Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Ben
I have late drinks tonight with one of my most important clients, and because of my dinner with Abigail on Sunday, I’m going to be able to give him good news.
“You look miserable,” Bray says, as he comes up behind me.
“Thanks,” I reply. “I got you a beer.”
“Actually, let’s ditch this place and go and get a good bottle of wine.”
“Really?” I say.
“Really,” he says. “No one wants a miserable face in a sports bar. It’s bad for business. And given I own this bar, I should know.”
“You own this bar?” I ask him. “Since when?”
“Set it up about five years ago.”
“What else don’t I know about you?”
Bray shoots me a smile. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Come on,” he says, taking my beer bottle from my hand and placing it down on the table. “Let’s go mend your broken heart with a bottle of expensive red wine like I know you like.”
I ignore his comment about my heart being broken, because it’s ridiculous. “How do you know that I like expensive red wine?”
“By looking at your suit,” he says.
I glance at what he’s wearing—jeans and a blue button-down, just like always. “You never wear a suit.”
“Nope,” he says. “People underestimate you if you wear jeans everywhere. I like being underestimated. It takes the pressure off.”
“So have you been hiding your success from me deliberately?” I ask, as we step out into the crisp New York air.
“I’m not sure,” he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and cocking his head north. “I know a place up here.”
“So you might have been deliberately misleading me?”
“Look, you made it pretty easy not to tell you. You never asked. We never really talked about business. I didn’t think it was a big deal. We’re brothers. Not competitors.”
“Except I don’t think I’ve been a very good brother.”
“Want to come fishing with me this weekend?” he asks.
“Seriously?” I ask him. Is fishing something he likes? Another thing I didn’t know about him.
“Yeah, I’m checking out a piece of land up the coast in New England.”
“A piece of land?” I ask.
“Yeah. I might want to buy it. Build a wilderness resort there. It’s between here and Boston.”
“I’m in Boston on Thursday,” I say.
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
“I’m going up with Avril,” I continue. Avril still hasn’t called me, despite me sending her details on the Boston seller and proposing the meeting date.
She messaged to thank me for the details and to confirm she could make the meeting on Thursday, but I thought she might call.
She’s probably busy. And why would I hear from her?
She got what she wanted from me. She can move on.
“So what’s the deal with you and Avril?”
“What do you mean, what’s the deal?”
“She’s moved out, right?”
“Right.”
“So are you dating? You seemed to like her.”
I frown. “Why would we be dating? I don’t date.”
He pulls in a breath and nods toward the door of the restaurant we’re standing in front of.
I don’t know this place. I’ve not even read about it.
I know most of the decent places to eat in Manhattan.
The letters on the glass door spell out L’Ancienne Cuisine.
Does my brother come here a lot? Is French food his thing?
There’s so much I don’t know about Bray—he’s definitely not all sports bars.
This restaurant is the exact opposite of every other place I’ve ever met him.
Maybe he knows the good spots in Manhattan too.
The hostess gets us situated at a table and my brother orders some wine.
The restaurant is dark. The only light comes from the dimly lit old paintings of the French countryside that litter the walls and the single tall candles on the tables.
It feels on the verge of spooky, the kind of place secrets are traded and truths are spoken.
“So why don’t you date?” he asks, bringing us back to where we left off as we entered the restaurant.
“I’m busy,” I reply in a knee-jerk response.
He doesn’t say anything but my words hang in the air. It’s like I can see them, I can truly look at them, and I can also see how they’re bullshit.
“It’s less complicated,” I add.
“Not letting people in is a good way of protecting yourself.”
What’s he talking about? “I’m one of the most well-connected people in New York. I have more contacts in my phone than—”
“I’m not talking about how many people you shake hands with.
How many people in a year you go to breakfast, lunch, and dinner with.
I’m talking about letting people in. Your walls are so high, Ben.
I don’t know if I could climb them, even if I didn’t think you’d push me off at the top before I could get in—which I totally do.
” He smiles, but his expression is full of pity.
“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me. I’m doing just fine.
” How could Bray feel sorry for me? I’m thriving.
I’m at the top of my game. There’s no one who’s anyone on the East Coast who doesn’t know who I am, who wouldn’t come to me if they needed something.
Everything I’ve planned out since I was a kid has come to fruition.
Bray should be cheering me, not pitying me.
“Except you miss Avril,” he says, and it’s like he’s poked me on the shoulder and it’s tipped me off a ledge and I’m in free fall.
The waitress comes and I haven’t even looked at the menu. Somehow, I manage to refocus and pick out the French onion soup followed by the steak au poivre.
I hand my menu back to the waitress. I expect us to be able to move on and not talk about Avril anymore, but Bray just sits there, looking at me, waiting for me to respond.
I hate to admit it, but he’s right. I do miss having her around. It didn’t take me long to get used to having someone in my space. But our deal is done. She’s moved on. “Avril stayed with me for a reason. Now she’s moved on. Out, I mean.”
“And you can’t be unhappy about it, because you set the rules, right?
Just like all these people you know, who rely on you for help with their business.
You can’t be unhappy when they don’t try to climb over your walls, because that was never the deal.
They were never supposed to. They came to you for something and you provided it.
They didn’t need to scale the walls for that to happen and you don’t need to be disappointed that they didn’t try. ”
His words roll like thunder in my chest. “I’ve deliberately set myself up not to depend on people so I never lose my business.”
“I know,” he says.
“No one can take away what I’ve built because it doesn’t depend on anyone but me.”
“Right. You’re up there in your tower alone. No one can hurt you, but it makes it pretty difficult to love you, too.”
It’s like a knife twisting in my gut. What he’s saying makes perfect sense, but I’m not sure I can take in the full meaning. It’s too much, too powerful, too dangerous. Like, if I was to think about what he’s saying properly, I might explode…or disintegrate.
Luckily for me, we’re interrupted by our appetizers arriving.
“That looks incredible,” Bray says, as the waitress sets down my soup, topped with crunchy bread and melted cheese. He’s right. It looks great. I can’t remember the last time I ate this. It might have been years before, when I was in Paris.
“What did you go for?” I ask him about his appetizer, temporarily released from the mental gymnastics I’m performing in my head.
“Snails,” he says.
I do my best not to wince.
“They’re really good here.”
My brother, the sports-bar guy, likes snails?
“Have you deliberately kept yourself at a distance from me over the years?” I ask. “I don’t feel like I know you at all.”
Bray takes a forkful of food and looks at me while he chews, like he’s really considering my question. He swallows and then says, “Maybe.” He pauses. “Yes. I think I didn’t want to be dependent on you to save me.”
What he’s saying sounds similar to what Avril said about the reason she wanted to get the Boston hotel. She wanted to prove herself without her siblings’ help.
“But it was more than that,” Bray adds. “I also felt distance from you, and then, as I followed your career, I understood pretty quickly that you were only successful if someone wanted something from you. I didn’t want to be someone else wanting help from you. I just wanted to be your brother.”
His words land in my gut like discarded sod, heavy and thick.
I’ve been low-key offended that Bray’s never asked for my help, but he was trying to preserve the essence of our brotherhood by doing it all himself. And I’ve still failed him.
“I feel very lucky to have you as my brother,” I say, emotion rising up in me.
“I know you’d do anything for me,” Bray says. “That feeling of knowing you would be there if I asked has kept me going when things have been difficult.”
“Really?” I ask. “Because you know it’s true.”
“I absolutely know that. In my soul,” he says.
“But there’s so much I don’t know about you. You think that I deliberately keep you out?”
“I don’t take it personally,” Bray says. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’ll take what I can get from you. But I’m not sure Avril, or any woman, will feel the same.”
Avril.
I miss her. Is that possible? I haven’t known her long and she’s only been gone a few days. But it feels like a part of me is missing since she left.
Bray’s right, my walls are up with everyone.
Even Avril. Maybe Deacon gets in here and there, but generally, I’ve worked hard to make sure that no one can hurt me.
I was a helpless child without any power to change anything—not my father’s restaurant going under, not the country I lived in, not the lack of roof over our heads.
I’ve worked hard to make sure it can’t happen again.
And it won’t. I have more money in my checking account than my parents earned their entire lives.
But I’m still working like we’re homeless and I’m trying to find us a way out of living in our car.
“Say your theory is right and I’ve built high walls so that no one can get in. If I wanted to let someone in, is that even possible?”
Avril not being around this week has felt empty. Not hearing from her has hurt.
Maybe she’s managed to get to me more than I expected.
“I think the last couple of times we’ve met, we’ve shared more than we’ve revealed to each other the entire time since we came to New York.”
“Does that mean it is possible?” I ask, a little confused by his answer.
“I think it’s possible if that’s what you want.”
“But it’s an experiment, like baby steps,” I suggest.
He chuckles. “I’m not sure. I guess so.”
“But say I wanted to date Avril,” I say. “I’m being hypothetical here, because I’m not definitely saying I want to date Avril.”
Bray laughs and takes a sip of his wine to stifle his amusement.
“But say I did want to see more of her…What do I say to her? I’m not sure how real relationships work because I’ve isolated myself for so long? I’m emotionally impotent, but I’d like to experiment in opening up to you and see where that leads.”
Bray holds my gaze. “I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘impotent’ when you’re trying to impress a woman.”
I nod. “Good advice. But seriously, I don’t want to hurt her. If I’ve managed to keep my own brother at arm’s length for more than a decade, then what hope is there that I can be the kind of man Avril deserves?”
He shrugs. “I don’t have all the answers.”
I roll my eyes. “You see, I open up and tell you my problems and you’ve got nothing.” I grin, and my brother raises his glass.
“To your impotence. Emotional or otherwise.”
I clink my glass to his. “But seriously, do I just walk away? Would that be better? Avril is a… She’s special. She deserves a man who can treat her like a queen.”
“So be that man.”
“I’m not sure if that’s possible. She deserves someone who’s open. Who isn’t so goddamn afraid of being vulnerable. Someone without all these walls to keep people out. I’m not sure I’m capable of being the kind of man who deserves her.”
“Maybe you should just start with being the kind of man she wants to hang out with.”
Realization claws at my insides. “Maybe she’s not even open to spending time with me. I mean, we’ve spent time together because that was the deal if she wanted me to help her with Boston.”
“You blackmailed her into spending time with you?”
“No.” Did I? I was trying to show her that things get messy if they get personal. But maybe messy isn’t so bad. What’s the worst that could happen?
She could end up hating me.
She could end up telling everyone she knows in Manhattan that I’m emotionally impotent and, while accurate, that’s the kind of information I’d rather keep to myself. I’ve always been afraid that mixed messages about me would take away my power and influence.
And maybe they would.
But maybe the risk is worth it. Maybe I don’t need to control everything so tightly anymore.
“I think we have chemistry,” I tell Bray. We had our time-out and had the best night together. But maybe that was for show on her side. Is it possible that we got intimate because she thought it would guarantee my help with Boston?
Avril’s determined and single-minded and she’d do anything for that Boston site. But she’s also one of the most authentic people I know. I don’t think she faked our time together. I don’t think it was possible to fake our chemistry.
“There are no guarantees in life,” Bray says. “But I know for sure there are no rewards without risks.” He nods down at his bowl of snails. “They’re fucking delicious. But I’d have never known if I hadn’t had the bollocks to try them.”
“Are you equating Avril to a snail? Because I’m going to tell every woman you ever date this story if that’s what you’re saying.”
He chuckles. “It’s a metaphor for life.”
I don’t need metaphors for life. I need to figure out if there’s a ladder tall enough to climb these walls I’ve spent a lifetime building and whether Avril is the one I want to climb it.
I need to decide whether Avril’s the woman I risk everything for.