Chapter 1
brANDON
TWO YEARS LATER
“Is it sent?” one of my team members asks.
We’ve been working on a prototype for a new video game for the past six years.
And today, we are finally able to send it off for beta testing.
It was my first assignment when I started here a decade ago and something I always dreamed of creating.
But the hiccups to get to this stage of development were not easy.
I’m grateful my team picked up a lot of the slack when I lost my brother and needed to take time away from work.
Thankfully, Jerry, let me take more than enough time to grieve and I slowly integrated back to the world of video games.
But I underestimated how coming to the office could still be a challenge most days as this is where the news hit.
I’m lucky to have incredible co-workers, who did what they could by moving me out of the office where I got the phone call from my mom and into a new one before I returned from my extended leave.
It’s the little things that reaffirm my passion for this job and the people I work with.
While in college, I interned here at North Autumn Productions (N.A.P.) over the summer and once I graduated I couldn’t see myself working anywhere else.
I never dreamed that I could turn something my brother and I loved playing into a career.
Video games were what all my brothers and I did.
Well, mainly James and I since our other brothers were too young to play at the time.
When James died, Jerry sat me down after I returned full-time and asked what my plan was.
Would I stay or would I go? One of my biggest connections with James, besides our bloodline, was through video games.
We may have been four years apart, but he was still one of my best friends and losing him shook up my life.
Pinching my thigh, I wait for the circle to stop spinning and the ding! of the message being sent fills my office. “It’s sent.”
“Hell, yes,” Carter, one of my best friends from college, praises while the other two members of our team, Hollis and Prescott, high-five each other. “This calls for drinks.”
I narrow my eyes at him and he knowingly avoids me with a smirk.
I hate going out. Just the thought of being around other people and stepping in something questionable is an automatic deterrent.
I like following my Monday through Friday schedule, and I purposefully make sure it leaves no room for a TapHouse.
And the mere thought of deviating from my curated schedule gives me the heebie jeebies.
“One drink,” I give in when his stare starts to burn a hole in my face.
Carter smacks my desk and stands up from his chair.
“Good enough for me, buddy. Blue Pint Outpost in say, thirty minutes?” The other two guys stand and head out as well.
“That should give you enough time to tie up any loose ends before you leave. And by leave I mean, meet-us-at-the-elevator-to-head-to-the-TapHouse, leave not, slip-out-of-the-emergency-exit-and-go-home, leave.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get out of here.” I tell him and toss a stress ball at him.
Carter tosses the ball back to me and heads back to his office with a chuckle leaving my office quiet again.
I’m not sure when I started preferring solitude over a room full of people.
You’d think I would crave the noise since I now live alone, but maybe the change stems from getting a phone call that your brother died and realizing your circle was in fact penetrable, so that unconsciously forced you to follow a routine that left very little room for other people.
Surely, that has to be it. A shrink would have a field day with me, I think sarcastically to myself.
Would that be considered OCD? I started sticking to a routine soon after James passed away.
I scoff to myself, passed away. Like he was taken from us due to a disease and not because his best friend drove his truck into the back of an eighteen wheeler because he was distraught over his life falling apart.
Ugh. I am not a violent person, but if Liam was still alive, I’d beat him to a bloody pulp.
I turn my chair to face the city. It’s been a hard two years.
I still remember the slow walk into the house after my co-workers dropped me off.
The Hayes residence could have given libraries a run for their money with how quiet it was.
I’ve done everything in my power to avoid going back to that day, but sometimes that day flashes in my mind like a power surge.
I just remember feeling as if someone stuck me in a freezer and even though I’m out, I still have yet to defrost. It’s been two years and I wonder if I’ll ever feel warmth again.
As we get further from the day that changed everything, some days are easier than most to pretend like we’re all still here.
But then reality sets in just from scrolling through my phone and the crushing realization that my brother isn’t here to celebrate milestones like this, settles in my stomach like a fifty-pound bowling ball.
“Time’s up, team!” I hear shouted from the hall.
Grateful for Carter’s announcement, I turn back to my desk, shut down my computer for the weekend, and toss my glasses on my desk.
I have another pair at home to wear when I get the itch to code, which is all the time.
It keeps my mind busy and with nothing else outside of work, I need that.
I grab my phone and keys, shutting the light off in my office and meet up with the guys at the elevator.
Summer in Philadelphia is something one should truly experience for themselves. Especially Fridays in the business district as we, along with every other corporate American, flood out onto the crowded sidewalk after leaving the confines of our desks and pushing out from the air-conditioned lobby.
I walk a step behind the group as they all chatter about.
I’m not a closed-off guy or hard to talk to, but I don’t feel like I can relate to a lot of them who look forward to going out every weekend and getting into trouble or hooking up with girls or guys in a TapHouse.
I’m not even thirty-two and feel like I’ve lived far past my age.
“What’s this place again?” I ask, breaking them up from their gossip circle.
Carter turns a surprised eye on me as do the other guys.
I’d like to think I’m a good team leader.
Does my attitude always give off a welcome mat?
No. Do I make it easy for anyone to approach me at work?
Yes. But most of the time my guys know when to leave me alone at work.
I think that’s what makes us such an efficient team.
“Blue Pint Outpost,” Prescott speaks up. “It’s a TapHouse and they recently reopened after a year-long closure of re-modeling and re-branding.”
I give him a nod and he seems to take that as my answer.
I’m also one of those people who needs to know a situation before I walk into it.
Is there seating? What’s on the menu? Is there parking?
Is the parking free? That kind of thing.
So for me to blindly trust Carter, who’s been my friend since college, says a lot about our friendship.
We slow our pace as we join a cluster of people ready to unwind after work at the crosswalk.
“Gotta say, I thought you would for sure bail at the last minute,” Carter says as he drops back next to me and slides his hands in his work slacks.
“When have I ever done that?” I ask and roll my eyes at his pointed look referring to a lot of the times I chose to stay in during college and study than go out. “Point taken.”
“I know you still tread lightly, and I respect that. But I like when you hang out with us.”
I look over at him and jump forward as the light gives us the go-ahead. “You know I like staying to myself.”
Carter snorts to a chuckle. “I’ve known this for over a decade, buddy. Can’t hurt a guy for trying.”
One word can describe mine and Carter’s friendship: unexpected.
When I decided to go to a small school in Tennessee for college, I went with the random roommate selection and got paired with a former wrestler who was as obsessed with video games as I was—like all teenage boys were—and that’s what we initially bonded over.
Carter is the more outgoing of the two of us.
It’s his golden retriever personality that really seals the deal and unfortunately had me in the lounge of our dorm on more than one occasion while he entertained someone.
Sometimes, more than one someone at a time.
I was never one to judge, as long as he was safe and cleaned up afterward.
College was the place to experiment and Carter never made his sexuality a secret.
Plus, his personality, muscular physique that he refused to quit once we got to college, paired with his rich, dark mahogany skin, closely shaved hair, and a sparkling smile, drew more than enough attention to him.
I’ll admit that I wasn’t the warmest roommate in the beginning.
Mostly, because I was away from my family for the first time in eighteen years.
But I must have done something right as Carter asked if I wanted to be his roommate again for our sophomore year and then all the way until we graduated.
It wasn’t without bumps, but now Carter and I act more like brothers than we do friends.
When he decided to throw caution to the wind and move to Philly after we graduated instead of staying in Tennessee, I knew that we were stuck together for life.
That friendship has only continued to strengthen while we work together at the same company.
“Here it is,” Prescott announces and weaves through foot traffic to get to the door.
My first observation is that they chose the right place to open a business. This spot is far enough from the city’s tech area but still close enough to draw in the older college crowd, along with the tech bros and nerdy guys like us.
We file in, one by one, with me in the rear, and I slide my sunglasses up onto my head as I let my eyes adjust to the new lighting.
The outside deceives what’s inside. From the heavy wooden front door and small foyer, dark speckled floor tiles cover the space until it opens up, with the bar placed in the back left corner and windows as its backdrop.
Proving that the designer knows what they were doing, the back of the TapHouse opens to the patio, and from what I can see, there’s a small stage for music with tables and umbrellas covering the space.
“Find a spot wherever!” a masculine voice calls out as we stand at the front.
As I stand with my friend and co-workers, I look around at the space in wonder.
I don’t go out a lot, if ever, so being around more people and in an unfamiliar space is new territory for me.
It’s like exploring an entirely new world.
But in my observation of this new space, I hear a hypnotic laugh coming from the right and my attention is pulled over there.
It’s husky but with a twinge of sadness and when I fully turn, I see someone with a distinct stance that sends chills skittering up my spine, interacting with customers and all my focus lasers on her.
I take it as just passing by her on the street in previous days for why I might recognize her laugh, but it’s not that.
One by one, the pieces connect. From her hair, which I’ll admit is a unique shade of blonde—a shade I’ve blacked out of my memory for the last two years, but her laugh that hits me in the solar plexus.
That laugh I’ve heard before across the yard when our families would get together.
And her laugh, while sad, feels like a hug comforting you after a bad day.
That laugh is the first thing that triggers me.
The second thing I notice, and probably the most important thing I notice, is when she turns around and our eyes meet.
I’m seeing the eyes of someone I never expected to see.
Someone I’ve never spoken to in the two decades of our family’s intertwined history, locks eyes with mine, and seeing her now is wiping my brain of any and all rational thought.
Angela Taylor.