Page 57 of Employing Patience

I’m tempted to send out an email for overtime and kidnap my friends to make sure I have some there tomorrow night, just to see if he’ll volunteer for it like he always does. But I can’t spring something on everyone at the last minute, and as much as I might want to know what things mean going forward, I’m hit with a reminder of how he looked, skin pulled tight over muscle, deep rings under his eyes, and I hold off. Joey doesn’t need any more overtime.

Payne drags his hand back through his longish hair. It’s only long enough to hang around his ears, unlike Joey’s jaw-length hair, but it still makes this odd sort of ache hit me.

My fingers run over my shoulder again, and I resign myself to the fact that Joey has screwed me up for at least a week because every time I see that hickey, I’ll think about him.

So I guess I have a fun week ahead of reliving the night, and then I can move on.

That shouldn’t be so hard.

I’ll see him tomorrow, let him know I’m fine with things staying the same between us, and everything will go back to how it was before we swapped bodily fluids.

Nothing needs to change.

* * *

“Joey?” Courtney asks. “He called off sick.”

“What do you mean?”

She looks at me like she’s trying to figure out if I’m joking. “He’s not here. He wasn’t yesterday either.”

That motherfucker. I thank her and head for my office, trying to pretend like it means nothing while my stupid brain is calling me a big, fat liar.

There are three options here.

Either Joey’s sick—unlikely since we were really fucking close the other night, and I’m feeling peachy—or he’s using us sleeping together to do whatever the hell he wants around here, or he’s avoiding me.

I have no idea which of those second two options would be worse.

Instead of torturing myself at my desk all day, I grab my keys, take the door at the back of the bar, and leave it behind for the brewery. Killer Brew looks like one enormous building at first glance, but the bar and market are separated from the brewery by a narrow walkway.

I don’t have to spend much time back here since, over the last decade or so, we’ve got our brewing cycle down to an art form. Even though Dad retired early, he’s always here talking our manager’s ear off, and because of him constantly hovering, I do my best not to.

Houston is on the observation deck when I arrive, and the place looks like complete chaos, but I know better. We’ve started the sanitation cycle on one of the fermenters, so what looks like people everywhere is actually a well-oiled machine.

“Hey, Art,” Houston says, patting me on the shoulder and immediately making me think of Joey again. “Come to check in on us?”

“Actually, I’ve come to work.”

Houston chuckles. “Picked a good day for it.”

“I know.”

He eyes my clothes. “You want to do lab work?”

“Nope. I want to do that.” I nod toward the sanitation equipment. It’s the most important part of the process because of how easily bacteria can get into the beer.

Houston chuckles. “It’s your brewery.”

I thank him and head down onto the work floor. Houston and I worked here together in our twenties, just like my niblings will if they ever want to take over Killer Brew. It’s hard, hot, dirty work most of the time, and I know every step of the process.

Thankfully, I’m here early enough to get scrubbing and hope the grit work will get the agitation out of my system.

And it does for the most part, but when I leave there that afternoon, sore and sweaty, my annoyance from earlier comes rushing back. It lasts all through my shower and increases when I can’t even jerk off because every time I try, all I can think about is Joey. This issue was fine before we’d had sex, but now it’s becoming a pain in the ass.

Once I’m dry and dressed, I pace my living room for a couple of minutes and then decide fuck it.

Maybe it’s not professional of me to be checking in on a sick employee, but I’m not going there as his boss. I’m going there because I need to give this anxious uncertainty a rest. I’m used to being laid-back, so when I’m not, I don’t know how to handle it.

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