13
Logan
Today, Kyle Carrington’s car was parked outside the brewery’s front door. I recognized it because he’s had that obnoxious red Dodge Charger with spoilers on the back since he was sixteen.
He didn’t stay to talk, and I’m not terribly surprised by that. We never really talked, even when we were supposedly on good terms. I came downstairs, and he drove off all but instantly.
The message was clear. Celine did say her brother and mother had this unspoken threat thing in common.
“What’s he even trying to say with this shit? Marry my sister or else?” Aiden complains, glaring at the trail of dust still settling on the dirt road.
“Maybe he wants to fight you for her honor or something.” Elise shrugs with a glance to me.
“He’s just a fucking idiot who’s watched The Godfather too many times.” Aiden shrugs it off, but he seems bothered that Kyle would have the audacity.
He’s been prickly every time the Carringtons come up in conversation, I’ve noticed.
Aiden had never been all that aggressive as a person, but I’d simply chalked it up to being defensive of his family.
During Sunday lunch with them, he gave three different excuses to leave early, before my mother finally let him go.
When Celine had tried to hand him the coffee she’d picked up for him, he’d startled so drastically that she dropped it.
Despite the two of them speaking to me, I don’t have anything to contribute to the conversation.
I’m not sure they notice, because there’s the loud revving of Kyle’s engine as he passes back down the road.
Aiden jogs out into the parking lot yelling after him; Elise stands in the doorway and calls after my brother to come back inside.
I return to my office, noting the blinking light on my desk’s old phone, the new message icon on a number of emails on my laptop screen.
Without thinking about it, I find myself sitting down on the couch in my office instead.
The old springs creak as I shift position and lay down, pulling one of the throw pillows from under my head to lay it on my chest, fidgeting absently with one of its corners.
The weight of the pillow used to be somewhat calming, but it lacks that quality today. I think briefly about stuffing a couple of books inside the case to make it heavier but dismiss the thought. That would be weird. I’m sure someone would ask about it later on, and I wouldn’t know how to explain.
There isn’t time to try it anyway, because I recognize Elise’s footsteps as she comes up the stairs and rounds the corner to my office, stopping short in the doorway. “Oh, wow. Are you ok?”
“ . . . There’s a problem.”
She pats my shoulder a little awkwardly. “I think it’s gonna be ok, dude. If you want, me and Aiden will go key his car, pop his tires, you name it,” she offers. “You don’t need to keep worrying about what to do with the Carringtons.”
“Not Kyle. Ava.”
“Ava’s the problem?”
I stare up at the ceiling. “She’s my mate.”
It’s not the weight off my chest to say it out loud that I was hoping for. Contrarily, there’s some bitter twist in my chest to admit it.
“Oh, good, you know already. That saves me some trouble,” she says, and I decide that’s not worth asking about. Probably one of her “déjà vu” moments. I’ve never really understood what that’s all about.
“And you’re going to tell your mom?” Elise asks; it’s more statement than question.
“There’s no point. Ava doesn’t want anything committed.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. She was very upfront about it when I met her, and I’m respecting that. Sometimes people just gotta pass through our lives,” I answer, not quite convinced myself.
“And you’re going to let her?”
There’s a shining naivete in her eyes that I don’t have the heart to extinguish with my answer. So, I turn and give my sister-in-law a pointed look. “Don’t tell anyone, not even Shawn.”
Her mouth opens to say something but shuts and twists as she holds back.
Elise wasn’t the ideal person to tell, maybe. I haven’t known her to keep any of her own secrets to herself, but at least she’ll try to listen to what I ask of her, which is more than either of my brothers would do.
“You’re so . . . you suck, sometimes, man,” she mutters, exasperatedly. It stings more than I thought it might, having heard it a number of times from almost everyone else. “You act like you gotta do everything alone. It’s frustrating to watch.”
“Elise—”
“I think she’s good for you,” Elise interrupts, throwing the words almost like an accusation. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you look even remotely that happy.”
I can’t help but bristle. “Yeah, the agony of knowing I want her more than she wants me, knowing this whole thing with her was doomed from the start, is really good for me.”
“God, you Hayes boys are so fucking dramatic. Maybe there’s some benefit to letting people in, at least a little.
It can’t hurt more than holding everyone at arm’s length all the time.
And maybe you don’t have to start with the people you’ve known all your life, maybe it’s easier to start with a stranger. ”
A timer on her phone goes off in her pocket, probably something she’s got in the ovens downstairs. Elise turns, one foot out the door, and says, “Whatever, dude. Think about it, ok?”
“Yeah, ok, I’ll think about it,” I agree, if only to get her to leave me alone. Elise isn’t a wolf; she doesn’t understand it’s not as simple as she sees things. I can’t add to the way my mother feels about having humans in the family with another human.
Up until last night, I thought the reason Ava made me smile, that she was so easy to talk to, was because I didn’t care what she would think of me, that we were strangers who weren’t going to mean anything to one another. I’d thought that would change if she met the rest of my family.
Maybe Elise is right, to some degree. Maybe I just like Ava because our connection feels simple, not weighed down by the decades of baggage.
She felt like an escape from it all: my family, my obligations, my responsibilities.
I can’t be sure that I don’t just want her because I’m running away from the rest of my problems.
Eventually, I make it back to my desk, filing through returned phone calls and replying to email threads. By the time I take a break, leaning back in my chair, the room has grown pinkish as the sunset starts streaming in through the blinds.
Aiden knocks on my open door just under the nameplate, poking his head in with raised brows. He’s got his keys dangling from his hand, jingling, clearly on his way out.
“Go on home without me,” I tell him with a little shake of my head, “I’ve got a couple more things to get done.”
“You’re staying the night?” Aiden asks, reading my mind, apparently. I try not to glare at him for anticipating me so well, but he’s already trying to persuade me otherwise.
It’s been my habit to use the brewery basement only for full moon transformations, but after the last one, I had been considering sleeping here a few extra nights leading up to the next.
I don’t like what it did to me the last time, how I lost control. And if I can’t control myself, I need the walls around me to contain it.
“There’s still like, a few days, almost a week, ’til the full moon. You should be fine,” Aiden says, like he’s scolding me for working late. “C’mon, dude. Stay at home tonight. I’ll make popcorn, we’ll watch a movie. I’ll even let you pick which one.”
Stay. Theme of my fucking life. My mother had begged me to stay when it came my turn to go off to college. After what had happened with Shawn leaving, how could I refuse?
Similarly, I know what he’s going to say before he offers it. When Aiden’s not pushing the idea of a movie night, he’s trying to get me to go to the gym with him. “It’s cathartic,” he says every time, like that’s a selling point.
I give my head a little shake. “I’ll be home later. I’ve just got some things I need to get done that I’ve been putting off.”
Aiden’s resolve deflates a little, since he doesn’t know enough about the actual workings of the brewery’s supply chain or payroll to contest my claim. He jingles his keys a moment, contemplating.
Finally, he says, “If you’re not home by eight, I’m coming back here.”
“I’ll leave at seven-fifty, then.”
Aiden chuckles as he leaves, amused by the same joke we’ve probably exchanged a hundred times by now.
The brewery is quiet, save for the last few people finishing up their days, the general hum of the industrial brewing equipment.
Sometimes it’s just easier to stay late at work and pretend time isn’t passing. Pretend there’s nowhere better to be, nothing else to do, so I might as well be here. For so much of my life, that wasn’t difficult, because it might as well have been true.
I get up and stretch, take a moment to sort a few things back into the row of filing cabinets that line the wall.
On top of one, sat a number of cards, wedding well wishes from our family friends—people I only remembered when they sent us Christmas cards and my mother rolled out the tedious explanation of how they knew and loved my father.
I half want to pitch them all into the trash, run them through the shredder, burn them even. I’m sure Aiden would approve of finding some sort of catharsis.
But above the filing cabinet, there’s one of the last photos of my dad and me.
It sits nested between the various team photographs of all the employees here from various years and milestones at the brewery, a few articles from the paper, all framed neatly, telling our collective history, entirely too sentimental looking for what it means to me.
It would be easy to place the entirety of blame at my father’s feet, and sometimes I wish I could. The anger, the snarling and lashing out with full claws feels hypocritical. Simmering in it maybe isn’t any better, but at least it doesn’t do more destruction.
And I have done plenty of that.