Ava walked up a few moments later and joined me, sitting across from me with her own sandwich. It wasn’t unusual for her to have her lunch with me, since we were usually on the same schedule, and if Mason was busy with something, she would hang out with me.
“Hey,” I said, as she sat down.
“Hey, Tyler,” she said. “Heavy lunch rush today.”
“Yeah, it was,” I said, picking at my fries. “I hope dinner’s not that bad.”
“I’m sure it won’t be,” she said, then looked at her phone. “We don’t have a whole lot of time before that service starts.”
I nodded.
“So, I heard about the fight with Nick.”
“Oh, you did?” I asked, surprised. I had only told Jordan about it, and only because he was the first person I saw the next day. Apparently, word got around, but they spent the week not saying anything about it.
“Sorry,” she said, shrugging.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Have you talked to Becca since then?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Not a single word.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think she wants to see me,” I said, stuffing one of the terrible fries in my mouth.
“Have you even tried, though?”
I turned my head to one side. “No, why would I? She made it pretty clear she needed space,” I said. “I’m trying to give her that.”
“I think you might ought to talk to her,” she said. “At least try.”
“Isn’t that just forcing myself on her, like her parents and brother keep doing? If she asked for her space, then maybe that just means she needs more space. Or maybe she realized Nick was right, and she was just using me to get over her ex.”
“Do you really believe that?” Ava asked, and something about her voice cut right through the bullshit.
“No,” I admitted. “I don’t. But why would she tell me that and then not contact me, either?”
“Sometimes,” Ava said, “you get inside your own head. I know. You get so upset or mad, and you just don’t know what to do. And then time passes, and you still haven’t made a decision. Then more time passes, and you still haven’t picked up the phone. Then so much time passes that you’re terrified to say anything because you don’t know how the other person is going to react.”
I nodded along with her as she spoke. She was making sense, even if I thought she might be wrong.
“Yeah, maybe,” I conceded.
“If you have any feelings for her, anything at all, you should go,” she said. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but as your sister now, I feel like it’s my duty to give you the advice of a woman in this situation.”
I smiled. It was the first time I had done so in a week without it being one of the fake bartender smiles.
“Okay,” I said. “Alright, I promise. I’ll go see her.”
“Good,” Ava said. “Now help me with these fries. I got way too many, and yours look terrible.”
I was up early the next day with a plan. Having showered and shaved, I got myself dressed like I was going on an interview. In a way, it was silly. But I knew it wasn’t. My oldest brother, Tom, was very big on appearances, and rarely was seen outside of his suit. While I had suits in my closet, I felt like going that far for a video call might be a little much. I wanted to look like I was serious but not trying too hard.
Tom was three years older than I was, and he always reminded me of it as a kid. Then, he got extremely successful doing essentially the same sorts of things I was interested in, but I got discouraged when another kid got the scholarship I would need to go to a big tech college and convinced myself working at bars was fine for right then. Right then turned into over a decade, and I slid right through my twenties and most of my thirties before Tom bought the bar.
If I was honest, I was jealous of him. He did all the things I wanted to do, but he was apparently better at them. His company was stupidly successful, and he was able to buy the bar and basically give it to the rest of us to run. I had felt grateful that I had something like that to do when we first got it, and using my bar skills, along with working with my brothers was like a dream. But I eventually got bored, and my mind turned to how I could be doing something similar to Tom, if I had only gone to school for it.
But back then, we were strapped for money. I could take out loans and go somewhere close, but it seemed dumb. I really only wanted to do tech work, and I figured I had time to take a break and save up money. I just never did.