In the end, it was really about how they fit in among the five of us. By that point, we had gotten so accustomed to working together. We all knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses; we knew each other’s personalities and how to deal with different challenges that might come up.
Just as important as all of that, though, and possibly even more important, we all liked each other. There wasn’t one of us who stood out or who caused problems for the rest. Not that it was always rainbows and butterflies. There was conflict and attention just like anybody would expect from a business run by a set of brothers and managed by the girlfriend of one of those brothers. But at the end of the day, we really did have fun together. That’s what we were looking for in a new employee.
We needed somebody we could feel comfortable with and who wouldn’t disrupt the general flow of work. Once we established that, Jesse and Ava were both able to settle on the candidate they thought would work out best. Now it was time to put it to the test and see how it was going to work out.
I was already looking forward to the benefits of having more employees. It wasn’t lost on me that having more people around meant the potential for more time off. More time off meant more time with Ava. She might be managing the bar now, but that didn’t mean she never got to breathe again.
Once she felt confident the new people were settled in and performing well, I was going to convince her to take a couple of days off a week. It probably wasn’t practical to think the manager was going to take the weekend off, but I would settle for weekdays. After all, we spent all week in a bar together. There really wasn’t much need for us to go to a different one together on the weekend.
Ava and I weren’t spending every night together. As much as I would have liked to, she said it would be better if we took things a little more slowly this time than we had before the incident when Tom first arrived. After we first reunited, we were together nonstop. We rode to and from work together every day. We spent every night at one of our houses or the other.
It felt comfortable and easy. But Ava pointed out that that was the problem. We had just fallen into a routine. Rather than getting to know each other again, we were relying on our existing feelings. And that’s where we stopped communicating. If we focused more on that, the whole misunderstanding wouldn’t have happened to begin with.
These weren’t necessarily things I would have thought of myself. In fact, I was a bit stunned when the Ava brought them up. But after she explained it, it all made sense. We were still in love with each other from when we were kids, but the reality was, we weren’t those people anymore. Not entirely, at least.
We had both grown up and experienced life away from each other. That meant we needed to move through all the stages of this relationship. We had to take our time.
And it was fucking killing me.
I loved Ava. I wanted things to be great between us. But I also wanted to be near her more. I liked being able to reach over in the middle of the night and touch her. I like waking up to her kissing me. We got those nights a few times a week, but I looked forward to that number increasing.
The night before the first day of work for the new employees was not one of those nights, so I drove into work by myself. When I got to the bar, Ava was already there. She and Matt were showing the new bartender around, explaining her duties to her.
She looked up as I walked by, and we exchanged a smile. I headed into the kitchen to help unload and organize the newest food supply order. We’d gotten to the point where we were ordering three times as much as we used to. That night was our busiest of the week, which meant we needed to be prepared.
When I walked into the kitchen, I found Jesse with the new cook. Tyler looked at me nervously when I met him in the storeroom.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I really wish the new guy could have started on a less busy night of the week,” he said. “What if he isn’t as good as Jesse says?”
“Both Jesse and Ava are really confident in this guy. He’s apparently really good,” I said.
“Okay, so maybe it’s not just the cook I’m worried about,” he said.
“Then what is it?” I asked, opening a new box of produce and putting it up on the shelf.