Bro Code(45)

“Mom. I can’t take a break right now. Can you please just let me work?”

“All you ever do is work,” she grumbles, rolling her eyes. “Maybe you need to go back to Chicago and see Barrett. You were relaxed after that. You need to go out there again.”

“What I need to do right now Mom, is sort out Mark’s workers’ comp and hire a contractor. Please, just let me get this done.”

The doorbell rings and Mom abandons her post over my shoulder to answer it, backing out of the office with her hands up in surrender. “Fine, fine, do what you need to do. Just don’t work yourself to death.”

I tune out whatever is happening downstairs and laser in on the insurance document I have pulled up, but not even a minute passes before Mom’s voice echoes back up the stairs.

“Ava, honey! It’s for you.”

I push back from the desk in a huff. Hopefully it’s Megan making another surprise visit because I don’t think I can muster up the energy to politely turn anyone else away. As I descend the stairs, the stern looking gentleman standing on our front porch is completely unfamiliar to me. Maybe he has the wrong address?

“Ms. Ava Saunders?”

I guess that’s a no to the wrong address. He rifles through his briefcase and offers up a packet of paperwork. “You’ve been served.”

What? I snatch the paperwork out of his hands and tear open the seal. The word “summons” stares back at me in thick, daunting letters. I can feel my heartbeat behind my eardrums. Mark is suing me? This has to be some kind of joke. After all this company has given him for the past thirty years?

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

The courier shakes his head and latches his briefcase. “You have thirty days to answer the complaint that is listed for you on the paperwork.” With a cordial nod goodbye, he’s heading down the driveway, leaving me slack jawed and trembling.

Mom swings the door shut and I can feel her sympathetic stare, but I can’t manage to lift my eyes from the paperwork in my shaking hands. We stand like this for a good while before I finally say the only thing that comes to mind.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Call Barrett,” Mom says, as though it were obvious. “He’ll know exactly what to do.”

Every muscle in my body tightens. She’s right, as an attorney, Barrett would easily be able to walk me through this, but we haven’t so much as texted since I came back. How pathetic would it be to come crawling to him looking for free legal advice, admitting that while he's flourishing in the city, my life here in Indiana is falling apart?

“No,” I mutter, swallowing the lump in my throat and trying to gulp down any bit of confidence with it. “I can handle this on my own. I don’t need Barrett.”

I repeat it over and over in my head. I don’t need Barrett, I don’t need Barrett, I don’t need Barrett. How many times do I have to repeat that before I actually believe it?





Chapter Twenty-two


Barrett


I told myself after the weekend with Ava that everything with her would stop, but it seems like life has other plans. I find myself standing on her parents’ doorstep yet again. After knocking twice, I glance through the window, wondering if she's even home.

Mrs. Saunders is the one who answers, and she's all smiles. “Barrett, I'm so glad you could come! How did you drive down here so fast?”

I was already halfway here, but there's not a chance that I'm going to explain to Ava's mom why that is. “Let's just say I was in the neighborhood. And it seemed like you really needed my expertise.”

“You're such a sweet boy,” she says, shepherding me inside the house, “or a good man, I should say. It's been a long time since you were a teenager tossing a football in my yard.” She chuckles as I follow her inside.

The house smells like she's been baking something, but Ava isn't anywhere in sight. As if reading my mind, she smiles and points up the stairs. “She's in her father's office. Going through old contracts to see if she can make the best of everything.”

“Injury claims can be a really tough fight to win, especially if the accident happens on site.” I'm not trying to burst her bubble, but there's only so much I can bend the truth in a situation like this. “I'll go talk to her.”

I haven't made it two steps before Mrs. Saunders puts a hand on my elbow, worry written all over her face. “You know how stubborn she is. She was just trying to do the right thing by keeping the factory open. Her heart's hanging on her sleeve.”

“Yeah.” Ava's always tried to be the better person, even when it cost her. Guilt threatens to climb my throat, but I force it back down. This has to be about work, about doing the best at my job, not how I feel about her.

I can't let whatever we have—had, I remind myself— jeopardize everything else. But how am I supposed to play this hand with the cards I've been dealt? There's only two ways this can go, and I'm going to have to make the best of it.

Mrs. Saunders lets me go, and I head up the stairs. The door to the office is open an inch, and it doesn't make a sound as I walk on through. Ava is hunched over the desk with an absolute mountain of papers, but she’s so focused, she hasn't noticed me. I knock on the doorframe to get her attention, only to get a sigh in response.