But when the knock sounded on my front door, I scrambled up from the couch, certain that Nadine was standing just outside the house, wanting to talk to me for whatever reason she might have. It didn’t matter what the reason was. I just wanted to see her again, consequences be damned.
“Nadine?” I ripped the door open only to find her brother Simon standing there. “Oh.”
“Nice to see you, too,” he said, wry.
“Sorry,” I said, offering him my hand. “You just weren’t the sibling I was hoping for.”
He shook it. “I’m the sorry one, then. Or Nadine is.”
“I don’t know about that.” Because she hadn’t wanted to be with me. And I couldn’t fathom talking to her, even if I really had wanted the knocking on my door to be her. “Does Nadine know you’re here?”
“No. Is that a problem?”
“No, it’s not a problem. I just… I got a text from her phone. That was you, though, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Hope you don’t mind. I was hoping to talk to you, if you were free right now.”
“Sure thing.” I didn’t have anything to lose. “You going to get in trouble if she finds out you sent me a text from her phone?”
“She’ll find some way to get her revenge, and she likes it best served cold. You have a minute?”
“I’m not doing anything right now.” Except hoping that things would somehow turn out differently. “Come on in.”
“Thanks.” He followed me inside, then looked around. “You know, this is a really nice place. Cleans up well after my sister had enough time to crap it up. She’s so messy.”
I found myself chuckling in spite of the awkwardness of everything. “She is hopeless. I complained about it once, and her version of ‘helping’ was to toss out the mash I was brewing for my beer.”
“Oh, she didn’t.”
“True story.” I looked around the house. I’d kept it tidy even if I had been holed up in here for the past few days. “I can’t really imagine how she pulled this off. It looks really nice in here.”
“She pulled it off because I did it, as a thank you.”
I stared at Simon. “Um, not to rehash old drama, but I punched you. Repeatedly. In the face.”
“Yeah, I probably would’ve been less inclined to make the place look as nice as it does if I’d known that was going to happen,” Simon said, but he was smiling. Now that I knew what to look for, I actually could see the family resemblance. They both lit up like there was nothing bad in the world when they smiled.
“I’m really sorry about that, and sorry for exploring the whole sibling incest”
“Say no more,” Simon said, holding his hands up. “All is forgiven and forgotten.”
“I only thought you all were having sex”
“Please, the mental images are just disgusting on so many levels. First of all, I’m her brother. Second of all, I’m gay, so don’t even come at me with that.”
“We were having problems, your sister and me,” I blurted out, unable to process all of that. “I thought you being here was just the natural progression of everything going to hell.”
“The reason you were having trouble with Nadine…” Simon trailed off, and looked like he was having an argument with himself. “You know what? Fuck it. This isn’t mine to tell, but I’m going to do it, anyway. I’ve protected Nadine all my life, but now I’m trying to protect her best interests.”
That sounded pretty serious. “Do you want a drink?”
“Do you have one? Maybe one of those beers my sister ruined?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I think I might have one or two of those. I’m supposed to have this tasting thing at the bar in the next week or two. I’ve been brewing nonstop.”
“Sounds great.”
As soon as we both had our beersI felt like I needed one even more than I thought Simon did and were sitting on the couch, he continued.
“Something you need to know about Nadinewell, about both of us, really comes from our childhood,” Simon said slowly, like he was trying to talk himself into laying bare this revelation.
“Look, if you don’t want to tell me, don’t feel obligated,” I said. “There’s no good reason to draw this whole thing out.”
“I think the best reason to do so is that my sister still loves you.”
That laid me out worse than a fist to the jaw, and Simon probably owed me a couple free jabs. “She said she didn’t.”
“Unless I misheard her, she said she didn’t want to love you. That means something completely different.”
I shook my head. “If, for whatever reason, she doesn’t want anything with me, I completely get it. I respect that. She doesn’t want me. Your sister said”
“It’s because you’re former military,” Simon said, cutting off my circle of unhappy babbling. “Even worse, because you were a Marine.”
“Still a Marine,” I said automatically. It had become a knee-jerk reaction to that very statement. I might’ve been a veteran, but there was no “former” to being a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine.
“Exactly.”
“I’m not sure what point I’m supposed to be taking from this,” I said slowly.
“My sister doesn’t like to date men with military backgrounds, is the point,” Simon explained. “But she fell for you long before she knew you were a Marine.”
“Why?”
“Because our father was a Marine, and he was a piece of shit.”
My heart was sinking. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Not sorrier than we were to live through it.” Simon sighed. “He was in the Vietnam War, and he didn’t come back right from it. Never got over things. It probably didn’t help when our mother died not long after Nadine was born. When our father wasn’t busy neglecting and ignoring us, he was berating us like we were little Marines ourselves. Nadine got the worst of it, even though I tried to stop it. I think she just looked too much like our mother.”
“I had no idea.”
“It wouldn’t be something she’d give up willingly. But she blames the militaryand the Marines, in particular for our childhood. I did my best to raise her, but I’m only four years older than she is. During high school, I wasn’t around to help defuse him. I think she just stayed with friends as often as she could.”
I hated the image I had in my head of Nadine terrorized like that, hated that there wasn’t such a thing as a time machine so I could go back to mitigate the damage that growing up like that would’ve caused.
“If she’s interested in a guy and finds out he has a military backgroundeven if he’s just an Army brat and never enlisted himself she won’t have anything to do with him,” Simon said. “That’s how badly scarred she is from everything.”
“Where’s your father now?”
“Died about five years ago. Lung cancer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said automatically, like my knee jerking reflexively against a doctor’s rubber hammer.
“Would I be a bad son if I told you I celebrated it? You don’t have to answer that.” He smiled ruefully. “The old man had his demons. An understanding person could forgive him for that. But the fact that he terrorized us into places that include Nadine hating anyone who’s a Marine…that’s a little more complicated.”
“If she really feels like that, then there isn’t any reason we should be together.” I looked at Simon. How could I feel even more hopeless than before? “I’ll always be a Marine. I’ll always be a source of that pain for her.”
“I’m of the opinion that my sister should just go ahead and get over our past.”
I recoiled. “Jesus, man. That’s harsh. I hope you haven’t ever told her that.”
“In as many words, I have. I’m doing my best to look out for her. Her hang-ups are a detriment to her happiness, and that’s what I’m really worried about.”
“Shouldn’t you be more worried about the fact that she doesn’t want to be with me?�
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“She does want to be with you.”
“I’m a Marine. That’s a source of pain for both of you.”
“She loved you before she knew about your service. That’s the thing that matters. She called me months ago, desperate for me to help her, but I told her if she loved you, she should give it a chance. When things seemed like they were imploding, which was right around Thanksgiving, I finally came out here.”
“Where are you originally from?” I asked, trying hard not to show how much that simple admission stunned me. Things really had gone to hell around then, mainly because Nadine and I were having some really good moments coupled with some really bad ones, as she tried to thrash her way out of the relationship, a slave to the demons her father instilled in her.
“Living in New York City now,” he said.
“Rio Seco’s a long way to come help your sister with relationship drama.”
“Maybe, but there’s something I need you to look at some homework, really.”
“Homework?”
“Visit Nadine’s online portfolio.”
“I’ve done that before.” I swallowed at the way that statement tasted in my mouth. “It’s really good.” That was God’s honest truth. I hadn’t meant to diminish it. I just didn’t think I could look at the work again. It made me love her too much, and if we weren’t going to be together, then I simply couldn’t do that to myself.
“Do it again,” Simon said. “Believe me.”
“You know, I should really be going,” I said. “I have a lot of work I need to do at the bar.”
“My sister knows you well enough to understand that’s just an excuse for you to deflect whatever you don’t want to deal with until later.” Simon gave me a smile that was more compassionate than grim.
“I guess she does. But I really should get to the bar. I’ve been kind of shirking my duties there since Thanksgiving.” And it was just a hell of a good excuse to get out of here for a while.
“Believe me, Brody. You’re going to want to revisit her portfolio.”
“I’ll take care of it. Just…just not now.” Because I didn’t think I could. Because I was already in so much pain that I didn’t see how I could stomach any more.
“As long as you promise to”
“I promise. Damn.”
“I’m trying to tell you it’s important.”
“I believe you. I just have to work.”
Simon looked unconvinced, features positioned in a way that reminded me of his sister way too much. “Okay. I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Do you know where Nadine is?” I asked, the words springing forth unbidden.
“Yes.” The single syllable carefully considered and formed.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said, waving my hands in front of me. “I don’t want to I just didn’t think she was staying here at my place anymore, and I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“She’s fine,” Simon said. “Well, you know. As fine as she can be. But you’re right. She’s not staying here anymore. What made you realize it?”
I snorted with helpless laughter. “Just how fucking clean the place is, for once.”
Simon grinned. “You like it? She asked me to do it.”
“Really? She asked you to do this?” I looked back over my shoulder at everything. As impossible as it was given the fabric, even the couch seemed to shine, and it was thoughtful that she would assume doing this would mean so much to me. It really did.
“Why do you sound so surprised? It certainly wasn’t Nadine. We both know how sloppy she is.”
“Yeah…” But even that was more of a pleasant memory than an exasperation. “Well, thanks.”
“Kind of did it for her.”
“I get that. Thanks for doing it all the same.”
“Brody, I’m serious about the portfolio.” Simon leveled a look at me that pinned me in place, held in the sigh of exasperation that had threatened to expel itself from my lungs. “Don’t forget about it. If you want to repay me for the house makeover, or say sorry for Thanksgiving, look at the portfolio. Things will make a lot more sense.”
“I’ll look at it.” I sighed in spite of my promise. I didn’t think anything would make more sense. Even Simon’s revelations about all the reasons his sister had an aversion to me hadn’t led me any closer to a resolution aboutNadine. “You’re absolutely invitedboth of you to the beer tasting event at the bar if you’re still in Rio Seco next week.”
“Something tells me we’ll still be here,” he said, smiling. “Looking forward to your event. You brew a damn delicious beer.”
“Thanks for saying so.”
It was hard to explain it, but once Simon left, I felt surprisingly more at peace. That didn’t mean I thought Nadine was going to take me back, or that I even thought there might be an opportunity for some sort of a second chance.
I had answers, and the knowledge that Nadine hadn’t yet left Rio Seco. She was sticking around for something, and that meant everything in the world to me.
Chapter 10
I was nervous for multiple reasons by the time my beer tasting event rolled around. I’d been pimping it constantly on social media, using the photo that Nadine had magicked together to win Jack over. I wondered if she’d see it, and what she would think about it if she did. I wanted there to be a good turnout, to prove to Jack that these kinds of events were sustainable. I wanted people to try my beer and like it. And I really wanted Nadine to show up, even if part of me didn’t think it was very likely. If she found out that Simon had spoken with me behind her back, she’d probably leave town just to spite him. I tried not to think about it. I knew through the grapevine that she wasn’t working at the bar anymore, but Simon had told me they’d still be in town for this. I had to hold on to that.
The day of the event, though, there were so many things going on that it was easy to get caught up in the act of doing and forget about my worries. We opened the bar, all the Horizon guys in attendance, and then it absolutely filled up. Both regulars and people I’d never seen in here grabbed spots at the tables, the bar, and anywhere they could stand. Everyone wanted to try my beer, even the rest of the guys.
“Give it a chance,” I practically begged all of them. “It might get away from you, at first, but leave yourself open.”
“I don’t care how it tastes I just think it’s great you actually did this,” Ace said, pounding me on the back.
“Plus, it’s good to see you back in the bar,” Sloan said. “Don’t tell Ace, but you’re a better bartender than he is.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Ace complained. “Just because I won the turkey bet doesn’t mean you have to be all bitter.”
“Um, you didn’t win the turkey bet,” Chuck cut in. “Brody never gave us a winner.”
“Just one question,” I said. “How in the hell was I supposed to know which turkey was which? It was all just piled on the plate.”
All three of them blanched. “Who fixed up the plate for you?” Ace demanded.
Sloan raised his hand somewhat reluctantly, and Chuck shook him. “How could you?”
“You all trusted me, so it’s your fault,” Sloan said, dashing away, Chuck and Ace in pursuit.
“Aren’t you going to yell at them not to run inside?” I asked Jack, who was looking at the beer in his hand like it might bite him.
“I’m not their dad,” he said. “And you’re the general manager.”
“Only when you don’t feel like taking care of a problem.”
“Which is my right.” He took a long, sudden swig of my beer, and my eyes widened with surprise.
“Don’t,” I said, shaking my head at Jack as he started to say something. “I know you hate it. I’ll pour you a whole pitcher of your favorite shitty, cheap beer if you can keep yourself from blowing wind up my skirt about my brew.”
“I wasn’t going to blow wind up your skirt,” he claimed. “I was going to give you an honest review.”
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br /> “Then let’s hear it,” I said. “How much do you hate the brew?”
“I don’t hate it at all.”
“You’re a damn liar.”
“Come on,” he complained, spreading his hands. “Can’t you give a guy a chance to redeem himself a little?”
“Only if you’re going to renounce your evil ways and shitty, cheap beer.”
Jack paused. “I’m not going to go that far. But I will say that your brew is really good.”
“Stop.”
“I will not. I like it and I think everyone who’s tried it likes it.”
“You’re just saying that because you have to say it.”
“I don’t have to say shit.” He gave me a crooked grin. “I’m your boss. If this had gone badly, I would’ve just fired you.”
“You’d never fire me. That would mean you’d have to do actual work.”
“You do have a point there,” he conceded. “I’ll back up. If this event had gone badly, we just wouldn’t have any others like it in the future.”
I gaped briefly at him. “Are you telling me you want to have more tastings like this?”
“Do you think you could keep coming up with new brews on a regular basis?”
“How regular are we talking?”
“Weekly?”
The gape was a lot longer. “That would be…I mean, amazing, but hard to pull off, at first. I’d have to do a lot of work to get to that point, but I could try.”
“Then try.” Jack considered the crowd, then his own empty glass. “I guess I kind of underestimated the way craft beer would take off in Rio Seco. It just seemed like more of a cheap, shitty beer town.”
“I think this place is revitalizing in more ways than we can see,” I said. “I could call my contacts at all the different breweries I’ve been visiting, if you wanted, to get some regular tastings.”
“That could work. But you should definitely be working on your own brews. I think most people turned up because it was you.”
“I think most people turned up because they wanted to get drunk. I think they just bought my brew out of some misplaced sense of loyalty.”
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