Chapter 32 #3
“Fun!” I shout, giving her a look to match. “Ever heard of it?”
“I think.” She lifts her glass to her lips. “When I was a baby.”
Bitch.
“Thank you all.” I raise my glass. “I could not have done this without you. All of you. Banyan—” I pause for him to blow his horn. “Thank you for not scaring anyone off or publicly molesting any of the guests or grapes.”
He raises his glass. “Ye of little faith, Fire Lady.”
“Rue, thank you for using your bare-bones math skills on the register.”
She smiles around her drink. “Bet that hurt.”
“More than you’ll ever know. Nash—” We clank glasses. “We make a damn good team. Thank God my sister married up.”
Nash grins. “I’ll drink to that.”
My gaze settles on Gavin. “And Gavin.” I let out a contemplative sigh. “I can’t think of a single thing you did today.”
He wets his lips as a smirk tugs at them. “Damn,” he says. “I’ll try harder next time.”
Next time. I like the sound of that.
“You know what?” Remy says—slurs really.
“Fuck Darren. And Serendipity.” Every head whips in her direction, and she raises her bottle.
“I want a divorce too.” She scoffs sloppily.
“I’ve been wanting one.” She laughs; we cringe.
“I don’t care if she’s twenty-two—” She pauses with wide eyes.
“Because I can climb rocks better than her! And hike!”
Remy is the opposite of outdoorsy, and her bottle of wine is almost empty.
“On that note,” Gavin says, “even if I didn’t do anything to help today”—we exchange knowing looks—“Reese sure as hell did. And though the original brains behind the operation aren’t here anymore, they would have loved today—” He pauses to swallow.
He’s sincere and happy, but I also know he hurts.
“It was somehow everything they wanted. My dad would have been laughing behind the bar with Reese, Greg would have been in the vines with Banyan, and Amanda would have been chasing the kids with Iris and Mom.”
At that picture he paints—one so clear I can see it like it was a real memory—I see on Rue’s face the same emotion I feel on mine.
We did something special today. It was work, sure, but there was a meaning behind it that was so much bigger than the units sold or dollars made. It mattered beyond the numbers.
Gavin clears his throat and lifts his glass. “To Reese.”
“To Reese,” they echo. Even Remy with her bottle.
I can’t help but smile.
I’m here today to get to where I want to be tomorrow, but damn, I wish life could be as simple as pouring wine, laughing with strangers, and watching kids run up and down rows of vines until they fall over while a man I might maybe one day love looks at me.
And then I feel it like a rope in my hands that I only need to wrap my fingers around to secure: Maybe it could be.
Maybe I could tell Gavin the truth about why I’m here, and I could figure out a way to leave my job to run this vineyard, and this is the next version of me I become—a woman living a life a girl once thought she would.
As everyone else falls into conversation, Gavin whispers, “Hey,” making me lean over the bar. “Can I take you out again tonight?”
I laugh softly. “No.”
“Because you’re fighting me again?”
Remy mumbles something across the bar. I say, “Because I have to get her home, for one.”
“And two?”
Two is, as badly as I want to wrap my fingers around the rope of him and this life and hang on for dear life, I don’t know how to do it yet. I want a baby and I have a career, and both of those things have nothing to do with him. I take a sip of my wine. “I have to get ready for tomorrow.”
“How about tomorrow night then?”
“I have plans tomorrow night.”
His brows pinch.
“I have to go meet a guy for the firm’s acquisition project.”
I forget the project name I told him before, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
The remaining donors have been tricky. This one, Holden Griffin, is a tech entrepreneur but has zero evidence of existing on the internet.
He’s a ghost. And messages with Dr. Rhett are moving at a snail’s pace.
Online dating etiquette told me twenty to thirty emails before meeting, but at the rate he responds, we’ll hit that quota in nine years.
“Fine,” Gavin says, “I’ll come with you.”
I’m going to the donor’s home address; the help might be nice. And a witness in case he’s a sociopath or I get trapped in a closet again. And maybe the perfect time to tell Gavin what’s really going on and let the chips fall.
My gaze drops to his mouth—stop that!
“Fine.” I lift the wine to my lips then pause before taking a sip. “But it’s not a date.”
Gavin grins, settling back in his chair. The tattoo on his forearm jumps as he lifts his own glass of wine. “You said that last time.”
Remy says, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Before any of us can react, she pukes on the bar.
As Rue and I rush to help her, Banyan says, “No shame in purging the body of what the spirit doesn’t need, Remy Pemy. Should’ve seen me after one night on the ayahuasca.”
With Remy’s next heave, Banyan blows into his ocarina.