The Art of Losing(47)

“Hey, Harley,” he said. “I didn’t know you were working here, too.” He gave Cassidy a wave, and she smiled and waved back.

“Only for about a week,” I said. My voice was tight.

An awkward silence followed. I wondered whether I was supposed to ask him what he wanted to order or keep making small talk. Ryan wasn’t a jerk or anything. We’d even had fun together. Sometimes. Maybe I missed him a little.

“So, iced coffee?” I asked.

“Oh, right, um, large,” he said. “Room for milk.”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said without thinking. I’d seen Ryan drink about three hundred iced coffees since I’d known him. It was his drink of choice whether it was ninety or nineteen degrees outside.

“Of course,” he said. “Just don’t ruin it with sugar the way you poison your own coffee.”

All at once I remembered a lame inside joke we’d shared. Mike, Ryan, and I had always treated “coffee” like the fourth person in our group. Just so Ryan wouldn’t feel like a third wheel. We were always a foursome, thanks to Ryan’s date, Iced Coffee. Then he met Connie. How convenient: her name rhymed with coffee.

I smiled to myself as I put ice in his cup.

“How’s your sister doing?” he asked.

The smile slid from my face. “She’s good. She’s awake, and they’re talking about moving her to a rehab facility. So, as good as could be expected, I guess.”

He nodded, his own face growing serious. “I’m really glad to hear it,” he said. “I’ve always liked Audrey.”

I swallowed. It was time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. “So, how’s Mike? Have you seen him?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“What? One of us had to bring him up.”

Ryan shook his head. “No, he’s not really allowed to talk to me from rehab.”

I nodded. That made sense. “But he told you . . .”

“Yeah, he told me that you dumped him. And honestly, I’m surprised it took you so long.”

Right. There was that familiar stab of guilt in my gut.

“So, hey,” Ryan said, “the guys and I are having a party tonight, if you want to come?” He added hastily, “No drinking or anything.”

“Wait, really?” I said, turning my head so quickly that I almost spilled the pitcher of cold brew I was pouring. “You guys aren’t drinking anymore?”

Ryan nodded. He looked me straight in the eye. “Yeah. Mike’s accident was kind of a wake-up call for us all. Or most of us anyway.”

I handed Ryan his coffee and waved off his attempt to pay for it. “It’s on me,” I said. He didn’t need to know that I was trying to make up for not thinking about him once. For not even considering how he and his friends might have been affected by Mike’s accident. “It was really good to see you,” I added.

“So you’re not going to come tonight?” Ryan actually looked disappointed.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m working closing. But I really appreciate the offer.” And I did.

He tipped his coffee in my direction and slid a dollar into the tip jar. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “I’ll see you around.”

“I hope so,” I answered honestly.

I almost expected to see him getting into Mike’s car, his arm hanging out the passenger-side window, before I remembered that it was totaled.

There was a voicemail on my phone when I got it out of my locker in the break room at the end of the night, but I didn’t recognize the number. I waited to listen to it until I was in my car, just in case it was something about Audrey and I needed the freedom to cry. The message, though not about Audrey, made me want to cry anyway.

It was from Ms. Baker, Mike’s mom, telling me to call her back because she needed to ask me something. She wasn’t specific about what, and though I didn’t really want to talk about Mike, my curiosity got the better of me.

“Hello, Harley,” she answered. “Thank you so much for returning my call.” She sounded oddly formal for a woman who had made sure to keep my preferred brand of tampons in her guest bathroom.

“Hi, Ms. Baker,” I responded, matching her tone. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” she said slowly, as though she was reluctant to continue, or maybe unsure of how to start. “As you know, Mike has been in rehab for a couple of weeks now. As he comes to the end of his stay, one of the steps that he is supposed to complete is to make amends for the things he did wrong.”

Oh God, no. My stomach plummeted.

“Mike would really like to see you, Harley, and have the chance to talk about some things. I don’t expect your parents to come, though he’d like to apologize to them, too, but I’d love it if you could be there. There’s a family day on Saturday.”

My mouth dropped open. Shock shifted to annoyance, then to anger. But there was a sliver of hope, too. I may have been furious with Mike, but as Ryan showed me, this was about much more than Mike himself. After going to that party with Raf and meeting real addicts, I didn’t think Mike fit the bill of an alcoholic. Not yet. But if he kept going the direction he was headed, he could become one. And I didn’t want to imagine the damage he could do along the way.