“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,” Haley said softly. “I really thought you all had something.”
“Maybe we did have something. It just couldn’t last, though.”
“I’m just so confused,” she confessed. “Is there something else I’m missing?”
“Something else you’re missing?” I demanded. “Seriously, Haley? I’m on the front lines of this bullshit and I feel like I’m missing every goddamn thing.”
Haley recoiled and I just added another tally to the column of reasons why I hated myself. She was the last person I needed to take my frustrations out on. She was only trying to help.
Ace saw the altercation and stepped in. “What in the hell are you two bickering over? It’s practically the holidays. Santa’s already watching.”
“No Christmas before Thanksgiving,” Haley managed to say, mustering a smile. “We were talking about Thanksgiving planning.”
“And about what an asshole I’m being,” I said, giving a rueful smile that I hoped Haley realized was an apology to her. “Nothing but coal in my stocking, when Christmas does finally roll around.”
“Ugh. Ace? I can’t even with Brody. Can you take over Thanksgiving planning?” She made a graceful exit, and I was glad she didn’t bring up Nadine again until I blurted it out as soon as she left.
“Assign me whatever you want,” I said quickly, as Ace cocked his head at me. “Bartender, even. I don’t give a shit. Just assign Nadine something, too. Something different. I don’t know.”
“Why?” Ace stopped his inventory and scooted a little bit closer. “Aren’t the two of you going together?”
“I really doubt it,” I said.
“Well, what in the hell happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“See?” Haley put her hand on her hip, on down the bar, unable to fully extricate herself from the conversation. I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t extricate myself from my misery. “He’s being difficult.”
“This is why you shouldn’t date people you work with,” Ace said, nodding sagely. “If you break up with them, it can make the entire environment toxic for everyone. What if your breakup sinks the bar?”
“Who’s sinking the bar?” Jack walked out of the bathroom just in time to add to my misery. “The bar’s doing great. Who’s going to change that?”
“This idiot,” Ace said, jerking his thumb at me. “He’s going to sink the bar because he and Nadine broke up or whatever.”
“We weren’t even together,” I said. “I don’t know. Were we?”
Jack burst into exasperated laughter. “You were the only one who was there, in that relationship with Nadine, Brody. None of the rest of us know for sure. If you don’t know, how would any of us?”
“Just forget about it,” I said, flicking my hand dismissively. Because God knew I wished I could.
“Should we not invite Nadine to Thanksgiving?” Ace asked, propping his fist up on his chin. I hated that pose. It was one he slipped into each time he thought he recognized a problem that required the therapist-level advice he thought he was capable of doling out from behind the bar.
“We can’t not invite Nadine,” Jack pointed out before I could say anything. “She works here at the bar. She’s friends with all of us well, maybe everyone beside Brody. Not inviting her would be a slap to the face.”
“And she already knows about it, anyway,” Haley added, carrying racks of clean glasses back behind the bar. “That would make it even more awkward.”
“More awkward than Brody pouting and making everyone else miserable?” Ace asked.
“Could I speak for myself, please?” I demanded, sick of this shit. “I’m sitting right here.”
“Earlier you didn’t seem to want to talk about it,” Jack said.
“I caught her with another man,” I said. “That’s what I didn’t want to talk about.”
Haley recoiled. “What?”
I shook my head and wiped my mouth. Thinking about it made me sick. “I came home the other night and she had a guy there. At my house.”
“That doesn’t sound like her,” Haley said, visibly troubled. “It really doesn’t.”
“Who of us really knows her, though?” I asked dully, shrugging. “It’s not a big deal.”
Ace gripped my shoulder. “It is a big deal. You’re upset about it.”
“I’m not upset.” I was gutted.
“Tell me you at least kicked her out of your house,” Jack said.
“I hope she’s just had the sense to leave,” I admitted.
“You haven’t been back to your house?” Ace asked.
Jack’s mouth twisted into a scowl. “You’ve been sleeping in the office, haven’t you?”
“Why not? It’s my office.”
“You could’ve told one of us,” Ace said. “You could’ve had at least a couch to crash on.”
“Or a bed,” Haley added. “Like the one Chuck and I have in the guest bedroom of our house, you know. Idiot.”
“I didn’t want to cause anybody trouble,” I said.
“Brody, that’s exactly the kind of trouble you trust your friends with,” Jack said. “That’s what we’re here for. There’s no need for you to suffer by yourself.”
“You all like Nadine,” I said. “There was no way I was going to ruin that friendship for everyone.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to be friends with her with the way she’s treating you,” Ace said. “I mean, I’m just speaking for myself here.”
“He’s speaking for all of us,” Haley said. “You should’ve said something sooner to avoid all this bullshit.” Her eyes told me she would’ve been giving me different advice if she’d known the whole truth, but I just shook my head at her.
“The way she was treating you ignoring you and flirting with anything that walked through that door,” Jack said, drumming his fingers on the bar. “Was that the beginning of all this?”
“I don’t know. I guess.” I heaved a sigh and put my forehead against the bar. “I honestly thought it was just a tactic to make me jealous. That she was just playing games. The sex… Sorry, Haley.”
“I heard nothing,” she said, putting the glasses away with crash after crash. “And I’m going to straighten up in your office, so you can say whatever you think you need to say.”
As soon as I heard the door down the hall close, I sighed. “The sex was magnificent,” I said. “I thought it was a thing. Like some kind of kink. It worked, whatever she was doing. I wasn’t sure whether she liked me or hated me, but the sex was so good that it almost didn’t matter.” Except that of course it mattered. I’d been confusedaroused, but confused the entire time. I’d wanted her to like me. I cared for her so much.
“But then she had another guy over…at your house,” Jack said. “Was that a game?”
“I didn’t stick around to find out,” I said.
“I hope you kicked his ass,” Ace said, cracking his knuckles.
“I just left.” Pathetic, but true. Hurt had been the overwhelming emotion in that moment. Hurt, and then confusion. I’d left because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“Look, we just won’t mention Thanksgiving to her,” Jack said. “It’s as easy as that. I’m sorry this is happening to you, but that’s at least one thing we can do spare you having to see her or interact with her at the party.”
“I don’t know, Jack. That’s pretty petty.”
“It’s not petty if it helps you feel better.”
“But it doesn’t make me feel better at all. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m doing a shit job of trying.”
“You’re in love with her.”
I groaned at Ace. “Would you think less of me if I told you I couldn’t get over her? That I still loved her, even now? I feel like such an idiot.”
“Love is idiotic,” Ace said, nodding. “You can’t help who you love, or why.”
“Like you love Katie,” Jack said, n
odding back. “Why even?”
“You’re such an asshole,” Ace complained, swatting at Jack. “You adore Katie. Don’t lie. She knows it, too.”
“I do not adore Katie. Katie is a plague.”
“You just wait. You are going to find someone just like her one day, someone we’ll all complain about.”
It was nice to just sit there and listen to the two of them banter. It took my mind off my own problems. Ace was right, though. For as much as they bickered, everyone knew that Jack and Katie were quite fond of each other. It was only fitting since they both loved Ace so much.
“So how are you going to move forward?” Ace asked me during a lull in the insults flying between him and Jack. “What’s the plan?”
“The plan is there is no plan,” I said. “I have no idea what to do.”
“No Thanksgiving invite,” Jack said.
“She doesn’t have anyone,” I protested. “She has to come to Thanksgiving.”
“She has whoever she invited to your house,” Ace reasoned.
“She has all of you, is what I’m saying. It would be cruel to keep her from the people she cares about just because I’m having a tiff with her or she’s having a tiff with me.”
“So you want her to come to Thanksgiving?” Jack asked.
“If she wants to come, I don’t want to keep her from it,” I said.
“At least evict her.”
“Where would she go?”
“To anyone who would take her.”
“Maybe she can stay in the guest room at Chuck and Haley’s,” Ace suggested.
“I don’t want to put her out,” I said.
“God, you have it bad,” Jack said, eyeing me. “You’re hopeless.” He meant it as an insult, but it came out a little wistful.
“Believe me. I wish I didn’t.” Because it hurt so much, to love her so much even after discovering her betrayal.
“What do you want out of it?” he asked.
Lots of things. A resolution, maybe. Closure, at the very least. Some miraculous reversal of fortunes and the ability to move forward with each other. To love her. For her to love me back. But the undercurrent framing all of those wishes was something I couldn’t ignore.
“I just want Nadine to be happy,” I said finally. “That’s all.”
“Goddamn.” Jack was shaking his head, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen a sadder smile on anyone.
“You can say that again,” Ace said, yanking out three shot glasses and pounding them down on the bar. He swiftly filled the trio with whiskey.
“I can’t have whiskey right now,” I protested, but the words fell flat.
“Medicine for the lovesick,” Ace reasoned, nudging one over to me. Jack obediently took his. “To that bitch, love. She hurts us so good.”
“To love,” I said, reluctant, the whiskey burning its way down to the very pit of my stomach. It did little, though, to exorcise the area of my heart that still held out hope for Nadine.
Chapter 7
Thanksgiving was upon us before any of us knew it, and it was just another sign that the older you got, the faster time flew. Would it ever slow down again, or were we doomed to speed through the rest of our lives?
A big part of it was knowing that I would see Nadine for the first time since she’d brought the random guy into my home. Dread was a great way to make the days fly by.
By the time the bar was closed for regular business and decorated with cheesy cardboard cutouts of goofy-looking turkeys and cornucopias brandishing produce innards, I was dealing with my various anxieties about the evening with the same bottle of whiskey with which Ace had tried to comfort me during the planning stage for the party, when I’d been convinced that all I cared about was Nadine’s happiness.
Maybe I should’ve been a little more concerned with my own happiness. Right now, I felt the furthest from happiness I ever had. I was sick with nerves, and the whiskey was barely making a dent in it.
I felt like I could be excused for showing up to Thanksgiving already a little drunk. I knew that I’d told Haley to go ahead and invite Nadine in spite of everything, but that didn’t mean I had to go into it all vulnerable and sober. Having four whiskeys on the rocks in me prior to everyone arriving at the bar meant that I felt a little impervious to whatever might come to pass, even if it just meant being in the same place as Nadine, for once. I’d gotten really good at avoiding her at the bar. I made excuses, locking myself in the office if I knew she was working. Or I’d arrange to go on brewery tours and purchasing visits if I couldn’t stand the thought of sharing the space with her.
There was the problem, though, of having taken her on one of those trips. We’d had so much fun that day, riding together all the way to the brewery, shouting at each other over the wind we generated, Nadine’s laughter so wild and free. She’d gotten drunk tasting all the beers the brewery had to offer and then some, and I was drunk on her, the generosity of her spirit, the way she accepted everything into her heart and truly savored it. How many people were there like that in the world? How had I been lucky enough to cross paths with one?
And how had I been so stupid to mess everything up?
The breweries had lost their flavor. I holed up in my office and got caught up on paperwork and purchase orders, reorganizing my files, then digitizing them just for the hell of it. I created business plans for projects that would never come to pass transforming the bar into a craft brewery of its own, or a brewpub, or something that Jack would never sign off on.
I was so busy pretending to change things so I could forget it was really me I wanted to change, or Nadine’s opinion of me. I didn’t know how to be the person she wanted me to be, didn’t even know what the parameters of that identity would entail.
All I could do now was try to weather the storm I felt like Thanksgiving was going to be.
“You okay?” Haley gave me a significant look as I tried to hide the fifth whiskey I’d poured for myself.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Chuck set a huge turkey, still steaming from the oven, on the bar. “How about this? This has to be better than fine, right?”
“Okay, that looks delicious,” I said. “I thought Ace was doing the turkey, though.”
Haley rolled her eyes. “It seems like there is a casual turkey competition going on this year.”
“I wasn’t invited to take part in this turkey competition,” I protested. “I bet I could make a really good turkey.”
“As good as this?” Chuck grinned as he framed the turkey in his hands like he was considering the best angles for a photoshoot.
“Enough to put me in the running for a chance at the grand prize,” I said. “What is the grand prize?”
“What grand prize is there with all your stupid bets?” Haley asked. “There’s money on the best turkey.”
“What? How much money?”
Chuck looked cowed and Haley shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Who’s in charge of judging the best turkey?”
Chuck patted my chest in what seemed, at first glance, as a gesture of affection, but then something crinkled in the pocket of my button down. “We were hoping you would do us the service of sampling the tenderest, juiciest pieces of the turkeys and deciding which one was the obvious best. My turkey, for example, has been slow roasted for hours, lovingly basted and cared for the entire time.”
“Did you just put a twenty-dollar bill in my pocket?” I asked, fishing it out and holding it up.
“Why, no!” Chuck exclaimed, his wide eyes shooting for innocence. “I would never do something as dastardly as trying to buy the judge.” He winked cheekily.
“You are not bribing Brody, Chuck.” Sloan and Amy walked in, Sloan bearing a container of cut-up turkey. “That’s so clearly cheating.”
“I’m not bribing him,” Chuck said, with some dignity. “Can’t a man give his friend some extra dough every now and again?”
“On this, the day of the gre
at turkey cook-off?” Sloan demanded. “I don’t think so. I see right through you.”
“You all can try to bribe Brody all you want,” Ace said, making an entrance, flourishing his turkey on a fancy platter. Knowing him, he’d probably purchased the gold-toned crockery today to highlight his grilled bird. “One taste of this turkey, and he’s going to forget any of you are competing.”
“It does smell awfully good,” I was forced to admit.
“Don’t be fooled by his fancy presentation,” Sloan advised me. “Wait until you taste my turkey. It’s so tender it falls apart in your mouth. I’m absolutely going to win.”
“Who’s absolutely going to win?” Amy asked coolly.
Sloan gulped. “We. We are going to win. Amy did some…uh, the bulk of the work.” She smiled.
“Oh my God.” Jack plopped his bag of store-bought rolls on the bar, surveying the collection of turkeys. “I thought the point of organizing this thing was to ensure that we had all of our Thanksgiving bases covered. Did everyone seriously bring turkey?”
“Turkey’s the most important part of Thanksgiving,” Ace said gravely. “That’s why you entrusted me…to make the best one.”
“We entrusted you to make the only one,” Jack groused. “Now we’re going to have a crap ton of turkey.”
“Oh, come on,” Chuck said, pointing to the casserole dish Haley was setting up on the other end of the bar. “Of course we brought the sweet potatoes, too. But there’s no such thing as too much turkey, and we wouldn’t skimp on our original responsibilities.”
“How did I not catch wind of the turkey competition?” I wondered aloud, taking a sip from my whiskey.
“Whoa,” Ace said, recoiling a bit. “Is it whiskey o’clock already?”
“Soothing my nerves,” I muttered, a little taken aback that I’d been loose enough to break that out in front of everyone. They all knew I was a beer drinker before anything else.
“Hey, she might not even show up,” Jack said, looking to console me. “Haley, did you hear anything from Nadine?”
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