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“It’s a bar, so they’ve got lots of shit on tap.”

“Good.” He knocks his hand against my shoulder. “I’ll look for you. What time do you think you’ll be there?”

I tell him what time I’m planning to head out and give him an estimate on when I’ll be at my barstool. “I’m usually there at the same time most nights, so I’m easy to find.”

“I know.” My stomach drops. For a few seconds, it doesn’t come back up. He knows I’m easy to find? What the hell else does this guy know about me? What does he think he knows? “It’s okay, man. Don’t look so freaked out. You live next door. Everybody knows that.”

“Right.”

“Right,” he repeats. “You live next door, and you’ve never even asked us over for a game of cards.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to play cards.”

“Where else would we play? The office?”

“You could if you wanted to.”

Seth gestures around the rest of the shop. “This is work. Not everything can happen here. Haven’t you ever heard of a work-life balance?”

“I don’t sit at a desk all day, so no.”

“I bet you have more chairs in your house.” He leans in and gives me a look. “I bet you also have a bigger fridge, which could fit more beer. And if you were really feeling friendly, you could order a pizza, and we could eat it while we played cards.”

“Sounds like you’re inviting yourself over.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. What do you say? Next Friday? Or do you only socialize at the bar?”

“Next Friday’s fine,” I tell him, mostly uneasy but at the same time, curious. I wonder if the boss put him up to this. To make me feel like I’m part of the family, as he likes to call it.

“I’ll let the rest of the guys know.”

I like the guys at the shop well enough—if I didn’t, I wouldn’t work here—but I guess I’ve never thought much about whether they liked me back.

I work through a complicated repair on a new-ish car—the news ones are always the worst because they have computer chips and all kinds of other bullshit built in—and then a simple repair on an old car. I take a break for lunch and go back at it, knocking two more repairs off the list.

“I’m going to make you employee of the month,” Rick shouts over the whine of a drill. “Put your picture on the wall and everything.”

“Hey,” Seth calls from the other side of the shop. “What about me? I’ve been here longer.”

“You’re not as good,” Rick answers.

“Hey, fuck you.”

“Watch your mouth in my repair shop.”

They both laugh at each other.

It doesn’t come up again. We get a few more cars in toward the early afternoon. I let Rick know I’ll stay a little later so we’re not swamped in the morning. It just feels like the right thing to do, and it keeps feeling that way.

I’ve come pretty far.

I owe that to my girl. Even when my head is fuzzy with the other things, I know she’s there for me. She’s the one who keeps being there for me.

My girlfriend showed me that we don’t have to stay there forever. We existed before we got sent away. We exist now. Everything that happened in the middle is just part of us. It’s not all of us.

I think about that for a while I’m bent over the next car on the list.

“Hey, Aden.”