19. Philip
Philip
Kel stares at Nate’s phone, eyebrows furrowed as he reads the description Nate showed me a few days ago. “You think Sophie will go for it?” He hands back the phone. “Or Sutton?”
Nate grunts. “Sophie will be the easy sell. Theo will be the one who needs convincing. That’s what I’m paying him for.” He jerks his thumb in my direction.
Kel turns to look at me, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Is he paying you to crunch numbers or charm Theo into agreeing with him?”
I grin. “Both?”
“I think it’s going to be a harder sell than you think. Why are you pushing for a whole new bottling system? Does this mean you’re planning on staying?” Kel leads the way into the cellar, picking up various tools sitting on the counter and putting them away in drawers as he passes.
Nate asked me to come with him to do an inspection of the vines this morning, and I agreed since I don’t have anything better to do and Ophie went back to her place late last night.
We’re finally ready to go public with our relationship, but she didn’t want to run the risk of it happening pre-caffeine. I didn’t argue, even though watching her drive away reopened a few of the stitches holding my heart back together. I wouldn’t say she looked guilty as she said goodbye, but there was definitely something off. Last night, I gave her plenty of opportunities to elaborate on what Cassie said, but she never did, so as of this morning, I’m assuming I heard wrong and there’s nothing to worry about.
Hanging out with Nate and Kel this morning is a welcome—albeit strange—distraction from the worry that ate at me while I should have been sleeping.
Oh, how quickly I went from enjoying a good sprawl in my bed to needing Ophie tucked against my chest in order to get a good sleep. It’s been blissful with just the two of us in the cabin. Me working with Nate, Ophie working her shifts at the coffee shop, both of us scrolling endlessly through job postings.
Nate sighs and follows him in, and I trail behind, watching the pair of them. It’s easy to see the history between them, the easy familiarity with being in each other’s space, even as their words are cautious and overly polite at times.
I’ve hung out with Kel enough times that I know he’s not really as grumpy as he can appear—he’s guarded, but once you get him talking, he’s a genuinely fun guy. And it only takes five seconds of seeing him with his kid and Maggie to know he would do anything for them.
Nate’s been harder to get to know, but over the course of the weeks I’ve been here, he’s thawed out with me. He’s got a wicked sense of humor that he rarely shows, and he really does know what he’s doing around the winery. He just can’t seem to stay civil to the customers who come in.
“Am I staying? Who else is going run this place?”
Kel stops tidying the drawer and turns to face us. Well, Nate. I’m forgotten as the two men face off.
“You don’t have to be a martyr to this place, Nate. If you don’t want to be here, then go. Go back to France if that’s what you want. Whatever life you had out there that kept you from coming home for five years is probably still waiting for you.” The hurt dripping from Kel’s words feeds the tension building in the air around us.
“And if I leave, who runs this place? Sutton?” Nate growls.
“I’m sure they can hire someone to run it.” Kel waves away the question.
“And what happens to my parents? To their home? To my home? I just walk away and let them deal with it?”
“Isn’t that exactly what you did before? You came home, heard the news, picked a fight with Sydney, and then stormed back off to France without so much as a goodbye.” Kel grabs a set of pruning shears and makes to walk past Nate.
But he grabs his arm, stopping him from leaving. “Why do you think I have to stay? I owe it to you, and to this place, to be here. I shouldn’t have left like I did. I’m sorry I made you deal with the mess I made.” His shoulders drop, and he releases Kel’s arm. “This place, I know how to fix—”
Kel snorts, and Nate winces.
“Not fix. You did an amazing job taking care of it. But I know what I’m doing here. It’s Sydney I don’t know how to fix things with.”
“Have you tried apologizing? Have you even talked to her since you’ve been back?”
“She won’t listen to anything I have to say. Every time I try to talk to her, she just walks away.”
“I don’t know what happened between you two, but she’s been a mess since you got back. Did you know I had to pick her up…”
I step further back into the shadow of the casks stacked against the wall. I feel like an intruder, being here while they hash it out. When they don’t react, I silently move toward the open roll-up door behind me. Their conversation fades as I step out into the sunshine.
The August heat is intense, the sun brutal while we have yet another heat wave. My feet are trapped in the work boots Nate insists I wear when I do anything out in the vineyard with him. I’ve dropped the sharp pruning shears enough times to not argue, but I still miss the freedom of my thongs.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, half hoping for a text from Ophie even though I know she probably isn’t even awake yet. When there isn’t anything, I send her a kissy face emoji, then scroll through my emails while I wait.
An email from Jono’s company stares back at me. I’d applied months ago, mostly to appease my family, with no intention of following through unless I got kicked out of the States. But the email confirming my interview with them tomorrow morning feels less performative than it did forty-eight hours ago.
But can I really drag Ophie all the way across the world? And do I even want to?
It’s taken two years, but the Pacific Northwest has really grown on me. I still hate the winter here, but the summer and Ophie make up for it. Would it be so bad to stay?
Footsteps echo behind me. I shove my phone back in my pocket as Kel claps a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry. We’re still working some shit out.”
“No worries, man.” I shrug. “Is Nate coming?”
“In a second. Sutton called.”
Kel and I shoot the shit while waiting for Nate to reappear. He’s excited about the baby and the international culinary class he’s taking next term. Listening to him talk about the different directions his life has gone, from nursing to handyman to chef, makes me think that maybe Ophie and I don’t have to figure it all out right now. We’re only twenty-six—we have time to try out different jobs and places to live.
“So, Nate’s got you sold on the reusable bottles?” Kel leans against the cellar door, arms crossed over his chest, one leg kicked over the other.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t have skin in the game either way, but he seems keen to make it work. Numbers-wise, it’ll take a few years before he sees any kind of return on it, but if he’s got Sutton’s backing, I think he could make it work.”
If Nate’s goal was to make this place as profitable as possible, I wouldn’t recommend he be on the front lines of the reusable wine bottle movement. But since he doesn’t have the pressure of having to increase profit year over year, he can afford to. Nate is convinced that if he can show Sutton how good he is at running Sunshine, he might be able to buy it back from him one day.
I don’t think he meant to let that last idea slip, but he was very impassioned—and a little buzzed—when we discussed it the other night.
“So, he’s finally seeing the benefit to Sunshine being owned by a billionaire and his wife who don’t actually need it to be profitable?” Kel smirks.
“I think he’s finally seeing that Sutton may be the answer to modernizing this place,” Nate answers for himself, stepping out into the hot morning air. “Between my dad’s stubborn refusal to try anything new, and the French abhorrence to modernité ”—he adds air quotes to drive home his thoughts on the French—“I’m so tired of hearing ‘but we’ve never done it that way’ that I might lose my mind. Sunshine Cellars is a nice little winery that will never be anything more unless we invest in being different. I have lots of ideas and no way to test them.”
My brother-in-law clears his throat and indicates Nate should lead the way. We follow in silence toward a row of grapes before he speaks up again. “I noticed that’s a local company. How did you find them? Are reusable wine bottles a thing in Europe?”
I follow along, acting as more of a pack mule than anything as Nate and Kel expertly check and assess row after row of grape vines. I have no idea what they’re looking for, but it’s impressive to see the speed at which they flip over leaves and check on bunches, working as a team despite the fight earlier.
Just like Jono and I having a row, then going surfing twenty minutes later. Thinking about my brother sends a pang through my sternum. He would love this place—Nicola too.
The whole morning, Nate explains all the reasons why the new bottles are a good idea. Kel argues his points, but it feels like he’s trying to help Nate finesse his argument rather than really change his mind.
I pipe up where I can, mostly on the numbers since that’s what Nate asked me to help him with. I’m not sure he’ll be able to convince Sutton on the numbers alone—it is a big investment, and it will set profits back by a large margin—but if he can convince Sophie and Theo that it’s the sustainable future, he might have a shot.
The tension from earlier has dissipated by the time we finish inspecting the field Nate chose. The sun is fierce and I’m sweating through my T-shirt and wishing for a bandanna or something to keep the sweat out of my eyes.
“I swear, if I have to hear that song one more time, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.” Kel has been complaining about the TikTok dances Maggie and Olive keep practicing. My theory is that Maggie is doing it to keep Olive entertained and not glued to the TV, but my expertise was not requested, so I’m keeping my mouth shut.
“Just get them a pair of AirPods to share. The new noise-canceling ones work surprisingly well. They even block out most of the sex noises you all keep making.” Nate’s solution is a good one. But he has no idea the unexploded bomb he’s just dropped in my lap.
Kel turns to me, eyes wide. “Sex noises?” Before I can defend myself, he chuckles. “Well, at least you only have to listen to it every other week.”
Nate turns and points at both of us. “I wish. Between you two, I get to listen to it every fucking night of the week.”
Shit. Fuck. By the way Kel is turning his glare on me, I’ve been caught in the chicken coop. My goose is cooked. He’s going to go full big-brother-in-law on me, and I am never going to see my sweet wife’s face again.
“You’re making sex noises. With who?”
I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. The wheels are still turning in his mind, though, because I can see the exact second he puts two and two together.
“Ophelia? But Maggie insisted…no, it can’t be.” His face grows redder and redder by the second, matching the heat rising in mine, the hot sun not helping us stay any cooler. “Is this where she’s been disappearing to when we’re there?”
“It’s new.” I step backward, out of arm’s reach of Kel.
“Is it serious? You’re not just fucking around with her before you leave, right?”
My eyes are glued to his hands. Currently, they are relaxed and loose by his sides, but I can sense the tension in his shoulders.
Fuck it. Telling him the truth may be the only way out of this without getting a taste of what he dished out to Nate. But maybe I’ll leave out the Vegas/green card bit. For now.
“Yes, it’s serious. I’ve always loved her, and I think she’s loved me for a long time too. We just didn’t want to risk our goals on an unknown while we were in school.” I desperately want to get us back into motion, but I have no idea what they were planning to do next. Risking a glance past Kel, I’m alarmed to find the space where Nate was standing is empty.
The shuffle of dirt behind me and the twitch on Kel’s face is the only warning I get before my arms are trapped behind me.
“What the fuck, man.” I attempt to pull away, but Nate has too good of a hold on me. “Are you serious right now?”
“Bro code. You mess with my best friend’s sister, you gotta be willing to face the consequences.” Nate says this without a hint of irony, until Kel rolls his eyes and sighs. “We’re not talking about me right now.”
“You better be glad we’re not,” Kel growls before turning his attention back to me.
Relaxing my arms in an attempt to get some leverage, I try reasoning with Kel again. “You realize that Ophie and I are both adults? That she is perfectly capable of making this kind of decision on her own?”
“But she’s my future wife’s little sister.” He shrugs as if that explains everything. “Gotta make sure you have honorable intentions.”
I snort. “At least I didn’t knock her up before I married her.”
Nate releases my arms so fast, I stumble forward, straight into a stunned Kel. Since my ability to breathe is now being threatened by both men, and if either of them tells Maggie before I have a chance to warn Ophie, I take advantage of their shock to book it back to my cabin, pulling my phone out as I run.
She doesn’t answer. Kel and Nate’s raised voices are still behind me, so I dash inside to grab my keys and hop in my car.
The last thing I hear before the gravel underneath my tires drowns him out is Kel shouting, “What do you mean you married her?”