And for once, I’m the one holding the power.
Drown, huh,I tell the voice back.Let’s see who drowns now.
***
I am outside in the sun, and I have decided two things.
One: I am going to nail Derek to the wall with criminal charges. And if he doesn’t end up in jail, I am at the very least getting a protective order. (Bram’s already sent a digital copy of the folder to his colleagues, so we’re expecting things to move quickly from here.)
Two: I am no longer going to think about any of that today.
Today I’m trailing Bram while he sorts out which trees are ready and which ones can wait. He walks the rows fast and barely seems to look at any of it.
“How do you know,” I ask, “when one’s ready to make cider?”
He pulls a folding knife and a little brown bottle out of his jacket, picks an apple off the nearest tree, and cuts it clean in half. Then he tips two drops onto the wet white face of it and holds it out between us.
We wait. The cut goes dark, most of it blue-black, except for a pale star that stays clear in the middle and spreads out from the core.
“Dark part’s still starch. Hasn’t turned sweet yet,” he says. “The sweet comes in from the center and works its way out.More star, more sugar.” He turns it so I can see. “This one needs about six more days.”
I stare at the blue-black stain. Starch conversion tests. I didn’t realize apple farming involved laboratory reagents.
“Here, try it with this one,” he says, plucking an apple from another tree.
I squeeze two drops of the solution onto the cut face of the second apple, watching the dark star expand. “Huh. Six more days?”
“I’d say three,” he says, his laugh warm in the quiet rows. “But pretty close.”
We then have a tasting session. He shaves slices off the knife and hands them over, tree by tree, and makes me tell him what I notice. One’s tart, the next is really sweet. By noon we’ve worked our way down to the cider barn, and that’s where I notice the smell.
The barn is built from old plank wood, and stepping inside is like stepping into the belly of a cider jug. The air is sweet and sharp, fermenting just a little at the edges, grounded by the cold, mineral note of pressed fruit and wet oak. Sharp shafts of sunlight pierce the wooden siding, illuminating a fine haze of dust over the rubber belts of an assembly line. In the corner, a stack of wooden crates sits ready, and a long copper trough runs clean beneath the press. Along the main wall, a cluster of faded family photos is pinned to the rough timber.
And underneath all of it, when Bram drags the big door shut against the wind, there is him.
Leather and coffee.
I know this smell but it still hits me every time.
My omega lifts her head.
Bram doesn’t notice, or does a very good job of pretending. He heads over to the press, already stripped down to a grey henley. The fabric strains tight across his broad shoulders and the thickcurve of his back as he hauls a heavy crate of fruit, a single bead of sweat tracking down the side of his neck.
And, look. I walked in here a logical woman with a folder on a dresser and a plan with legal steps to it, but there is something profoundly unfair about watching a hunky alpha work, grunting.
He talks me through what he’s doing while he does it, and I catch maybe one word in three, because the rest of my attention is committed elsewhere. There’s a grinder that chews the apples down to a wet brown mush. He scoops the mush onto a square of cloth, folds it into a flat little parcel, lays a wooden rack on top, and starts the next one. Cloth, rack, cloth, rack, his forearms working with every scoop. I sit on an upturned crate and enjoy the show.
“You’re staring,” he says, a low rumble cutting through the creak of the press.
“I’m absorbing,” I say. “Holistically.”
He pauses, his hands resting on the wooden rack, and looks over his shoulder at me. His gaze is warm, holding that quiet, steadying pressure that always makes my chest feel tight in the best way. “Are you cold? There’s a clean wool blanket in the chest behind you if you need it.”
“I’m not cold,” I say. “I’m fine right here.”
His eyes linger on mine for a second, reading my face, before he turns back to the press. “Good.” He fits the heavy iron plate over the top of the stack, grips the big iron screw, and leans his weight into the turn. The tower of racks groans, sinking down on itself. The first juice threads gold down the sides of the cloth and pours into the copper trough. He glances up at me, a sheen of sweat at his hairline, his breathing slightly shallow, and I stop pretending I came in here to learn about making cider.
I get off the crate, cross the barn and lay my hand on his girthy cock through his jeans.
