“Well it's good to see you too.” I said as I rolled my eyes, “Seriously, you could have said just about anything and you went with ‘You look like shit’? Come on, that’s a low blow, even for you.” I slowly lowered myself into the booth, resting my cane up against the wall.

“I’m sorry man,” he said with a short laugh “It's just… man bun? Really? I walked in looking fresh as hell excited to hang out with my friend in person for the first time in years and here you are looking like you got back from a convention cosplaying as The Dude.”

I slowly shook my head and rolled my eyes. “God, you can be such a turd sometimes. And here I thought moving out on your own had matured you somewhat.”

“Oh please, like that was ever going to happen,” he said with a grin. “But in all seriousness, I’ve missed you, like a lot.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. Brian really hadn’t changed much at all since he left for Portland. Still immature, sarcastic, and cocky to a fault. He even looked the same with his sly grin, mischievous hazel eyes, and flawless chocolate skin. If anything had changed about him at all, I’d have to say he was in even better shape, if that were even possible. For all his bluster and bravado, I could still see he was the same kind and caring person underneath it all. This was my friend, through and through.

“I've missed you too.” I said

We spent a few moments sharing some small talk back and forth while we looked over the menu.

“So, have you had any time to go back home since you've been back?” I asked.

“Yes and no. Dad came over to Columbus a few times before he flew out to Texas for work. Said he would be down there for the next few months. I did manage to get home to see Lana though…” he said to me with a sly smirk on his face.

I let out an exasperated sigh, “Come on man, we’re not teenagers anymore. Can you stop with the ‘Haha I’m gonna hit on your little sister', schtick?”

“You know I’m just messin’ around. We’re basically family. And now that I’m home, we will be family cause I’m 1000% going to marry your sister someday,” Brian said with a chuckle.

“Oh god,” I moaned with my face in my hands, “You're gonna make me sick, please stop.”

Brian began to laugh, “What, the idea of me marrying your sister turns your stomach that much? You know how pretty our kids would be?”

“No man. Honestly, I’m just feeling kind of rough right now. I went a bit overboard last night” I said with a pained expression on my face.

“Let me guess, got dragged in Call of Battle, then drank some cheap whiskey watching Benchwarmers?”

“Arcane Dynasty, adequately priced rye whiskey, and Hotshots. Come on, I have some standards.” I shot back.

“Ha, well at least you have a bit more taste than when we were in school.” He said unconvincingly.

We chattered on for a few more minutes while we picked out our meals. I’d gone with an egg and bagel sandwich with a blueberry muffin, coffee, and the largest glass of orange juice I could order. Brian contented himself with bacon, scones, and coffee. We selected our orders on our touch screen menus and received a confirmation that our food would be delivered in 10 minutes.

"So,” Brian started to say while pushing his menu to the side of the table, “Lana told me that you've been spending the past few months tutoring kids for the city schools. How's that been going?"

"It was actually going really well until I was told they were ending the tutoring sessions,” I said with an air of disappointment. “My guess is that the school ran out of funding for the program, but I don't really know. I enjoyed working with the kids and I was thankful to have something to take up some of my free time, but at the end of the day I wasn't really earning that much, not that I was doing it for the money."

A sympathetic look came across Brian's face, "I'm sorry to hear about that, I know how hard it has been for you to find work. You know, you should think about going back to school to get your teaching license. Don’t you only have to complete your final year?"

I looked down sheepishly. "I know I could go back, and I gave it some serious thought once I finished my rehab, but it's not really as simple as just going back to school to finish up. By the time I was ready to go back and complete my methods and student teaching, they told me that I would have to complete new education classes. It was going to take me at least two years as a full-time student to graduate, and I honestly just don’t have the desire to go through all that just to get my license.”

Brian nodded along as I talked. He knew more than anyone that I had only gone to college to play hockey and that I was studying education in the hopes of teaching back home and coaching our old high school's hockey team. But before Brian could reply to anything I had said, our meals arrived via the robotic server, which was an automated tray cart carrying our plates. We both spent a few quiet moments setting into our food and drinks. I was very hopeful that the combination of orange juice and breakfast sandwich could help cure the lingering hangover I was still suffering from.

“Enough about me,” I said after washing down a big bite of blueberry muffin with a sip of hot black coffee. “I'm assuming you moved back to Columbus to start working in Ironwood’s main office right?"

Brian had taken a job working for a video game studio named Ironwood. When we are kids, they had created some of our favorite RPG franchises, both single-player and mmo. When Brian graduated college, he had jumped at the chance to take a job with Ironwood, going so far as to move out to Portland to take a job in its west coast studio.

Brian smiled briefly before he started to say, "Yeah, you could say I moved up to the big leagues. For the past few years, I was working on a development team to help design the firmware for a new product. The company moved the final iteration into Alpha and Beta testing and they needed someone with extensive knowledge of the product to lead the testing teams. When I realized the job was located here in Columbus, I put my name in for it.”

What Brian was saying was a bit confusing to me. “I know Ironwood hasn't developed a game in almost a decade, but I didn't know that they started working on gaming hardware. It makes a lot of sense in a way. I knew you didn’t take that job to develop whatever game they have been working on, but you've always been rather cagy when I’ve asked you about what you actually do for Ironwood. I’m honestly surprised you told me this much.”

“Well, If I’m being honest, I didn’t just invite you to lunch to catch up. I actually wanted to talk to you about a potential job.” Brian said matter of factly.

“A job… You want to offer me a job to work for Ironwood Studios?” I asked as my brow creased with a look of confusion. “I’m not exactly qualified to do anything that an AI assistant can’t do twice as fast and I'm not interested in some kind of pity job.”

“It's not a pity job!” Brian responded with an annoyed look on his face. “Look, I want to tell you more about it, but to do so I need to get into some specifics of the project itself, so I’m gonna need you to sign this before we talk about anything.”

Brian pushed his tablet across the table so that I could look at it. On the screen was an electronic document. “This is a standard NDA document for the company. Signing it is not an agreement on your end to take part in any employment, it is just a contractual agreement saying that regardless of your decision, you will not speak publicly or privately about anything I am about to tell you.” Brian stated.

As I held the touch pen in my hand and briefly skimmed through the NDA on-screen, Brian began to pay for our meals via the payment screens on our menus.

“Look man, I’m flattered. I appreciate you thinking of me, but this probably isn’t...” I said as I started to push the tablet back towards Brian.

Brian’s hand shot out and pushed the tablet back towards me until it bumped into my chest, and he slapped the pen down on the table right next to it. Looking back up at him, I could see the frustration on his face.

“No, you don’t get to do this shit, not today,” Brian said, anger flashing in his eyes. “You are not going to slink off and go hide from the world in your apartment. You are going to sign this NDA, and you are going to hear me out.” Brian said.

I had grown up with Brian, we were next door neighbors and best friends for as long as I could remember. He was always a fairly easy going guy, someone who was quick to laugh and joke. Brian rarely ever let his frustration and anger show like this.

“I just think…” I started to stammer.

“I don’t care!” Brian said a little too loudly. Several others in the cafe turned to look at our table. Brian took a moment to calm himself before he continued. When he did talk again, his voice was calm, measured, and a bit sad. “When I finished school and left for Portland, I kept telling myself you would get better. That once you were done with your surgeries and rehab, once you had time to grieve for your parents, you would get back to being your old self. But you never went back to normal. Not even close. And as the years went on, you stayed distant and withdrawn. What I am offering you… I don’t think it will help you to go back to who you were, but I think it can help you to move forward.”

I hadn’t seen Brian in person in over five years, and I expected him to dig into my well-being and mental state after seeing how rough I looked, but I wasn’t expecting this kind of reaction from him. Tears began to well up in my eyes and I fought to keep my voice steady. “Look, I just don’t know. You know how bad…” A tear fell from my eye and I had to take a moment to keep my voice from breaking. “You know how bad the pain in my leg can get. I wouldn’t be able to travel back and forth from my apartment.”

Brian smiled briefly, appearing more sure of himself. “Look, I want to tell you about this job. I truly believe that if you sign that NDA and listen to what I have to tell you, that it’ll put your worries at ease. By the time I’m done going over the details with you, you’ll be begging me to hire you.”

I wiped the tears from my face with the back of my sleeve and I chuckled a little before replying, “5 minutes ago you were offering me a job and now you think I’m going to beg you to hire me?”

“I’ll make you a bet,” Brian said confidently. “You sign that NDA and listen to what I have to say. If you end up not wanting the job, I promise to stop pining over your sister. But… if you end up wanting the job, you have to sit there and watch me ask her out on a date.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “If I don’t take your job, you’ll keep your mouth shut about the little schoolyard crush you have on Lana, but if I do take the job, I get to sit in the room while she shuts you down for like the hundredth time?”

I started to chuckle as I pulled the tablet over to me. Scrolling down to the bottom of the document, quickly glossing over the legalese as I went, I began to sign the areas requiring my signature and initials.

“There smart guy,” I said smugly as I pushed the tablet back across the table. “Now, tell me about the super special job you have for me.”

“Oh, I’m not going to tell you anything here. This is top secret corporate information, anyone could overhear us. We’re going to your apartment.”

The color quickly drained out of my face. “You want to go to my place?”

He gave me a quizzical look for a couple of seconds before he gave me a broad smile. “Your apartment is depressingly messy isn’t it?”

I slowly lowered my face into my hands and let out a weak, timid whine.