Page 12 of Brick Wall

Sebastian

I ’m sitting in the camp’s makeshift cafeteria, the all-purpose big brown building, on a rectangular cafeteria table by myself and the finished pizza. The lights above me flicker, but the other end of the room remains dark.

It’s quiet. Everyone has disappeared and I’m the lone man sitting by myself until I see two shadows appear.

“Hey, bro, thanks for meeting,” Ryan says as he sits down with two beer bottles and hands the second beer to me.

Tristan follows from behind with a small notepad and pen in one hand and a drink in the other.

“No problem,” I say sincerely.

Today is Friday night, and my last day volunteering at the sports camp. The staff has been diligently cleaning and restocking for next week, but most are finished and are on their way home now.

I told Tristan and Ryan I’d meet with them at the end of the day to regroup and talk about the past week. We have had little time this week to do so.

It’s been a fun week coaching, and I’m going to miss it. It was much more fun, and busy, than expected, and I realized how much I love working with kids.

Yes, I work with people younger than me every day, but I don’t really consider rookie players kids, although sometimes they act like it. This week was more rewarding than I anticipated, and I loved teaming up with the Moore Good Foundation.

I’ll have to return next year, which is exactly what I tell the guys during this meeting.

We go over camp stuff and what improvements I think should happen for the following year, but honestly, everything went pretty smoothly, and I feel bad I don’t have too many ideas to contribute.

They seem upbeat and still enthused about this partnership, despite my lack of suggestions.

We move onto my side of the business and what I need help with, which is not much at the moment. “We are almost sold out of tables for the gala. I think Scarlett said we have one more left, so thank you for your help.”

“No problem. We look forward to attending. Do you need us to do anything before the event, like help with setup or anything?” Tristan asks.

“Nah, we got everything covered for the day of. Just enjoy yourselves and mingle.”

“Will do, man,” Ryan eagerly says. “We can probably use one more table for Moore Fitness if you don’t sell it soon.

I don’t think we Moore siblings were planning to bring a date, but if we have another table, there will be plenty of room for our whole team and a plus-one for each of us,” Ryan says with a wag of his eyebrows while Tristan just rolls his eyes at him.

I take a sip of my beer. “I’ll let you know if that’s needed, but we still have some time to sell it.” We are actually now ahead of schedule of where we were this time last year, so I’m not worried.

“Who are you bringing to the gala?” I look up and notice that Ryan directed the question to me, although I don’t understand what he means.

“I’m going to be busy, but my sisters are going to be there with me. No extended family, though.”

“Are you bringing a date?” Ryan rephrases his question, and—gotcha!—I realize what he is asking.

“I’ll be too busy.” I keep my reply short.

I don’t have time to worry about someone else, but I also don’t have anyone that I’d want by my side all night besides my immediate family.

I’ve never brought a date to the gala and I don’t plan to do so moving forward.

It hasn’t ever been on my radar, to be honest.

“Gotcha,” Ryan says. “I’ll check in with Scarlett next week about that table.” He must see something on my face because he adds, “I know you have a mandatory minicamp next week, so you’ll be busy.”

He’s right, I do. We have a few different training camps in the spring and early summer before our official training camp starts in late July. I will be extra busy, but I don’t love that he’s contacting and working with my sister, Scarlett, directly.

Shit.

Is this why he mentioned dates? Does he want to date my sister?

We primarily work with other women in the shelter and don’t often work with men. Well, I do obviously a lot, but Scarlett mainly works with other women with the foundation work. She hardly dates, I don’t think.

Tristan carefully sips his beer and tactfully says, “We’ll email you both next week to get a status update.”

“Okay,” I say. That sounds fair. I mean, I can’t prevent Scarlett from dating one of them if she wants to, and I don’t want to be that type of brother anyway, but I’m protective, nevertheless.

The Moore brothers are protective of Annie, too, according to her, so we have that overbearing brother gene in common. I probably have nothing to worry about. It’s just business and not an actual date, hopefully.

We finish up a few last talking points and then start shooting the shit as the three of us hang out on the plastic folding chairs in the empty all-purpose camp room. Another round of beer is added to the table, and our laughter gets louder after each round.

I look at my watch to check the time. It’s a little after nine, two hours since we started our meeting. It’s still completely bright out, one benefit of summer in June in New England. I think it’s actually the first day of summer, the longest, brightest day of the year.

As if reading my thoughts, Ryan yells, “Let’s take this party outside!”

I look around to see if anyone else has joined us, but nope, it’s only us three guys.

I don’t argue and silently get up and follow the two of them outside. I’m never one to complain about fresh air or water views; even if it’s a lake, the views are still calming.

I plop down on an Adirondack chair facing the water, and Tristan sits beside me. Ryan remains standing with all his puppy dog energy. We’re opposites. I’m tired and want to chill, and well, he doesn’t.

“Let’s play volleyball!” he exclaims. I guess I can read his thoughts, too, because there was no way that man was going to sit and relax with Tristan and me.

“I’m going to call Annie! We can play two on two!” Ryan grabs his phone out of his pocket.

“I don’t think either of us said yes,” Tristan mumbles, but Ryan is already on the phone and out of hearing distance. I smirk at him in agreement. Neither of us wants to play, but we both know we are still going to.

Five minutes later, I look up and see Annie walking towards us. She’s wearing a white baseball cap with her brown hair bouncing in a ponytail out of the back hole. She’s wearing bright blue athletic shorts and a simple white T-shirt. Her feet are bare with her toes dipping into the sand.

I notice Tristan is taking off his sandals, so I do the same with mine, leaving them by the Adirondack chair before walking toward the volleyball net.

I think the last time I played volleyball was during Phys Ed in high school, not including impromptu water balloon volleyball yesterday with Annie, of course.

“Okay, this is informal beach volleyball,” I hear Annie say with some sass, looking directly at her brother Ryan, and he rolls his eyes at her with his hands on his hips. I do not understand the reference, so I observe instead.

Annie simply lifts an eyebrow at Tristan, and he mutters “six” in return. Ryan says “three,” and then all three heads look at me like I know what this conversation is. I don’t.

“Pick a number one through ten, and whoever is closest gets to be on Annie’s team,” Tristan clues me in .

“Nine,” I pick because I should probably go high and pick something a little different from them.

“Lucky seven,” Annie responds, and Tristan pumps his hand in the air, which is the most energy I’ve seen from the man all week.

“My man,” Ryan says, giving me a low five. “We’re going to do great,” he says with false energy. “Do you want to serve first, or do you want me to?”

I put my hand out silently, saying all yours, and Ryan heads to the back of the court to serve.

His serve goes to Tristan, who quickly hits it back over the net to me, and I barely get to the ball and hit it up in the air. Luckily, Ryan is there and spikes it to Annie, but she blocks the ball, and neither of us can reach it in time.

We play a few more rounds, and Tristan and Annie are already up by six points, whereas we haven’t scored a single point yet.

“Going to lose to your little sister?” I taunt Ryan.

“Yes,” he deadpans, “especially if you are this terrible.”

I shrug. I was not built for volleyball. The only reason I won yesterday was because I had the smartest team in the bunch, plus it wasn’t really volleyball.

I’m still enjoying this impromptu game, though.

It’s a beautiful night out, with the sun slowly drifting down and a cool breeze in the air.

I also have the perfect view of the water, not to mention Annie and her tiny shorts and white tee, which lift every time she does a spike. Of course not. Why would I be looking at her instead of the water or the game itself?

Shit, I should pay better attention to the game at hand.

The ball drifts by me, and Ryan moans .

“Match point,” Tristan says as he serves the ball directly to me. I make some contact with the ball, but it’s not enough for Ryan to save the ball and hit it over.

Tristan and Annie celebrate with both their hands in the air, meeting for a double high five.

“All right, time to switch up the teams,” Ryan declares.

Annie takes a swig of her water but shakes her head. “Sorry, fellas, I’m out. I’m exhausted and need to head to bed.”

Tristan agrees with her, and so do I. Bed is sounding pretty good about now.

We all say good night, but somehow, I feel depressed for the first time in a long time that I’ll be going to bed alone.