Chapter 16
Sixteen
Maybe it’s because I don’t have a social life worth sharing, but I’ll never understand why some people feel the need to broadcast their entire existence on social media.
Yet I’m so glad they do.
I was once vetting a company for acquisition and didn’t have to dig far to find viral video footage of the CEO having an affair on a concert jumbotron. No way The Family was touching that one.
Turns out, it’s just as useful for investigating potential sperm donors.
Donor candidate number two, Tom Moglin—online handle Tom_in_Slow_Mo—was an easy nix after I took one look at his page filled with videos. Of himself. Dancing shirtless. He had a good body and impressive rhythm, but there’s no way in hell the father of my child does that. It’s just embarrassing.
Candidate number three was a good-looking thirty-four-year-old doctor named Rhett Connors.
I couldn’t find much of an internet trail, good or bad, but I did stumble on an online dating profile.
So, naturally, I made a profile of my own and messaged him a brief: Doctor, huh?
If you’re a podiatrist, gynecologist, or proctologist, I have questions . . .
He hasn’t responded, so I moved on to the next, which is how I find myself at a bar called Smoky’s, where, according to his social media page, Leland Cooper, age thirty-five, resident of Hill Valley and a physical therapist with superior sperm motility, clean genetic markers, and nothing idiotic posted for the world at large, is part of a dart league that plays here on Friday nights.
My mother made me promise not to engage with him; I made that promise with a smile on my face and my fingers crossed behind my back.
I take a sip of my club soda and home in on the wall across the room lined with dartboards. A group of people are assembling—mostly men—a few tossing out warm-up darts between conversation. If the internet can be trusted, Leland Cooper is in that group.
The bartender, a cute girl in her twenties with curly hair and a curvy figure, smiles as she sets a community bowl of trail mix next to me—gross. I push it away then exchange my drink for my phone, pulling up Leland’s profile.
The photo is him from the waist up, squared to the camera with a slight dip of his chin and his arms folded over his chest. He’s clean-shaven, has a good jaw, and is wearing a pink polo that gives him an Easter-egg vibe.
Lucky for my future offspring, fashion isn’t DNA bound and can’t be held against Leland in the court of me.
He has a good career, a good credit score, and no criminal record. Combined with the information provided by the sperm bank, he has stellar donor-dad potential.
My phone dings in my hands with a text from an unknown number. You hear about the woman who got kicked off the soccer team for running away from the ball? My eyes dart around the bar as the next one comes through. Think they called her Cinderella.
I look at my nude Sam Edelmans and fight a smile, typing Bet she mows in pumps.
A pour decision, if you ask me.
I rescan the room, this time looking for the only person alive who would send such nonsense as another one comes through. Are you here to unwine?
I pinch my lips between my teeth as I respond. Bad.
I thought it was pretty grape, actually.
At this, I laugh out loud, ironically responding with Stalking is illegal.
Two seconds later, the stool next to me is filled.
By Gavin.
His blue-jeaned legs are wide, his T-shirt fitted—white and clean—and the hair spilling out of his City of Fontain ball cap—backward—again—is slightly damp. The thin strap of his leather necklace peeks from his neckline.
Remy must be brainwashing me, because I would dare call him good looking as he stares straight ahead to the mirrored wall lined with shelves of liquor bottles and the TV on ESPN. I force myself to remember that I’ve seen him toothless and wearing a coonskin cap to counteract the thought.
“Gavin,” I say dryly.
He turns to me, face filling with faux shock. “Reese Conway?” He smiles with pure surprise and, at this proximity, dimples are revealed beneath all that scruff. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Funny.” I take a sip of my drink. “How’d you get my number?”
“Mom.” Explains the wine-focused puns. “Right after she told me about the deal.”
I make an acknowledging sound but say nothing, replaying the last twenty-four hours as I stir the ice in my glass with a straw.
After my mother scolded me on my plan to get pregnant, we ate Nancy’s lasagna then I rode my Peloton until I could barely walk. When I finally cracked open the file of the offer, it was as Gavin thought: complete shit. As were her books.
I dug into vineyards—called a guy in the city I know who owns one—before deciding that Glass of Vine was in good enough shape that they could turn down the bad offer and have no problem getting a good one.
A great one even. Even though Nancy isn’t making money, she could probably walk away recouping more than they’ve put into the place.
But it would require her to be patient, and it likely wouldn’t save Gavin’s shop.
On the off chance the firm would be interested in this and not scold me for trying to work when I’m supposed to be not working, I drafted an email explaining the situation and numbers. I was about to hit send when my mom came into the bedroom.
She unpinned my life’s checklist from the corkboard and chuckled, doing the same at a picture of me and Amanda.
She put both back in place then ran her fingers through my hair. “You know what the best part of being a parent is?”
I angled my head to look at her. “Having at least one of us turn out to be competent?”
“No.” She laughed. “Seeing how you change. Become the next version of you.” She pointed to the list. “You were that girl once. Now you’re this one.” She smiled a little. “You’ll be another one too, I’m sure.”
Mom kissed me on the head like I was a teenager doing homework then went to bed.
Instead of sending the email, I looked up how Amanda died.
She was six months pregnant and napping when their house caught fire, attributed to a single burner of the stove being left on.
Due to the weather—the air was bone-dry—it spread fast. By the time Greg got home, the house was already engulfed in flames.
He went in to save her; they both died from smoke inhalation. Addie was with Gavin.
My best friend for thirteen years of my life was killed by a stove.
More than the tragedy of it all or how young they were, it reminded me that we are finite—we get one shot at getting life right. Then I looked at the list of all the things seventeen-year-old me wanted enough to scribble down on paper and thought of all the things Amanda would never get to do.
The next morning, instead of sending the email to Trish, I picked up the phone to run my thoughts by a colleague in accounting.
Based on the numbers, he confirmed, that with a little bit of work and some capital, Glass of Vine could thrive and be self-sufficient in no time.
The bleed could be stopped immediately, a modest profit could be turned after that, and within a few years, it could be a thriving and resilient business that would sell for a pretty penny.
I had a verbal offer to Nancy before breakfast and the contract drawn up by midday.
A cash purchase of 1.3 million with no strings and an unheard of fourteen-day closing.
Her inspections are only a few years old, and while it’s not standard, I’m not here long enough for this to drag out.
It’s imprudent to make a purchase like this without all the due diligence, but I trust her.
And Gavin. Plus, Nancy was tickled—her words—that a fancy Chicago-based company would be interested in her vineyard and I was going to be part of it.
“Bud would never believe this,” she said with a disbelieving laugh.
Banyan will keep his job—whatever that means—because she swore that he was the best unofficial viticulturist in the area. Even if he isn’t, there’s not enough time to find someone better this season with harvest mere weeks away.
I’ll have a project to keep me busy for a few months.
Nancy can move on from this chapter and downsize like she wants.
We all win.
Gavin looks at me expectantly through the din of the bar, and I clear my throat. “It was a good opportunity and my mother’s driving me crazy.”
“You’re doing the work?”
“While I’m here.” It’s an unorthodox model, but I’ll be the boots on the ground until I go back to Chicago. After that, if all goes as planned, someone will be put in place to run it until the time comes to sell.
“Hm.” He takes a sip of his beer. From a can. “That typical with a PE firm?”
I look at him sideways. “It is when their top partner is a few miles down the road.”
“Lucky for us then.” His gaze holds mine for a split second, and there’s that him-induced awareness, sizzling through me. “What brings you in here?” He eyes my outfit, the fabric of the black T-shirt slipping down my shoulder as he does. “Other than making us all look bad.”
“Same thing as you.” I rattle the ice in my glass.
“And we’re dressed the same.” His casual clothes cling to the contours of his young body—I don’t need to see it all to know it’s a good body.
And, of course, a happy trail that I’m thoroughly unhappy to know about.
“I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt.” I bring the glass to my lips, smiling over the rim. “And my mowing shoes.”
His eyes drop to said shoes then rebound back to mine, brows raised. “And yet I noticed you the second you walked in.”
A slight—slight—warmth builds in my chest at the compliment. “Competition makes it easy.”
The bartender exchanges his beer for another then tops my glass off. She smiles at him; he winks at her.
It doesn’t bother me—she’s young and cute and curvy and looks nothing like me—but when she strolls away, I ask, “Friend of yours?”
The look on his face makes me regret the question. “If she is?”
My brows raise. “Then I’d say poor thing.”