Page 8 of When I'm Gone

“We’ll be more than happy to look at anything else you come up with,” I offer. Kaden nods with his eyes on the floor, so we do him the decency to let him sulk in the privacy of his own space. After we both wish him good luck, Brady steersme to the elevators post haste. We make it until the doors close until we crack up laughing.

“Fucking hell,” Brady rasps.

The elevator pings when we make it to the ground floor. Ignoring some pretty serious side-eyes from the people waiting to go up, we dodge and weave our way to the courtyard garden. Granted, that is a generous term for it. It’s no more than a couple of picnic tables and some scraggly bushes that have seen better days, but it’s summer in Washington and Brady stores UV exposure like a lizard so he can survive the rainy season, so we’re outside as much as we can manage when it’s nice out.

After I plop the bag on the table, Brady starts divvying it up. “What’d you get us?” I question.

“Brocco Lee Bistro,” he returns with a sheepish smile.

I roll my eyes. “Can you please just ask that girl out and get it over with? I miss real burgers.”

“It’s delicious and you know it.” I have to stifle a moan as I bite into the vegan burger he ordered me. He’s not wrong, the place is fantastic, but we’re eating it several times a week so he can flirt with the manager. “Mhmm, that’s what I thought. Quit rushing my process and eat your lunch.”

His process. His process is weeks of flirty banter, a one-night stand, and no repeats. I love the guy, but he’s a man-whore. He’s transparent to his partners about it, not that a fair few haven’t tried to be the one to change him.

“So, any ideas for what you want to do for your birthday this year?” A subject change is better than him continuing to gloat about our food.

He hums around a mouthful, but it’s hard to miss the storm clouds darkening his eyes before he can blink them away. Most things are bittersweet for Brady these days. I hate it, but there’s only so much I can do to fix it.

“Any suggestions?”

“Well,” I start. “That depends on the vibe you’re going for. We’ve been putting off building your back deck, and the weather is finally up for it so we can do that if you want a project to do. We can go camping if you’re trying to get out of the house. Or there’s always Bottoms Up! if you want to get drinks.”

There’s never any predicting what Brady will want to do for his birthday. As per his request, it’s been a range from going to the zoo to repainting his living room. Sometimes he wants to be surrounded by friends, other times he just wants it to be me. The only common denominator I’ve been able to determine is that he likes to be busy.

I can work with that.

He blows out a breath and sets his burger down on the parchment paper. “I don’t know, Ace. It’s on Monday, right?” I nod in confirmation. “So, the usual drinks on Friday with the work crew and the weekend is open for whatever. I’m leaning towards deck building though.”

Brady and I bought house's next door to each other when we both landed our jobs at TechAll. It wasn’t intentional. He was the one who got an interview here for the web designer job they had open, but Brady being Brady, him and Marianne got to talking and she revealed that there was a cyber security position she was wanting to get filled, and he worked his magic. I was the first one to find a house I wanted to buy; it was a total dump. It needed new floors, a new roof, new plumbing, and a total redesign. I always planned on doing it a little at a time, but when the neighbors came knocking—my literal worst nightmare, but they were nice enough—they revealed that they’d been thinking of selling. They were tired of the rain and wanted to move south, and because they didn’t have kids, they didn’t know what to do with their house. Like mine, it was in bad need of repairs that theycouldn’t afford so I introduced them to Brady. Bam. Homeowners.

We have a lot of fun working on our houses, and between the two of us, in addition to an embarrassing amount of how-to videos, we manage doing most of it without having to hire anyone.

“It’s only fair considering we just tiled my primary bathroom.” I shrug.

Brady shudders, causing me to laugh. “If you’re really bad in your life, you suffer an eternity of tiling. Worst thing we’ve ever done, Ace.”

“You just don’t have the patience for it, Bray.”

He throws a fry at me. “No shit. What gave you that idea?”

His loss, that’s mine now.

We finish our lunch and head back inside to our desks. My team is busy enough that I don’t even realize it’s time to go until Brady taps me on the shoulder and startles the fuck out of me.

“Sorry, you about ready to go?”

I dig a hand into my chest over my frantic heartbeat. “Jesus, Brady. Yeah, just give me a minute to get logged out.”

He nods, used to my shit time management by this point in our friendship. It’s a small company with fifteen employees, and only three of those are in my field, so we stay busy with all of Marianne’s clients.

“Don’t want to keep the husband waiting,” Seth, my fellow analyst, teases as I gather my belongings and stand.

I huff a laugh. People have been giving me and Brady shit for too long for it to get under my skin anymore. “Don’t be jealous. You’ll be our first call when we’re looking for a third.”

Seth sputters a bit, blushing heavily. Brady winks at him and we walk away, but Seth calls after us, “I better be!”

Brady chuckles but is abnormally quiet on the ride down. I try to ignore it, but by the time we make it about halfway home, I glance over at him in my passenger seat with worry. That faraway look in his eye is telling. I can comfortably bet where his mind has wandered off to. “Penny for your thoughts?” I offer.

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