18. Cole
“You have arrived at your destination,”the robotic navigation voice announced as I turned into the winery”s entrance.
I checked the dash clock and saw that close to four hours had passed since we left San Francisco. We’d left at ten in the morning, and it was a quarter to two. The traffic had been stop-and-go for the first forty miles of the trip, but I’d barely noticed. The time had flown by. Before we left, I’d been worried about there being lulls in the conversation or awkward moments, but there hadn’t been any of that. We’d talked nonstop about everything, anything, and nothing.
“I can’t believe we’re already here,” Bailey observed as she reached down and grabbed her bag.
That’s a good sign, I thought as I pulled into the turnaround at the entrance. If she thought the time had flown by quickly, that must have meant she was also enjoying herself.
When we came to a stop, I was out the door and heading around to her side, but a valet beat me to it. I popped the liftgate and was grabbing her suitcase from the back when a porter approached me with a rolling luggage cart.
“I can take those, sir.”
My shoulders tensed. I didn’t think any amount of money would make me comfortable with people waiting on me. Some people might see it as a perk, but it just made me uncomfortable. This weekend wasn’t about me, though. It was about Bailey.
“Thanks.” I nodded, and he loaded her suitcase, my duffle, and our garment bags onto the luggage cart.
I joined Bailey, and we walked through automatic sliding doors that opened to a large lobby with elevated rustic charm. My phone vibrated, and I pulled it out of my pocket. Carly was calling me. She should still have been at school, so I immediately knew something was wrong.
“Um, it’s my niece. I need to take this.”
“Sure, yeah, I’ll go check us in.”
I walked back outside and answered. “Hey, Carles Barkley is everything?—”
“Mom said I can’t try out for cheer!” she wailed.
“Where are you?”
“What do you mean?” she sniffed.
“Are you at home?” It wasn’t even two o’clock yet. She should be in school.
“No. I still have sixth period, but I called mom because I wanted to stay afterschool to practice with Riley and Michelle, and she said I could stay but I couldn’t try out.”
I exhaled, relieved that this was a Carly emergency, not a health emergency.
“It’s so unfair! Riley and Michelle have already been on the squad for two years. She promised me that this year?—”
“I don’t remember her promising you.” What I did remember was, Carly had tried to pin her mom down with a promise when she said no last year. My sister told her that she didn’t think the answer would be different this year.
“How can she do this to me?!” Carly cried.
“I’m sure if she said no, then she has her reasons.”
“It’s money! That’s her ‘reason’ for everything.”
“When are tryouts?”
“Next week.”
“Okay, look, let me talk to your mom and?—”
“Thank you, Uncle CJ! I love you so much! You’re the?—”
“Carly, I didn’t say that her answer’s going to change. I’m just saying, let me talk to her.”
My phone buzzed again, and I pulled it from my ear to see that Sara was texting me.
I put the phone back to my ear as my niece was saying, “I know, but you always come through. Love you!”
The call disconnected, and I read the text. The message warned me that my niece might be calling me because she was having a breakdown and that the reason Sara had said no was because between travel and uniforms, a year of competitive cheer was nearly six grand.
I only had half that amount in our “glass” savings account, which I’d named because it was only to be broken into in case of an emergency. And it was our only safety net. If that was gone and there was an emergency, we’d be shit out of luck.
There was the money I’d saved for my bond and insurance. If I used that, I wouldn’t have to touch my glass savings. But it would also put off getting my license for a few months.
Bailey had offered to pay three grand for me to come with her for the entire weekend. I’m assuming she got that number because one grand was my typical rate for an event, and we’d be here for three days. It was either that or this was a Pretty Woman situation, and I was Julia Roberts.
“Hey, is everything okay? Is your nephew sick again?”
“Oh, yeah, no he’s fine. It was my niece. She was having a meltdown.”
“How old is she?”
“Eleven.”
Bailey grinned. “It’s a tough age. Everything feels very life or death.”
“Apparently.”
“Well, I’m glad everything is okay.” She handed me a folder with a key card in it. “Here’s your key.”
“My key?”
“For your room.” She motioned to the luggage rack. “Mine and my sisters’ room isn’t ready yet, so do you mind if I put my bags in yours for now?”
“Sure.” I did not mind at all if she put her bags in my room. I would mind if she decided not to stay in it. “No problem.”
We followed the porter through the grounds that reminded me of a European garden. The place had a very old-world, old-money feel to it. He explained a little about the history of the vineyard, and then talked a little bit about the room, which had a gorgeous view and a private hot tub. When we arrived at the villa, he brought in our bags, and I tipped him twenty bucks.
As soon as I shut the door behind him, she said, “I don’t have cash to pay you back for that, but make sure to add it to the invoice.”
“The invoice?”
“The bill for this weekend.”
Fuck. I knew that I needed to address the fact that I would not be accepting any money for this weekend.
I was trying to come up with a way to break it to her that I would not be invoicing her at all, when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out. The message was from my sister’s phone, but it was from the twins. They had a video game high score and needed to tell me.
I sent back an applauding meme.
“Everything good?”
“Yeah, it’s my nephews. They’ve been playing my Super Mario Brothers on my old Nintendo console, and they just beat all the levels and saved the princess.”
“That’s awesome!” She smiled widely. “How many nieces and nephews do you have?”
“One niece and two nephews. What about you?”
“None. I can’t wait, though. I think I’m going to be an amazing aunt. That is, if my sisters ever have kids. Billie never wanted them. Birdie does, and she’s engaged, but her fiancé is a musician and on the road all the time. She doesn’t want to be a single parent.”
I nodded. “My sister is a single mom. It’s tough.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“So, do you just want to be an aunt? Or do you think you want kids?” I was shocked when I heard the question leave my mouth. I’d never asked a woman if she wanted to have kids before.
When I was younger, I always thought I wanted to be a dad and have the family I never had. But after everything that happened, my desire to have kids of my own shifted. My idea of family shifted. I was already responsible for three lives and needed to be there for my sister. I thought that the dream of having my own family was dead. Buried. But Bailey, it seemed, had resurrected it.
When I looked into her eyes, when I spent time with her, she made me want things I didn’t have any business wanting.
“Um, yeah, I think I want kids of my own. I mean, I always thought I did.”
I read between the lines of her response. She’d thought she was going to have a family with Simon, and now she wasn’t so sure. Who was this asshole that could lead a woman like Bailey on for twenty years?
“What about you? Do you want kids?” she asked.
Part of me wanted to confess that she had done CPR and revived my desire for a family. But I knew that wasn’t fair. What I wanted didn’t matter. I didn’t have the luxury of living my life for myself.
“No. I don’t think that’s in the cards for me.”
She grinned and nodded, but I swore I saw a flicker of disappointment in her eyes, which told me that I had responded the correct way. There was no way I would ever sell her a dream or make her believe that I could be the man I was incapable of being.
Her phone dinged, and when she pulled it out of her purse, I saw a wide smile lift on her face. I was jealous of whatever she was looking at, because I wanted to be the one putting that smile on her face.
“Good news?” I asked.
She lifted her head, and I could see she was confused by my question.
I motioned to the phone which was still in her hand. “You lit up when you looked at it.”
“Oh,” she sighed with an even wider smile as she turned the phone around so I could see it. “It’s my Cat Cam.”
On the screen, there were two cats; one was white and orange, and the other was a light brown. The brown cat was rolling on the floor, playing with a ball, and the white and orange cat was perched on a chair, looking down at the other one with a gaze of total superiority.
“It looks like the white one is sitting on a throne, watching and judging a court jester.”
“Oh my gosh, you have no idea; that’s exactly what she’s doing.” Bailey’s head fell back as she laughed. The sound washed over me. Just being around Bailey was like coming in from a blizzard and being wrapped in a warm blanket that just came out of the dryer. She was soothing, calming, and safe.
And I wanted to spend every second I could with her for the next three days. If she was staying with her sisters, that was going to seriously cut into my Bailey time.
“Is your ex staying here, at the vineyard?”
Her nose scrunched slightly, almost like a little bunny. Over the eighteen months, I’d observed her at different weddings I’d attended, I’d noticed that she did that when she was confused about something. She probably had no clue why the sudden change in subject.
“Yeah, he is.”
“If that’s the case, don’t you think you should stay here? In this room? With me?”
Her lips parted, and her eyes widened slightly. “Here?”
“Yeah, I just think if you want him to believe we”re dating, which I’m assuming you do, then it would make sense that we were staying together.”
“Um…”
I could see her starting to panic.
“Obviously, I would sleep on the couch.”
She glanced over at the small couch that was against the far wall.
“If anyone is sleeping on the couch, I’m sleeping on the couch. You”re way too tall, and…” She put her hands up by her shoulders. “…and broad. You could never get a good night’s sleep on a couch.”
She was right. I couldn’t. I knew that from years of experience.
When her eyes met mine again, I could see that there was a little bit of uncertainty in them, but also a little bit of excitement. She wasn’t totally ruling out sharing a room with me.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” she questioned.
“I mean, it’ll be a sacrifice, but one I’m willing to make,” I teased her.
She chuckled, took a deep breath and looked down at the ground as if she was fortifying herself for the weekend ahead. When her head moved, a strand of hair fell onto her forehead.
Without even thinking about it, I reached out and tucked the hair behind her ear. “I know this weekend might be hard, but I’m here if you need anything.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, and her nostrils flared slightly as her phone buzzed. She looked down at it. “Oh, it’s Miranda, the coordinator, who is taking over for me. I need to go meet her.”
She grabbed her bag and checked her reflection in the mirror, smoothing down a few flyaway hairs.
“You haven’t eaten lunch yet.” We’d driven straight through. It hadn’t even occurred to me to stop.
“Oh, it’s fine. I’m fine.” She walked to the door and opened it before looking back over her shoulder. “Thanks. Again. For coming.”
“I’m happy to be here.”
Her tight grin told me she thought I was just saying that. I wasn’t. There was no place I’d rather be in this world than here with Bailey. And that scared the shit out of me.