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Bray and I don’t talk about anything below the surface.
As I step into the bar, and Bray waves at me from the barstool he’s sitting on, I wonder why there seems to be some invisible wall between us, even when we’re together.
“Hey,” he says, standing. We give each other a hug, but I wait for him to pull away before I do. I’ve seen what familial connections look like at Worth’s house, and I want to know if we can have that too.
“Good to see you,” I say.
A smile curls at the corner of his lips. “Good to see you too. Sorry to have dragged you away from your shmoozing for the evening.”
I smile, ignoring the jibe. “It’s good to be here,” I say.
“Okay,” he says with a chuckle. “Can I get you a beer?”
Bray loves a sports bar, so here we are in my idea of a special part of hell, and there’s absolutely no point in asking for a glass of good red wine or a martini. “Sure,” I say. “I’ll have what you’re having.”
He places the order and then we settle next to each other at the bar. There are TVs directly in front of us, behind the bar, and lining the walls. Wherever you look, there are flickering lights of blue screens.
“What’s with you and sports bars?”
Bray shrugs, but I want to know why. We’re brothers. We share the same DNA, yet I barely know him. Is it because of what happened in New York? Because of losing Dad? Because we’re back in the town that ruined our family? I don’t know because we never discuss it. It’s like an enormous elephant is squeezed in between us, and neither of us can see over it to the other.
“Is that since university?” I ask. When did it start?
“Since coming back to New York,” he answers. “I didn’t have cable TV. I didn’t understand all the US sports. It’s so different from the UK. It was cultural research for me.”
I laugh. “Smart.”
“And it was cheap. New York’s an expensive city.”
“Do you still have that flatmate?” I ask. “Joe? Is that his name?”
“Joe Romano? No, of course not.”
“Who’s your flatmate now?”
“I don’t have one.”
“But you’re still in the same place, right? Where was that again?”
“I live on the Upper West Side.”
“You do? I thought you lived in Brooklyn.” I feel kind of embarrassed or ashamed that I don’t even know the borough my brother lives in.
“Not for about four years.”
“Huh. How come I didn’t know that?”
He takes a swig of his beer. “I’m not sure I mentioned it.”
I’m certain he never mentioned it. I would have remembered something like that. Why would he keep something like that from me?
“You should come to dinner at my place sometime,” I say. “I could cook for you.”
He chuckles. “You still love to cook, then?”
“Yeah.” I think back to the papers that Avril printed off for me—culinary school. I’m definitely not loving my job at the moment, but do I really want to go to culinary school?
“I was always surprised that you didn’t go into the restaurant biz,” he says.
