Chapter 15
WINEBISCUIT
Declan
Harvest is fascinating.
It happens in the middle of the night, with massive floodlights brought in to illuminate the way.
I’m given a lesson in picking and assigned a position in the chardonnay fields with Cricket and Dori, where I quickly realize we’re the fourth line out here.
Definitely not the stars of the show. Not the starters.
Makes sense here though. We’re not nearly as quick as Winona’s crew, even if we’re learning quickly.
But the competitive part of me wants to get as fast.
Mabel and Olivia and Samantha are out here too, all of them more efficient, like they’ve done this before.
Ginny is not.
Not that I see, anyway.
I bite my tongue a dozen times an hour to keep from asking if she’s coming, and I get the occasional glance while we’re filming from Cricket or Dori or Mabel that makes me wonder if I’m utterly transparent.
Something happened on the porch steps.
Something that felt like forgiveness.
And it has my heart light, even if being friends with Ginny long-term could never work.
Alex would disown me.
He flew in to get drunk with me the day I realized retirement was my best option. Gave an interview a few months later about missing me that had the reporter in tears.
Says he’s buying the fourth ticket to the premiere of my documentary, right after my parents and brother.
Best friend I’ve ever had.
Making friends with the only woman in the world he still actively hates?
That would be a slap in the face.
But fuck me, I like her.
Always have.
“Why do we pick at night?” I ask Dori while we work and Shade films us, even though I’ve done my research and know the answer. I need a distraction from thinking about Ginny.
“Cooler temperatures are better for the grapes.”
“I saw harvesting machines in some other fields this morning when I was out for a run. You don’t use them?”
“Less damage when you handpick.”
“These will be our first wines in what’s essentially a brand-new winery,” Cricket adds. “We don’t have a lot of experience yet, so we’re doing this the way we want to talk about doing it. Make a story out of the wine while we learn the ropes.”
“Gonna crush these with your feet too?”
The two women share a giddy smile.
“Some of them,” Dori says.
“Special batches,” Cricket adds.
We clear the chardonnay fields and then get the zinfandel fields done too, finishing as the sun’s coming up.
“Head over to the fermentation building whenever you’re awake,” Mabel says to me and Shade. “Sorting starts now.”
I’ve kept myself in shape, but the repetitive hours of work have my body tired and my muscles aching like I’ve done a heavy upper body day in the gym. “We have to sort after handpicking?”
“You picked sticks and leaves. We have to pull them out.”
“Got it. I’ll be there.”
Shade yawns and shuts off his camera. “Sleep a long time,” he says to me. “A long, long time.”
I’d smirk at the unspoken reason he wants me to sleep a long time—he’s on call to film anytime I’m working at the winery, and it’s interfering with his clandestine calls to his secret boyfriend—but I’m tired too.
Used to this—road trips would have us with odd hours during the season—but still tired. “Not too long. Can’t miss sorting.”
“It’ll take a few days,” Cricket says to me. “Get real sleep.”
I head toward the main house with Mabel and Dori and Samantha and Olivia instead of back to my apartment beneath Cricket and Heath’s house.
Have to check on my dog.
I don’t ask why Ginny’s not with us.
They don’t say her name either.
When we reach the house, scents of biscuits and gravy waft out of the open windows.
All four of the women pause and look at me, then glance at each other.
Mabel speaks first. “Appreciate the help last night,” she says to me. “We know you could’ve gotten the footage you needed and left.”
“When I do something, I do it all the way.”
Not that my all the way was enough for me to have a long career in hockey.
Get there, yes. Stay there—no.
The front door opens, and there’s Ginny, her curly hair piled in a cute bun on top of her head, her dress today light purple and dotted with honeybees, her feet bare with her toenails painted pink.
Fuck me, she’s pretty.
And she’s smiling at us—all of us, as though I didn’t spend years of my life being a dick to her—while her eyes twinkle and my dog sticks to her side. “Morning. Anyone want breakfast before you hit the sack?”
“You are my favorite person on the planet,” Samantha says. “I could kiss you right now.”
“Excuse me? I’m standing right here,” Olivia says with a tired smile.
“Ginny makes biscuits and gravy once a year for harvest. They’re magic,” Mabel tells Dori.
Not me.
Dori.
Cricket and Dori wouldn’t have been here last year for harvest—they each went viral and arrived within the past six months—so that makes sense that they’d need an explanation.
“My grandma used to make them every Sunday,” Dori replies. “Biggest thing I miss about leaving home.”
“Get inside quick if you want them,” Ginny says. “Shade’s already making a dent, and I heard Pip making noise upstairs. You know how much she can eat.”
“And how many biscuits she can shove in her pockets for later,” Olivia says.
“Ew,” Dori says. “Now I’m thinking about what you might mean by pockets.”
“Come eat,” Ginny says. “It’ll take your mind off of Pip’s pockets.”
The women file in past her, every one of them pausing to hug her and then rub my dog’s head.
I’m debating if I want to eat or just take Flow back to the apartment and sleep when Ginny makes eye contact with me. “You coming?”
Just like that.
Want to come eat something with us?
Like she used to.
Even when I was scowling and muttering about the mess in the kitchen or all of the milk being gone.
I wasn’t imagining what happened between us yesterday.
She’s forgiven me.
I give her a tired smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“It’s tradition.”
“You sleep well last night?” I ask her.
She grins. “So well. For hours and hours. I feel great today.”
“Rubbing it in?”
“Yes.” Her eyes twinkle.
My mind drifts to an image of this being my house, these being my fields, Ginny being my wife, standing there calling me and the kids inside after we picked our own grapes, me kissing her as I greet her at the door, and my heart tries to pull itself out of my chest.
Not going there, dumbass.
I’m here off and on for a few months.
Not forever.
Long enough to film what I need to for this documentary.
And then I hope that it does well enough that I get a second documentary.
But instead of making wine for a second season, I want a shot at trying to get back into the league.
It’s the entire reason I agreed to do the documentary.
Eddie promised me this first project would be about growing my platform with a bigger project than what I tend to do on my channels.
We’re already networking with various teams in the league for the second big project being about me attempting to make a comeback.
My brother keeps telling me I shouldn’t have gotten my teeth fixed yet.
I hope he’s right.
Flow whimper-howls as she meets me on the steps, tail wagging at half-speed.
“When did you start doing that?” Ginny asks the dog. “You didn’t the last time I knew you.”
I swallow the truth.
That she started doing it when I started sending her to doggy daycare on road trips since Ginny wasn’t around to watch her anymore.
Because she did that too.
She watched my dog even when I was a complete dick who acted like I was doing my buddy’s annoying girlfriend a favor, when Flow and I were both legitimately grateful for her.
But telling Ginny the truth—that complicates things more than I already have.
“She misses hockey life,” is all I say as I greet my dog.
Flow gives me kisses, then drops to the floor in the entryway and demands a belly rub.
“You’re happy here, though, aren’t you?” I say to my dog.
She sighs blissfully and goes slack, legs splayed.
And then she fakes a snore.
Ginny laughs. “You’re such a ham, Flow.”
“My brother taught her. He watched her for a few weeks for me in the spring.”
Ginny’s eyes light up as she looks at me. “Oh! How is Zander?”
“Obnoxious.”
“Is he still in New York?”
“He’s on the road. Touring.”
“No. Seriously?”
“Internet was good for him.”
My brother’s been doing drag since we were teenagers. He started his own YouTube show with his best friend since childhood, and they’ve now hit the top tier of drag queens, sponsored by Miles2Go gas stations for their cross-country tour.
He’s half the reason I started doing Foxy Goes There.
Okay, nearly all of the reason.
He goaded me into it, and he was right.
It’s not hockey, but I’m enjoying myself.
“That’s amazing. Please tell him I’m thrilled for him,” Ginny says.
“Will do.”
She winces. “Was he—never mind. Come eat. For real. The food’s getting cold, and I might have underestimated how much Shade would eat.”
As if we don’t know she’d bend over backward to make more if we ran out, so long as she has the ingredients on hand.
And if I know Ginny, she has ingredients on hand.
“Zander was Team Ginny,” I tell her.
She blushes.
Not just her cheeks, but her whole face and her neck and her bare shoulders too.
How she did a reality TV show without that blush showing that way, I’ll never know.
“There shouldn’t have been a Team Ginny,” she murmurs.
I say a silent apology to my best friend. “You weren’t wrong. He rushed into something he shouldn’t have.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“You forgive yourself yet?”
She meets my eyes. “Did you know there’s this place that exists where you can accept that you did something terrible, know that you’ll never do it again, and still regret it?”
“You remember Frankie Dunn?”
She squints at me as she nods.
“He brought a rebound to the wedding. Two weeks later, he was on his knees groveling to Eliana, and now they’re married with a baby. Overheard him telling some of the guys that watching you try to get Alex back was the wake-up call he needed to get over himself and go after what he wanted.”
She blinks quickly. “He—oh. That’s—I suppose that’s good.”
I shrug. “Thought you should know. Thanks for watching Flow last night. She doesn’t like to be alone or with strangers.”
“She’s a good girl.”
Flow grins at us.
“With the best hair,” Ginny adds.
My dog leaps to her feet, shakes herself off, and then struts into the house, head held high, back end swinging the way Zander taught her to walk on a stage.
Ginny laughs, then grabs my arm and pushes me after the dog. “Go eat.”
I ignore the way my skin lights up like a Christmas tree. Wouldn’t surprise me to look down and see my goosebumps shimmering and glowing.
The women and Shade are all attacking their plates when I reach the kitchen.
Ginny shoves me toward the last plate on the counter.
“Cricket’s not invited?” I ask as I realize she’s the only one of the women not in the kitchen eating already.
“Eh? Who’s on the picket line?” Pip says.
“Cricket’s not invited, Pip,” Olivia says.
“Well, that’s rude,” Pip replies.
“She’s invited, and she’ll be over after she helps get Lavender to school,” Mabel says. “Heath too.”
I pause, looking at the last two biscuits and what’s left of the gravy.
I can fully smother my biscuits, or I can go light and save some for Cricket and Heath.
“More’s coming,” Ginny says. “Eat.”
Called it.
I help myself to both biscuits and the last of the gravy, then take a seat.
Flow lies down on the floor behind me.
Coffee’s passed around.
Fruit salad too.
It’s like a holiday breakfast at my parents’ house, everyone talking and eating and laughing and telling stories about the little things that went wrong last night, bragging about who had the biggest loads, ragging on each other about who has the most grape juice stains on our clothes and who smells the worst, all while Pip occasionally asks for clarification after hearing it wrong.
And Ginny flits about, getting a new batch of gravy going, pulling more biscuits out of the oven, offering us hot chocolate and orange juice in addition to the coffee, cleaning up little messes and taking dishes to the sink as we all finish up.
I rise to help, but she shoos me away. “Go sleep. The last thing we need is an ambulance coming here after you pass out and hit your head.”
“We’ve got this,” Mabel adds in her no-nonsense way that tells me she’s prepared to march me across the fields to my bedroom herself.
She’s nicer than she was at first.
Almost warm, but not quite.
Get the feeling you have to earn that.
So I head out across the fields, my dog with me, after thanking everyone for a fun night and a delicious breakfast.
I’d like to crash on the couch and listen to Ginny’s voice all day, but I’m already down bad.
Don’t need to make it worse.
Especially with the guilt that creeps up my neck when I realize Alex texted while I was eating.
Three letters.
WTF?
Flow looks up at me and whines softly.
I rub her head. “All good, girl,” I murmur.
It’s a lie.
It’s not all good.
Because I still like Ginny Rhodes.
Even more, if that’s possible.
But my best friend hates her.
And he’d hate me if he knew how much I like her.
How easy it is for me to forgive her for what she did to him.
How much I understand.
How much I’m grateful that she’s willing to trust me with her side of the story.
“Doesn’t matter,” I add to Flow. “She doesn’t like me back.”
And she shouldn’t.
She has a good life here, and she’ll continue to have a good life here long after I’m gone.