Chapter Three
“Here, hold Her Highness for me,” Evelyn said, handing Rose to him over the top of the cluttered work table. Brock took the baby in one arm and set the computer tablet in front of his sister-in-law. “Thanks.” She tugged the tablet closer to study it while he walked around the large office, jiggling the fussy kid.
He’d discovered his inner nurturer as Uncle Brock and never turned down the opportunity to hold his niece. If anything, it calmed him. His therapist had walked him through endless discussions about it but he preferred to simply appreciate the sensation of her warm, milky-smelling body in his arms, the scent of her light-blonde hair, the way she would grin at him, flail her arms and bop him on the nose with a giggle.
Now that she was mobile, she couldn’t stand to be held, which kept his brother and Evelyn on their toes. They had a full-time nanny but if they were both working late, she would bring the baby to the brewery after five, like she’d done today.
The brewery was in the middle of a massive ramp-up of product as the decision to export beer overseas had been made, in light of the domestic competition in the craft beer sector. They had high hopes for a massive sales rise, but in the interim it meant running the brewery on a twenty-four-seven cycle. Something that had necessitated bringing in Ross Hoffman, the guy who was the biological father of the little girl who was attempting to climb his shoulders.
“We are fucking certifiable,” Evelyn groaned before putting her head down on her arms. “We’ll never meet this goal. I don’t care how many people Ross runs through in there.”
“Well, he’s not really doing the running through, you know. Hey, cut it out.” He pulled Rose off his head, wincing as she brought two handfuls of his hair with her. He tucked her under one arm like a flour sack, making her squeal and giggle as he galloped around the space a few times.
“I know. It’s Elle. Between them, she and Ross are gonna make this happen, but I’m not sure at what cost, personnel-wise.”
“I guess it’s a good thing their, ah, chemistry worked out so well.”
She shot him an arch look as he flopped onto the couch, exhausted from a four a.m. run, and a full day of work as the official brewery gopher. Rose clambered up his torso again, then settled herself on the back of the couch, kicking at his shoulder, sucking her thumb and studying her mother from across the room.
“Yes. I suppose that it is.”
His phone buzzed with a text. As he dug it from his pocket, he felt the regular evening ritual creep up on him. The ant army was mustering along his spine, readying themselves for the march up to his scalp. He sighed and stared down at the message, blinking when he realized who it was from.
Hey, Brock. Wondering if you’d like to come over tonight for dinner. It would be safe. Other friends are coming, too. XO. Caro.
His little niece chose that moment to straddle his neck and yank his hair, which was a perfect distraction. He tossed the phone down and stood, delighting the girl, who kicked and flailed and made word-like noises that sounded like “Bock! Bock!”
Evelyn glanced up at her daughter, who was currently astride Brock’s shoulders. “Great. She says that before she says Ma or even Da?”
“I have that sort of effect on ladies, you know.”
“Or she could be doing her chicken imitation. She’s somewhat fascinated by them, or at least videos of them.” She returned her focus to the tablet screen, scrolling through the production and sales projections for the coming weeks.
“Nice. Way to crush my tender ego, evil bitch,” he said as he headed for the door. Sitting was no longer an option. Caroline’s invitation remained on his phone, burning a hole in his brain. He needed to move around. “Want anything?”
“What?” She glanced up. “Oh, sure. If you don’t mind.”
“The usual?”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t drop my kid in the mash tun on the way.”
“I’ll do my best.” He held on to the girl’s legs as he made his way down the metal steps from Evelyn’s office to the original brewery floor. Elle, their new lady brewer, a petite German chick with wild-ass dreadlocks, tatts and piercings as far as his eye could see and an attitude just shy of a four-star general, had demanded that they run production not only in the main, modern brewery one building over, but also in this smaller, original version. Brewer-types scurried around, ramping up for the second shift as he wandered among them, allowing Madam Rose to soak up her fair share of attention.
He heard a door slam, a loud curse and a string of German. He walked over to let Elle see whose tender ears she was abusing before heading into the pub to fetch a beer for Evelyn and a ginger ale for himself.
Ginger ale. So lame.
But it was his only option, now.
Elle smiled up at the little girl as he took a few seconds to admire her in her labeled T-shirt, cargo shorts and rubber boots—the de rigueur brewer’s uniform. But on her it was especially nice since she always cut the neck of the T down to the black sports bra and sliced off the sleeves, leaving her lean, inked arms in full view.
“Looking good, as always, m’lady,” he said, tipping an invisible hat to her when he heard the answering growl of German behind him. Ross, the just-as-bossy prima donna German brewer Austin had met in school in Munich and who had, somehow, inserted himself in the middle of Austin and Evelyn’s relationship a few years prior. Resulting in the precocious girl now yanking on his hair again like a horse jockey.
He knew everyone was stressed beyond belief and making small talk at this point was useless. Besides, he’d spent a fair bit of energy flirting with the exotic, sexy Elle only to receive her firm rebuff—before she turned her attentions to Ross.
“God damn it, Hoffman, I knew you were a complete idiot, but I…” she was saying in accented English.
He wandered away, leaving them to their German-English tangle of argument. As he walked through the empty hallway behind the brewery that connected to the FitzPub, he hummed and chatted with Rose. Which allowed him to keep the evening ant-march at bay.
He rounded the corner and headed into the kitchen, pulling Rose down off his shoulders. There was too much hot grease and other crap flying around in there to be safe, much to Her Highness’ chagrin of course.
“Chill, sister. You’ll have plenty of other reasons to be pissy at me. Save it for a future moment.” He held on to the girl, waved at the cooks and other staff, then emerged behind the bar. The smell of beer hit him hard as it always did. He choked down the urge to fill a pitcher of Fitzgerald’s finest anything and drink it all at once.
Melody, the hot little Hispanic number who ran the place, was laughing with some patrons at the far end. The three bartenders were pouring, taking food orders, the usual. Once he set Rose on the bar near Melody, she proceeded to try to crawl down the expanse of sealed concrete.
“Whoa there, Miss Thing,” he said, snatching her back up and installing her on his shoulders once more. It seemed to be the safest place. “Jesus, she wears me out.”
Melody bumped his shoulder. “Everyone’s worn out these days, eh?”
“You can say that again.” He smiled when a woman he’d never seen before approached him and put down a coaster. “Hel-lo there,” he said with a grin, at the precise moment Rose sneezed. He felt the splatter against his cheeks and the top of the hand he had out to greet the lovely, strange new FitzPub employee.
“Gross,” the woman said, handing him a napkin. She didn’t even acknowledge the girl sitting on his shoulders. Odd, since that was the first thing most women noticed. As he swiped at the Rose snot, he watched her pour two beers for someone else, then turn back to face him.
She was tall, very thin, with huge, greenish-brown eyes, full lips and sharp cheekbones. Despite the heat, she wore a long-sleeved version of the FitzPub T-shirt, which engulfed her as if she were playing dress-up with someone else’s clothing. She smiled at him—if he could call it that since it was more a soft lifting of the corners of her lips for a few seconds, before she busied herself, pulling empty glassware out of the bar-level dishwasher and stacking them on their appropriate shelves.
“Who is that,” he whispered to Melody.
“Huh?” She looked up from her phone. “Oh, that’s Kayla. She’s Trent’s sister.”
“Trent? Your main man? Captain Business?”
She rolled her dark eyes at him. “Yes. Him.”
“Ah, I see.” He eyed the new chick’s rear view as she stretched to reach the highest shelves with the clean glasses. “I also see the resemblance.”
Melody shot him a look. “Hands off, lover boy,” she warned. “That girl is a hot mess.”
“Yeah? And I’m not?”
“Whatever. Listen, Trent and I are having people out to the lake house in a few weeks, once this craziness is done here. You’re invited. Bring a date.” She blew him a kiss and headed around the bar and into the kitchen, talking six miles a minute en Español.
“We’re a regular United Nations around here, aren’t we, Princess?” He kissed Rose’s chubby knee and sat for a few minutes, watching Kayla work. She was graceful, like a dancer, but never met anyone’s eyes for very long. She had a habit of tugging the already overstretched sleeves of the shirt even farther, as if hiding something.
And like that, he realized he was gazing at a fellow junkie. “Takes one to know one, kid,” he said, raising a finger to get her attention.
“Hi, I’m Brock Fitzgerald.” He held out the hand that hadn’t gotten befouled earlier. She did that weird almost-smile thing again and touched her fingertips to his before giving her sleeve another tug.
“Kayla,” she said, her voice soft and sing-songy. “Nice to meet you. This is your place?” She gestured around the bar.
“Ha! Hardly. Or better yet, I wish. It’s my brother Austin’s place. Well, his and Evelyn’s, I guess.” He pulled Rose down, mainly because his neck was getting a little too warm all of a sudden. “This beautiful creature is Rose Fitzgerald. My niece.”
“I see,” Kayla said as she observed the girl from a safe distance. “So what can I get you Mr. Fitz—?”
“Oh, Jesus, please do not call me that. It’s Brock. And I need a double IPA and a ginger ale. I’m running the beer up to Evelyn.” He smiled by way of covering his embarrassment at drinking ginger ale.
But her smile went a hair past ghostly as she pulled a to-go cup with a straw from under the bar and sipped. “I love the ginger ale myself,” she said, turning to pour his drinks.
Yep, he thought, as he held Rose on his lap and she giggled, grabbed the coaster and tried to cram the entire thing into her mouth. “Too many carbs, doll face.” He snatched the thing away from her and held it over his head while she worked her way into a snit. “Somebody needs a nap.” He tossed the half-masticated round of cardboard toward the garbage behind the bar, missing by half a mile.
Kayla picked it up and threw it away then put the two drinks on the bar, well out of Rose’s reach. “So, how exactly are you going to get two drinks and that,” she pointed her elbow at Rose, “up to Evelyn’s office anyway?”
“Easy peasy,” he said, slipping the girl back up to his shoulders. But she had other ideas and went stiff as a board, as her snit worked its way into a full-throated howl.
Kayla raised a dark eyebrow at him. He shrugged and pulled Rose back down, tucking her under his arm once again. “One at a time, I guess, unless I can convince your boss to let you take a few minutes away and give a guy a hand.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes had gone from light and amused to clouded and anxious during the time it had taken for him to speak. He frowned at the sight of what could be a bruise under her jawline. But then convinced himself it was a shadow. And either way, none of his business.
“I don’t know. I’d better not.” She ran a hand around her neck. Her nails were short, the edges red and inflamed looking.
A hot mess, he mused, as he imagined himself running his lips along her collarbones. His face flushed hot when she met his gaze again as if sensing his dirty thoughts. He cleared his throat and busied himself trying to calm the pissed-off baby.
“Go on,” Melody said, having emerged from somewhere. She patted Kayla’s arm. “He’s safe.”
Before he could mount a decent argument against that, Rose let out a screech that made the whole bar turn and stare. “Exit, stage left.” He hurried around the bar, holding the girl out in front of him like a hood ornament while she kicked and squawked, not even checking to see if anyone had bothered to grab his drinks and follow him.
But Kayla had indeed done that, and once he made it to the foot of the metal flight of steps up to Evelyn’s crow’s-nest-style office, Rose was calmly sucking her thumb, her sweaty head pressed into his neck.
“You’re a natural at that,” she said, waiting for him to ascend the stairs before her.
“Yeah. I’m as surprised as anybody about it, too.” Aggravation hit him then, right between the eyes. He was an almost thirty-nine-year-old man, reduced to running around at his brother’s beck and call, up to and including playing after-hour nanny to this kid. Forced to drink ginger ale and avoid women since he had no big-boy control over himself.
This kid you love, don’t forget that.
He smiled when his inner nice guy emerged, calming the devil that had attempted to escape. His usual evening battle. Nothing new to see here, folks. Move along.
He sighed and leaned against the wall, so exhausted that the thought of climbing the steps made him dizzy. Kayla waited him out, silent and observant, not offering to switch with him, he noticed. Another oddity for a female as the sight of the droopy, sleeping, blonde-haired little angel almost always brought out their inner mama hen.
But something about her presence calmed him in ways that no woman ever had. He felt himself relax, even as he got a closer look at her and realized that, but for her extreme thinness, she was an absolute stunner. “Okay, up we go,” he said to himself as he headed upstairs.
Evelyn glanced up from the spot where he’d left her, glaring down at electronic spreadsheets and futures reporting, her blue eyes bloodshot, her shoulders slumped. “Oh my God, can I ever use that.” She got up and stretched, then took the beer from Kayla, downing half of it in one gulp.
“Damn, now I’m really jealous of my stupid brother,” Brock said before laying Rose down on the couch and covering her with a small blanket. She shifted around and opened her clear blue eyes, smiling up at him.
“Bock,” she said, making little gimmie-gimmie motions with her fingers. Undone by this, he sat, brushing her hair back off her forehead until she dropped to sleep.
“Dude, you are a goner,” Evelyn said. He blinked as if emerging from a trance, mad at himself for not saying more to Kayla. But of course, she’d faded, vanished into the ether.
And a damn good thing, too, he reminded himself. The last thing you need is to fall for a fellow junkie. Besides, he had a date tonight.
He picked up his abandoned phone and typed out a reply to Caroline, not allowing himself to think about it, or for his logical mind to talk the rest of him out of it.
I’ll be there. But I need your address, and a time.
He hesitated, then sent it.
“You do realize that she’ll grow up and go out on dates someday, right?”
“Like hell she will,” he said. He rested a hand on the tiny girl’s chest, as dead serious as he’d ever been. “Her father and I will make sure that never happens.”
Evelyn chuckled and shook her head, finished the beer and sat back down while Brock stared at the messages emerging on his phone, telling him where to be, what time to be there and realizing that he might just have made a horrible mistake.