Josie #2
Dinner arrives, and for a few minutes the conversation pauses for the food.
Our meal also indicates that this place is worth the trouble it takes to get here.
My fish is delicate and clean, the skin crisp, the asparagus just tender enough.
Alex cuts into the lamb and looks pleased in a way that makes me irrationally glad.
“Seems you chose well,” he says.
“You did too,” I reply. “I’m not sure which looks better.”
“Both are outstanding.”
The conversation resumes after that. He tells me more about UBC. Long nights. Rotations. Living far enough from family that the distance stopped being measured in kilometres and started being measured in whether he could justify the time to fly home.
“At the time it felt like the whole world,” he says. “Now it mostly feels like I was tired for four straight years.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“And you?”
“I was tired at university as well. Just for different reasons.”
I tell him about the viticulture program, about learning canopy management and soil chemistry and fermentation curves while people outside the industry kept telling me how glamorous wine must be.
“Was it?” he asks.
“Only if you find spreadsheets and weather anxiety glamorous.”
“That depends who’s asking.”
I laugh. “My grandmother certainly did not.”
“She’s all about the science?”
“No. She just wanted to keep everything under her control. She felt school was a waste of money because I knew everything I needed from having grown up on a vineyard.” I shake my head. “But truly, I learned so much.”
“She’s quite the character.”
“You say that like you know her.”
“One gets an impression.”
He’s not wrong. I take another sip of wine. Might be time to dive a little deeper into this. “My grandmother still lives at the vineyard,” I tell him.
“She still wants to feel involved.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” I let out a quiet laugh. “Involved is the polite version.”
He smiles and leaves it alone, which I appreciate. He doesn’t push for more than I offer. He never really does.
A little later, while we’re having dessert, he says, almost casually, “Eloise would probably love the vineyard.”
Though it arrives naturally, the comment catches my attention. “She’s seven now, right?”
He nods. “And convinced she’s old enough to negotiate on every subject.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s often impressive.”
The warmth in his voice shifts something in me. “What’s she negotiating right now?”
“A dog. Chickens. Fewer vegetables. Later bedtime. More sugar. Less school.”
“She sounds ambitious.”
He chuckles. “She is.”
I smile into my glass. “She’d like the frogs by the irrigation pond. And the barn cats, if they allowed themselves to be observed by children.”
“They wouldn’t.”
“Definitely not.”
His mouth curves. “You sound certain.”
“I know the type.”
By the time dessert is finished and the bill paid, the room has thinned out around us. We compliment our host and the chef, and I thank Alex for including me in the gratefulness he’s received. We step outside, and the air coming off the lake carries a damp, clean edge.
I turn toward him, meaning to say something light, but suddenly I’m at a loss for words. Our conversation seems to have run its course in the best possible way.
I look down a moment, and then back up. “I’m glad you brought me here.”
He shifts closer, one hand resting on the railing beside mine. “I’m glad you came.”
The space between us narrows without either of us making a production of it. His hand finds mine, warm and steady.
“You’re cold.”
“A little.”
He steps in, and then he’s kissing me.
There’s nothing rushed in it. No uncertainty either. The kiss feels like the evening itself—deliberate, quiet, and more intimate for not needing to prove anything. His hand lifts to my cheek, and a rush of warmth spreads through me, stealing every coherent thought.
For a heartbeat, the night, the lake, the lights shimmering across the water all disappear. There’s only the slow glide of his mouth against mine and the impossible certainty that I could stand here forever if he kept kissing me like this.
When he pulls back, he stays close enough that I can still feel his warmth.
“That seemed appropriate,” he says.
I laugh softly. “I agree.”
His smile deepens, and I find myself drawn to him. It unnerves me. He laces his fingers with mine, and we walk back to the car. He opens my door again. I get in without commenting on it this time.
“So, you survived Cliffside,” he says as we merge onto the highway.
“I did. Seemed a very manageable task.”
“No formal complaint about the distance?”
“I’m reserving judgment until I’m delivered home safely, but I don’t think so.”
“That sounds fair.”
We talk in fragments after that. The food. The owner’s wine. The fact that a man who claims not to be strategic clearly made several strategic decisions tonight.
“Next time,” I say, “you should disclose the mileage in advance.”
“Next time?” He says this lightly, but I hear the question inside it.
I look over. “You said it first.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate hearing it from you.”
Something warm blossoms in my chest.
I lean back and watch the road ahead, aware in a way I wasn’t earlier that something has changed. Not dramatically. Nothing about the evening feels dramatic. But it has moved. The line between us is no longer where it was this afternoon.
At one point his fingers brush mine on the center console as he adjusts his hand, and neither of us remarks on it. We don’t need to.
Then an alarm on my phone cuts through the car. The sound startles me enough that I have it in my hand before the second tone finishes. My vineyard-monitoring app fills the screen.
Temperature alert. Block sensors dropping.
The graph beneath it tells me what I need to know before I even read the numbers. The lower blocks are cooling too fast.
“That’s not good,” I murmur.
Alex glances over. “What is it?”
“The temperature’s dropping at the vineyard.”
I click open the details on my phone and scan the readings again. Too fast. Too early. The new shoots won’t take much of this.
“If it keeps cooling off, the growth in the low blocks could freeze. I need to make a phone call.”
I’m calling our vineyard manager before I finish the sentence. He picks up on the second ring.
“It’s Josie,” I tell him.
“I’m heading over now,” he confirms.
“I’ve got sensor alerts on the lower blocks. Temps are dropping faster than was forecast.”
A beat of silence. “What are they reading?”
“Two degrees and falling.”
“That’s early.”
“I know. Start the frost protocol.”
“You want the wind machines?”
“Immediately. Check the low blocks first. South rows by the irrigation line. If the cold’s pooling, it’ll start there.”
“Got it.”
“I’m on my way.”
He hangs up to get moving, and I keep the phone in my hand a second longer, staring at the numbers as if that might stop them from sliding.
Across from me, the evening is already gone. The date. The kiss. The warmth in the car. All of it disappears behind the hard clarity of work.
I set the phone down. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you need?” Alex asks.
“I need to get to the vineyard,” I say. “If the temperature drops much more, we could lose a whole block.”
He nods once and takes the next exit without hesitation.
The lake falls away behind us as the car turns toward Black Bear and toward a night that just changed shape entirely.