Chapter 3
brANDON
Ishouldn’t be here. It’s my thought as I find myself standing outside of Blue Pint Outpost a few days later.
After my failed attempt to confront Angela on Friday, I decided to come back for round two after a last-minute gym session.
I’m not a malicious guy. But something about her makes me want to unleash all my pain onto her.
To make her feel worse than I have for the last two years.
And that’s not me. It’s never been me. I’ve never been someone fueled by anger or the desire to make someone feel bad about themselves…
until now. But seeing her on Friday stirred an entirely different reaction inside me.
It was no longer anger. It was wanting. It was a need to see her again to confirm whether what I had started to feel after that one moment was the opposite of hate.
So I walk inside.
The first thing I notice is it’s less busy here on a Tuesday.
And as someone who hates crowds, this would be the perfect day for me to come to a place like this.
I’m usually able to hide my nerves behind others' confidence. But today, I’m not in control, and my nerves are at the highest level of freaking out as I slide my sunglasses to the top of my head and I find a seat at the spacious bar.
The corner spot I’m at gives me a view of everything.
So when she walks out of the kitchen with her arms full of napkins and what looks like a box of straws, her steps falter when she sees me, and I track her movements to behind the bar.
I expect her to be the one to serve me so I can confront her, but I should’ve known better when one of the other bartenders does just that.
“I’ll just have a beer. Doesn’t matter what kind,” I tell him and pull my wallet out of my back pocket.
When he sets my glass in front of me, I hand him my card.
“Just the one?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I stare up at the TVs that line the bar.
Various news channels, some sports highlights, and a random home improvement show play on the screens.
But all the while I see the head of blonde hair I’ve forced myself to ignore, busying herself out of the corner of my eye, expertly avoiding me.
Which is a good call because now that I’m here, I’m waiting for any sort of venom to fly out of my mouth.
I wrap my hand around the cold glass of beer and finally take a sip.
I set my glass down and ponder my next move.
Do I get her alone? Do I just leave? Now that I’m here, I’m wondering if what I’m doing will actually pay off.
Time has moved around me and I check my watch, noting that I’ve been here for an hour.
It hasn’t gotten any busier than when I came in and my butt is starting to go numb from the hard chair.
Figuring this is a lost cause because I clearly can’t do what I told myself to do, I down the rest of my beer and pull some cash out of my wallet for a tip when I stand up.
“Have a good one,” the bartender says as he grabs my empty glass and the cash I placed down.
Nodding to him, I meet the saddest and most confused blue eyes I have ever seen. And it has me wondering whether she’s holding on to the same amount of anger and sadness as I am?
“So they liked it?” my mom asks enthusiastically at Sunday dinner.
My family knows I work on and develop video games. I try not to overload them with too much nerd speak. So I usually give them the Cliffnotes version. “It’s only been a week and the beta feedback has been great so far.”
“Nerd,” my younger brother Malcolm says under his breath, but like always, I ignore him.
To my brothers, I’m practically a stranger.
James was our bridge, and we’ve had to figure out how to exist without him—how to be brothers without him.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t lived at home in almost ten years, and apart from the holidays, home from college, it’s more like I’m a guest here.
Plus, my youngest brother, Ford, is sixteen years younger than me, so to him I’m just his older brother who shares the same parents.
At least that’s what it feels like anytime I come around because I have a secret I can never tell my family.
And this secret could be the one that breaks the camel’s back.
“Malcolm,” my dad scolds, though it lacks any sort of bite.
My dad used to be the happiest man on the planet.
Although that could be because he’s been blissfully in love with my mom for forty years.
But since James died, he’s lost his spark.
There may be four of us left, but James was his shadow—our family was complete with him.
And for the last two years, my dad just seems like he’s forever stuck in a room, with the curtains tightly drawn over the windows so no sunlight can get through.
I’ll see the occasional flicker of his happiness now and then when I come over here or when Mom catches him off guard, but my dad is no longer the joyful dad I grew up with.
“Sorry,” he mumbles under his breath.
Malcolm and I couldn’t be more opposite if we tried.
I spend my days in slacks with a button-down shirt and tie, while he spends his days in blue utility pants with a blue shirt that has ‘Rookie’ and the fire station’s logo on it.
My hair is brown, and even then, I have pomade in it to keep it off my face, where his hair is closely shaved but a mix of all of ours—not quite blond, brown, or red.
The only similarity between us is the shape of our eyes.
I think Malcolm has always tried to compete with me, despite me not having a competitive bone in my body when it comes to my brothers.
I love my brothers even when it feels like there’s an ocean between us.
Golf, on the other hand—now that’s a different story.
But I haven’t played for anything since graduating college.
Sure, Dad and I would go out to the course on Saturdays years ago, but it was never for a prize.
“So what’s the step after beta testing?” Mom asks, wanting to stay engaged.
I have nothing else to compare her to, but she’s the best mom I could have ever asked for.
How she managed to wrangle five boys and remain the same way she looked thirty years ago, I’ll never know.
I do know she’s always wanted a daughter and she was close to getting her wish with James’s fiance?e, Emily.
She was the quintessential girl next door and my brother fell hard and fast for her.
Even when I was away at college and would call him, I could hear the love—despite how young they were—that he had for her.
Emily was just as devastated as we were, if not more, because instead of celebrating the final weeks leading up to their wedding, she was speaking at his funeral.
I sat in that pew, not jealous of my brother, but envious he got to experience a love as all-encompassing as the one he got to experience with Emily.
We haven’t seen her in years, despite her parents still owning the house next door, with them occasionally visiting to take care of regular maintenance. But maybe, like me, it’s too hard for her to visit. I can’t imagine planning my life with someone, only to come back and see his mark everywhere.
I wash down my food with water and push my almost empty plate away.
“Next, we get it back to fine-tune some bugs and then send it off to our designers to work on the characters and while they have that, we’ll run through the game to make sure there's no kinks. And then we send it back out for more beta testing. It’s a long process, but we’re hoping to launch it by next year. ”
“What game did you design?” Evan asks.
I try my best to think of games to compare it to, that he’ll know. “Um, think Mario Kart meets Sonic, meets Temple Run.”
“Whoa. Can I play it?” Ford, the baby of the family, asks, amazed.
“Sure, buddy. I’ll make a note to get you a copy before we officially launch.”
He smiles his too big of a smile and goes back to texting under the table. I try to rack my brain about whether or not I acted like him at that age. It pains me to say that was almost two decades ago, and technology has come a lot further than what I grew up with.
“How’s your dating life?” Mom asks as we stand at the sink washing dishes an hour later.
My cheeks lift with a smile as I look at the pan I’m washing. “Is this you fishing to see if you’re getting a daughter-in-law soon?”
She chuckles and hands me the wet dish to dry. We have a dishwasher, but this is the time we use to catch up without other prying eyes or open ears. “Sue me for wanting some estrogen in this house.”
“Hey, you could’ve stopped after having me. But no. You wanted your own basketball team,” I tease her lightheartedly.
“It's hard to have a team when only one of you is taller than six two my mom teases, referring to Malcolm and pulling a laugh from both of us.
“Ouch. Well, Evan might grow another inch, and Ford is still growing, so there’s a chance.”
I listen to her throaty chuckle and I can see why Dad fell for her all those years ago. Laughter shouldn’t be what I base a relationship, or even marriage, off of, but if what I have with a partner is real, then I’ll want to handle them and their laughter for the rest of my life.
“When I’m dating someone and it becomes serious, you’ll be the first to know.”
My thoughts go back to the forbidden bartender.
I haven’t said a single word to her and she hasn’t said a single word to me.
Of course, we’d have to clear the air for us to speak to each other.
Though for some reason, even with no words spoken between either of us, she’s put a spell on me and I can’t get her out of my head.
“How considerate of you,” my mom says, shutting off the water. “Speaking of girls–have you spoken to Emily?”
I hand her the dish towel after I use it and lean against the counter. “No. I was actually just thinking about her.”
Emily was the sister I never had. And I know her, being an only child, she got four brothers that she never had.
While she and James had over a decade together, we became her family.
During my school breaks, her, James, and I would do things the younger kids couldn’t.
Then, when I graduated, and they moved into their own place, we would have weekly dinners at their apartment to catch up on life.
But after James died, I think we became a reminder of who and what she lost. The family she’ll never get to have.
So I understand her need to essentially cut us off. But it doesn’t sting any less.
“She hasn’t returned any of my calls,” Mom says, and I hate the sorrowful tone she uses.
“Maybe she just needs more time.”
“Yeah,” Mom says, “maybe.”
I push off the counter and lean forward to kiss my mom on the cheek. “I’m gonna head out.”
“Okay. Are you good on toilet paper?”
“Yes, Mom. I still have plenty from the last time I was here,” I tell her with a chuckle.
Mom always makes sure I’m stocked on home goods. But it helps that I live alone and am at the office most of the week, so my toilet paper stash lasts me longer than most people’s.
“Alright. I’m just checking.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and we head into the living room where I say goodbye to my dad and brothers.
Heading out to my car, I look at the time on the dash after I start up.
I’m not quite ready to go back to my condo and I could call Carter to see if he wants to grab a beer, but it would all be filler for the real reason I’m debating with myself.
I want to see Angela. I want to at least try to talk to her.
I want to see if my anger is all for nothing.
I want to see if I just want her. I don’t know her, but I want to.
I want.
I want.
I want.
It’s not too late and my decision has been made as I put my car in gear and head toward Blue Pint Outpost to see if Angela’s working. This puts me on some insane stalker level, but I realize that a little drive-by can’t hurt. Maybe if I see her, I’ll finally utter some words. Ugh!
Just a drive-by.
Okay, sit in the parking lot by her car.
I’m gonna hate myself in the morning.