of the kid’s head. Dammit, I couldn’t remember the kid’s name, although I knew I’d been told. His head snapped back with a spray of blood gushing out of his nose as he fell to his knees.

The kid came up swinging, fury marring his features. Joe had to outweigh the kid by at least eighty pounds, but that didn’t deter him at all.

The two guys grappled, would separate and come to blows before they’d start struggling again.

“Hey, cut it out,” I yelled. Should I try to shoulder my way between them? Because they didn’t look like they were going to stop anytime soon, and there was no one else around in this section of the brewery.

I dropped the folder to the floor and whistled between my fingers to get their attention. That worked. Well, the combination of the sudden noise and the fact that neither of them had the strength left to stand. They both slumped against the equipment and panted as they glared at each other.

I approached them. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I gestured toward the blood that had sprayed over some of the equipment. I might not know the specifics about running a brewery, but even I was aware that the bottling area needed to be kept sterile...and this wasn’t anymore.

The sound of running feet echoed, and Alex and Melissa careened through the doorway. Their eyes widened as they took in the disheveled men and the mess from the fight.

“Warner? Joe? Oh my god, what happened?” Melissa asked.

Alex pursed her lips, taking in the disarray of the room and scowled at the two men.

“There you go, loverboy,” Joe hissed to Warner under his breath.

I could hear their chirping, although the women stood too far away, so they couldn’t.

“I’ll bet she’ll kiss your boo-boo and make it feel better if you ask nicely.”

Warner lunged, and I grabbed him around his arms, physically lifting him off the floor before he could make contact. The kid didn’t have the size on him to take on me.

“Cool it,” I yelled, “before you both get fired.” Not that I had that kind of authority.

Alex raised an eyebrow, a look that basically said the same thing. How did she manage to even make that imperious expression look sexy? But she continued to stand back and let me handle the two men. Smart lady.

Melissa had no such compunction. She rushed toward Joe and gently touched his quickly swelling face. He jerked away with a wary glance at Warner.

Against my chest, Warner literally growled when she touched Joe.

“If you chill, I’ll let you go,” I warned, “but not until you fucking calm down.”

“Fuck you. In fact, fuck all of you.” Warner struck an elbow into my gut and scrambled out of my grasp. Without another glance at anyone, he stormed out the back door of the building.

I glanced down at the blood that had dripped onto my shirt. “Think he’s had his rabies shots this year?” No one reacted to my bad joke.

“Dammit.” Joe leapt to the corner, cursed, and flung a pile of flattened boxes.

Melissa jumped in fear at the sudden violence. I didn’t blame her. Guys could be unpredictable when there was this much leftover testosterone and adrenaline after a fight.

“That’s it,” I warned him. “You need to calm the fuck down before I fire you, too.”

“Too?” Joe’s eyes widened in alarm. “No, you can’t fire Warner. I’d rather you not fire me, either, but don’t fire him just because I said something stupid.” He glanced over at the girls uncomfortably. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been giving him a hard time.”

“What did you say?” I growled. Was Joe the one stirring up trouble for the brewery?

“He’s my friend, but I shouldn’t have riled him up like that.” Then with another glance at Melissa, he pressed his lips together. I frowned. There were a lot of undercurrents here stemming from Melissa that I didn’t understand. We weren’t going to get anywhere with her in the room.

I sent Alex a meaningful glance that she gave me a slight nod.

She gathered Melissa by the shoulders and started to usher her out. “Come on. We need to go get the bleach and cleaning supplies. I think Damian has this under control.”

When the door closed behind them, I turned on Joe. “She’s gone now. Tell me.”

He let out a gusty sigh. “Really, it was nothing. I don’t know why Warner gets his panties in a twist so easily. He’s had a crush on her forever, and he was already torqued about what I said this morning about the fire. He gets real touchy when it comes to her and how she’s been hurt a couple of times. He’s worried something else is going to happen with the opening coming up. Not that I blame him for that. Melissa’s a real sweet girl. I don’t like seeing her hurt, either.”

“Focus,” I instructed, or else the guy was going to ramble into the next week. “What caused the fight this afternoon?”

Joe shook his head. “It wasn’t anything serious. I just offered to set him up with this new girl I met last week at the Edge. She’s cute and blonde and little, just like Melissa. I thought maybe it might help take the edge off his temper if he could just get laid.” Joe pursed his mouth in thought. “I guess I shouldn’t have told him that, though. He got really mad, didn’t he?”

“Um, yeah.” Why did I suddenly feel so old? This was like junior high or life on one of those housewives shows that were always so ridiculous. “How old are you guys?”

Joe shrugged. “We’re both twenty-two.”

So, they were still young enough that their hormones and cocks were the ruling factor in their lives. I didn’t think I’d ever been as young and naive as these two. When I’d been their age, I’d already done two deployments, ugly ones where friends had died. Something about that harsh reality aged a guy quick.

“Do you think he’ll get over it?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. First, clean this place up. Then you can take a six-pack and go find him. Tell him you’re sorry, and things will probably be okay. Guys don’t generally hold grudges so you should be fine.”

Alex knocked on the door and dipped her head in. “Is it okay if we come in and get this all cleaned up?”

I nodded.

At the sight of her, my body surged to life, nerves tingling just under my skin and a slight sheen of sweat coating my back. Hadn’t I just been musing that my hormones and dick didn’t rule me anymore? What a fucking joke. She tied me up in knots without even trying. The question was...what was I going to do about it?