Chapter 40
Forty
“Aglassgasm?” Remy’s eyes are bigger than the mug cupped in her hands. “Holy hell.”
“Glassgasm?” I repeat. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”
Remy sets her mug on Mom’s kitchen table. “One of my favorite authors does it. Every FMC gets a -gasm.”
“Here we go,” Rue says under her breath.
Remy perseveres. “First there was a thigh.” Her brows raise like can you imagine? “Then a flower.” She ticks the -gasms off with her fingers as she continues. “The showerhead, that was a doozy. Then the—”
“Okay!” I cut her off. “That author probably never had an orgasm in her life.”
Remy scoffs. “I’m offended on Kevin’s behalf.”
“Who the hell is Ke—” I blow out a sharp breath and hold up a hand to stop myself. And her. “You know what? Never mind. Yes. There was a glassgasm.” I give her a pointed look across the kitchen table. “Happy now?”
Remy whispers, “A glassgasm.” She pauses. “Was it hot?”
I flush with the memory of how hot it was. “Extremely.”
“So now what?” Rue asks, pillaging the fridge.
“Now nothing. I got berries and avocados if you need a snack.”
She shoots me a disgusted look over her shoulder.
“What? They’re good for fertility.” My brows lift. “And you’re forty-two.”
“And you’re annoying.” She grabs the berries.
“We’re seeing what happens.” I steal one of the berries and toss it in my mouth. “That’s it.”
“And the baby?” Rue asks. “You finally done chasing your dream donor?”
“No, that’s still happening.” At their looks: “What? He knows what I’m doing.”
“You’re getting off on his glass while investigating other sperm donors?” Remy’s eyes are wide again. “That’s . . .” Her chin dips and brows raise as she searches for the word, settling on “Modern.”
“So, we’re modern?”
“Are you sure he doesn’t care?” Rue asks. “Seems like he would care.”
“He said no more knockouts or stakeouts,” I counter. “He knows what I’m doing, and he literally said, ‘I don’t care.’” I hold my hands up. “He said we would figure it out as it unfolds, and he doesn’t care.”
Mom appears in the doorway and says, “Of course he cares. He’s in love with you.
And if he was out hunting women for eggs like the Easter Bunny, you’d care.
” She pins me with a stern look then grabs her purse from a hook.
“Nancy’s coming to get me so I can help her pick out curtains for her new house. ”
Mom’s itching to get out more. The only thing lingering are the headaches, and those are getting better every day.
I took her to physical and occupational therapy a few times, but other than needing to build her stamina and taking more naps than usual, she’s her.
Even the scarf around her head isn’t necessary because the incision is so easily hidden by her wild mane of hair.
I give her a sweet smile. “Gavin can hunt any eggs he wants.” Gag. “And don’t stay out too late. I’m making salmon.” To Rue, I explain, “Omegas are good for the baby, in case you missed it.”
She rolls her eyes.
When Mom walks out, Remy says, “Mom’s right, he’s in love with you.”
“He’s not in love with me.”
Remy straightens. “Oh my God, Reese. You’re in love with him.”
“No.”
“Liar,” Rue says around a berry I wish she’d choke on.
“Love isn’t the point,” I say around a mouthful of fruit.
“He knows I want a baby and how I’m having one.
” That’s not a lie. I told him everything and he said we’ll figure it out.
I didn’t tell him about my date with Dr. Rhett tomorrow night because he made it perfectly clear he doesn’t want to be part of the process.
But he knows what I’m doing and what my goals are.
“And I don’t expect him to put his life on hold. ”
“Why not just have his baby?” Remy says it like that’s just the kind of thing people do right out of the gate.
“What?” Now I’m incredulous. “I want to get pregnant now.” I pause. “He probably peaked with the glass.”
Lie.
I left last night as soon after Banyan ruined my life with his presence and story, but Gavin and I have been on the phone and texting like teenagers since.
There’ve been bad jokes—there are always bad jokes with him—but there’s been a lot of real stuff too.
Him telling me he worries about Addie being accepted and if he’s doing enough to support her.
How he’s been trying to get her into different kinds of therapies but the red tape with insurance moves everything at a snail’s pace.
The pressure he puts on himself to be the kind of dad Greg was.
I’ve only been here two months but I already know he’s great to her.
She’s a girl who lost her parents, yet I’ve never seen someone radiate such hope—she’s a lantern of it.
That’s her, of course, but it’s also him.
He might be the youngest man I’ve ever been involved with, but he’s also the best.
And it’s only made the physical pull stronger.
He barely got a full worn boot in the tasting room this afternoon before I wrapped myself around him and he had one hand up my shirt and his tongue down my throat.
I welcomed both.
Until Addie came in to show me her newest Toto rendition and killed the moment from escalating to the level I longed for it to escalate to.
Maybe that’s for the best too. Maybe Gavin and I will make out and talk and he’ll occasionally make me scream his name with a piece of glass then I’ll get pregnant by a donor and go back to Chicago and get Fizz Co and find someone to manage the vineyard until the time comes to sell.
It will be fun and then it will be done.
Maybe he’s something I get out of my system.
There are worse ways to spend a sabbatical.
And if I really do love him? Well, then maybe I . . .
“Reese,” Remy says, pulling me back to the moment. “I said how does it work if you get pregnant with some other guy’s baby?”
I rub my tongue on the roof of my mouth as I roll my neck. “I don’t know.”
In my mind, if this becomes more than us spending the rest of my sabbatical together, it looks the same as it would with any man I might date in the future: him naturally progressing into a father-like role with the child down the road.
“What?” She’s outraged. “That’s a terrible answer.”
“It is not,” I insist. “Everyone kept saying I’m too controlling, and now I’m going with the flow and that’s not right either?” I scoff. “You’re impossible.”
Remy’s hands fly in the air. “And you’re blind.”
“How am I blind?”
“For starters, you missed the fact he was him—”
“I didn’t see him for twenty-some years!”
“—or realize he was a glassblower—”
“That was some conspiracy plotted against me by everyone—” I swing my glare between the two of them. “Which reminds me I need to yell at you both for not telling me.”
“And because he’s good, Ree,” Remy says. “He’s—” Why does she look like she wants to cry? “He’s a good man and he takes care of people he loves and he’s—he’s selfless.”
Rue shrugs. “He is.”
They’re not wrong.
“His selflessness doesn’t change reality,” I volley back. “I’m protecting my interests. You think businesses shut down while they’re looking to expand?”
Remy groans. “Why—why—do you always compare relationships to business transactions?”
“Why do you always compare relationships to the bullshit books you read?”
Rue snorts. “You do let books cloud your judgment, Rems.”
I laugh. “Remember that time she tried to reenact that scene from, what was it, Rue?”
“Oh my God.” Rue sits upright, thinking. “It was—”
Remy shouts, “Stop!”
We look at her, stunned. Remy never, ever raises her voice.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, tracing the grain of the table with her index finger.
“I just don’t think what you’re doing is very fair.
He is in love with you and jumping through hoops to be what you want, and you’re off looking for something better.
He might be saying he doesn’t care, but I don’t think you’re hearing the truth.
” She shrugs, eyes fixed on the table. “And I wouldn’t feel very happy if someone did that to me. ”
And there it is. This has very little to do with me and Gavin and everything to do with her and Darren.
Since she got hammered then blew chunks at the vineyard last weekend, we haven’t talked about him.
I get it. Rue and Nash are revoltingly perfect, Gavin is jumping through hoops for me while I’m on the brink of having a baby, and she’s stuck.
Starting over as a single mom while the man she loves doesn’t love her back.
I clear my throat, glancing at Rue before proceeding. “You wanna talk about it?”
Remy’s gaze stays on the table. She opens and closes her mouth several times, as if trying to choose the right word from one of the millions she knows. Finally, she says, “No.”
I look at Rue. Her mouth twists, and she shrugs one shoulder. She sniffs. “What’s that smell?”
“Oh.” I stand with a clap, rushing to the oven and opening the door. “I made sourdough bread with rosemary.”
This is enough to steer the conversation away from my modern choices and Remy’s broken heart.
Rue talks about the antique store, Remy talks about the library, and I fill them in on the few things about the vineyard they don’t know.
“No,” I say around a bite of bread. “Before you ask, I haven’t hired anyone.
I interviewed one and Gen Zers might be the worst.”
Rue snorts, twisting a piece of bread from the loaf. “Funny how you had no problem hiring them for Old Vines.” She moans as she chews. “When did you learn to bake bread like this?”
“Sabbatical-induced hobbying.” She’s right about the hires. I had no problem hiring a couple twenty-somethings for her business when it was going under. “And I have higher standards for myself than a digital primate in a youthful skin suit who uses the word sus.”
Remy rips a piece of bread off the loaf and slathers it with butter. Before shoving it in her mouth she says, “Isn’t Gavin part of that generation?”
Rue laughs at this.
If I didn’t love Remy so much, I’d remind her that Darren’s concubine is too.