I told myself I liked it that way.
I almost believed it.
Looking at the ancient digital clock on the nightstand, I saw it was only six, but I couldn’t lie there in discomfort any longer. Sitting up, I stretched and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Maybe a run and a shower would chase the memory of my bad night’s sleep away.
Tossing on a pair of shorts and socks and shoes, I took off for the neighborhood streets. I tried to clear my mind and let myself think about work. It was weirdly less stressful to think about how frustrated I was to not be running my company than it was to deal with the heartbreak of the bar.
A couple of miles later, I made my way back to the motel and stripped down in the cold room to step into a hot shower. If nothing else, the motel had a great showerhead. It came out like a cannon and massaged the muscles in my shoulders and back harder and more effectively than the incredibly expensive one I had at home. I made a note to look into whatever brand that was.
When I was dressed and ready, I packed my things up and checked out of the hotel, grabbing a rideshare to my brother’s house and stepping out onto his lawn at nearly ten. There were multiple cars in the driveway, and I assumed that meant that either my brothers had huddled together for a sleepover, or they all had the same trouble I did with getting shut-eye.
“Hey, Tom,” Mason said as he opened the door.
“Mason,” I said, then turned to see Ava behind him. “Ava, good to see you both.”
Mason smiled and turned to the side to let me in and in doing so revealed the little boy in the highchair behind him. Little Robert was happily bouncing and flailing his arms as his mother sat beside him, a spoon in one hand and a washcloth in the other. Robert was covered from nose to chest in what looked like pureed pumpkin.
“Hi, Tom,” Ava said smiling up at me. “I would come hug you, but I think Robert got as much on me as he did himself.”
I laughed, shaking my head and kneeling down in front of him.
“Say, that’s okay, Mama. I’m messy like my daddy was,” I said in a teasing voice.
“Oh really?” Ava asked looking up at Mason, who stood behind me.
“Oh yes,” I said, “Mason was the messiest eater I had ever seen when he was little. I thought Mom was going to lose her mind when he would end up with food everywhere. One time it ended up on the ceiling fan.”
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Mason said, laughing.
“It’s true,” Tyler’s voice piped up from the living room. “Nothing has changed. Check his collar.”
I looked up at Mason, who grimaced and hung his head. Sure enough, his collar had a light brown stain on it I didn’t notice before.
“It was a coffee accident. Perfectly normal for an adult,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Ava said and expertly landed the spoon in little Robert’s mouth. He giggled happily, and some of it spilled down his chin to join the mound growing on his chest.
“Why don’t you join us in the living room,” Mason said. It was less of a question and more of a guidance. If I knew my brothers, they were plotting in there, and Mason knew I would make sense of it.
“Stop being so messy,” I said to Robert, poking him lightly on the nose. He squealed with a laugh of such pure joy that I couldn’t help but smile wide in spite of everything.
When I got into the living room, I saw my brothers predictably sitting on couches and chairs around the coffee table in the middle. Mason sat down in a recliner, and I took a chair adjacent to him. Tyler and Matt had plates of food in front of them, but Jordan didn’t. Instead he just had a single mug of what looked like mud-black coffee that he picked up to take a bitter sip from.
“Anybody get any rest?” I asked the group of bleary-eyed men.
“The baby probably got better sleep than any of us, and he wakes up every couple hours,” Mason said half-heartedly.
“Yeah, neither did I,” I said sighing. “I take it no one else heard anything? No news?”
A room full of silent shaking heads, and I looked down at my hands. They were clenched in fists. How long had they been clenched like that? How often was I grinding my teeth? I needed to relax. But I also needed answers.
“I think,” I began, “that I want to go down to the bar and see if anything looks odd. I know they have investigators out combing over it, but you never know what they might miss. Maybe someone suspicious-looking?”
“I’m telling you guys, it’s that damn Danny Jefferies,” Jordan said. I expected pushback from the others, but only Mason seemed to stiffen. Tyler and Matt just stared straight ahead into the distance, chewing their food slowly.
“Seriously, Jordan, that’s enough. We don’t have any evidence to support that other than you don’t like him.” I said.
“I also don’t trust him, how about that?” Jordan said.
“Me either,” Tyler mumbled.
“You?” I asked. “When did this happen?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I just can’t rule him out, you know?”
“Well, I’m going to go down there and have a look around. You guys got to do that already. Let me know if you hear anything,” I said, standing.
“Going so soon?” Ava called as I made it to the door. I turned back to her and Robert, covered in food.
“Just going down to the bar. I’ll be around,” I said and turned to walk out.
I made it to the bar with my body crying out for a coffee. Normally by now I would have had a couple of cups in me, so I walked past the smoldering wreckage to the coffee shop on the opposite corner. There was outdoor seating there where I could look out over the bar anyway. I mean I might as well be putting some caffeine in me while I did.
When I settled into the chair, I prepared myself for a while of just people-watching. I figured I could sit there all afternoon, watching for anyone who seemed too interested in the fire. Anyone who seemed too disinterested, too. It was as suspicious to gawk and pry around the wreckage as it was for someone to completely avoid their eyes and walk away whistling.
I had been sitting there long enough for my cup to have been empty for at least ten minutes when the chairs on either side of me slid out.
“Tyler, Matt, what are you doing here?” I asked as my brothers sat on the sides of me.
“Same thing as you,” Matt said. “People-watching.”
“Person-watching,” Tyler piped in. “Just one.”
“So, you bought fully in on this conspiracy theory, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say that. We don’t have any iota of who is behind it yet, but you have to admit, what Jordan is saying makes sense, Tom. Danny Jefferies has been known to disparage us to his clientele, and some of our regulars said they saw him ripping ads for theme nights off windows and telephone poles around town. He hates us,” Tyler explained.
“I just have a hard time believing it, but if you two both think I should take a look at him, I will. It’s just a far cry from the harmless old man I met when I bought this bar,” I said.
“He’s not that old,” Matt said. “And that was a good bit ago anyway. He’s only gotten worse the more successful we got.”
“Alright, you wore me down. I’ll keep an eye out for him, too,” I said. Tyler nodded down the road behind Matt, and we both turned to look.