Chapter 21
UNDER THE SONOMA SUN
Declan
After over a week away from the winery, my heart’s clawing its way into my throat when I drive back onto the property late Monday evening.
Got the note last night that harvest is starting soon for the last grapes, and if I wanted to get footage of the crush, I needed to haul ass back here.
So here I am.
Hoping Ginny read my note.
Hoping she didn’t.
Hoping she’s thought about me.
Hoping she hasn’t.
Wanting to kiss her and hold her and finish what we started in the gift shop.
Remembering how shitty it felt when Alex called to catch up on my life after I posted the edited version of my day making chocolate sculptures for Foxy Goes There, and I told him everything except what I wanted to talk to my best friend about.
About a woman occupying my every thought.
But I can’t.
They have history, and I don’t have a future with her.
So I’ll take his forgiveness, ask for it again as soon as I’m free to talk about the documentary at Makepeace, and live the best life I can.
Shade meets me at the apartment, gear bag on his shoulder. “What’s that?” he asks, pointing to my ear.
I swipe at it. “What’s what?”
He sticks his finger in my ear, then sniffs it. “Yep. Chocolate. You shower since you left that fancy kitchen? Fucking athletes.”
I head to the bathroom and peer in the mirror, where I can’t see any chocolate in my ears, then look back out at him.
He smirks. “Too easy, man. Let’s go.”
I change into the same clothes I wore for the last round of harvest, and then we’re off, headed to the fields as the sun dips in the sky.
I’m jittery as fuck, trying to be subtle about looking around to see if Ginny’s joining us for harvest.
“You high?” Shade asks me as he sets up.
“No.”
“Drunk?”
“No.”
“What’s with…” He gestures to me like my brother would, like he’s saying what the fuck’s wrong with you then?
“Long day,” I reply.
“If you say so.” He lifts his camera and pans across the fields.
“Hey, Declan,” Cricket calls. “Hope you’re ready to get your booty kicked in the picking contest tonight.”
“Right back at you,” I call back.
“I helped the neighbors with their fields. I’m way better now.”
She does, in fact, kick my ass when it comes to total weight picked.
So do Dori, Mabel, Olivia, and Samantha.
“Why doesn’t Pip pick?” I ask Mabel at the end of our shift as we trail the trucks to the fermentation building.
I want to ask how’s Ginny?, but I know better.
“She needs her beauty rest,” Mabel says. “Where’s your dog?”
“Also getting her beauty rest.”
Mabel flashes an unexpected smile as she adjusts her glasses. “Flow doesn’t need beauty rest. She’d be gorgeous no matter what.”
“She’s afraid of the dark.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Aren’t dogs supposed to see well in the dark?”
“That’s probably why she’s afraid of it.”
She doesn’t ask if Flow can stop by the house.
I don’t offer.
She glances behind us.
I do too, but I don’t see anyone coming.
Everyone else is up ahead.
She stops.
I stop.
My pulse breaks into a sprint. “Yeah?”
“You write nice notes.”
Rare heat gathers in my face. Doesn’t surprise me that Mabel would’ve seen it. “Thank you.”
“Did you mean it?”
“Every word.”
She studies me, silence stretching between us like a verbal game of chicken.
I keep my mouth clamped shut, and eventually, she nods.
“Okay then,” she says. “Thank you.”
She resumes walking again.
I follow. “Thank you? What does that mean?”
“I appreciate sincerity.”
Fuck me.
I want to ask what Ginny thought of the note, but I know Mabel won’t tell me.
But if Mabel’s the kind of friend that I think she is—that I hope she is—then I’ll take it as a good sign that she’s not kicking me out.
That she’s willing to tell me so much as you write nice notes.
And believe me when I say I mean it.
Shade’s gone ahead of all of us to get his lights and mics set up, so it’s just Mabel and me and all of the questions I’ve promised myself and Ginny that I won’t ask.
“For your awareness, we have a new resident,” Mabel says. “Her name is Adelaide, and she’s in a post-viral haze right now.”
“The pecan pie lady?”
“Yes. Please don’t call her that to her face if you see her.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” The sun casts its first light on the wooden barn and fermentation building, and I suppress the urge to pull out my phone and livestream the sunrise. Or even film it for later. I’ll get another chance tomorrow.
I hope.
I don’t know if I’ll get another convenient opportunity to talk to Mabel alone.
“How long have you been taking in people who’ve gone viral?” I ask.
“Since shortly after I moved here around five years ago.”
“You came to help Pip?”
“Yes.”
“You ever go viral?”
“More or less.”
I glance at her, but she doesn’t fill in the blanks.
“You invite everyone who goes viral?”
“Absolutely not.”
She doesn’t voluntarily elaborate, so we walk the rest of the way to the fermentation building in silence.
More sorting’s happening today, then in a couple days, when we’re done sorting, we’ll do the crush.
Ginny’s not here, but Pip is, dressed in a neon green miniskirt, white rubber rain boots dotted with lips, matching lips taped over her nipples, and nothing else.
Shade is actively not filming. “We got enough of this last time,” he tells me. “Eddie approved most of the rough cut I sent her over the weekend, so I’m just gonna grab the B-roll she asked for with sorting.”
“Dori’s monitoring the fermentation tanks for the grapes we already crushed,” Mabel tells us. “If you’re not too tired, you might pop over there and help her and record it now.”
“I can go all day and all night,” Shade says.
They both look at me.
So do Olivia and Samantha.
“Let’s do this,” I say.
And that’s how it goes for the next four days.
Everything’s hectic and busy as the grapes are sorted and the crush is completed and the fermentation progress is checked regularly.
There’s work in the fields to repair broken stakes and prep the vines for winter.
Plans tossed about for different names for the wines.
I don’t see Ginny.
In person. I see her in my dreams and in my thoughts and in the fantasies when I let myself indulge, but I don’t see her in person.
I don’t see the new resident.
I don’t go to the house.
Flow doesn’t either.
It’s good.
Ginny deserves her peace.
I’m doing the right thing.
Even if it sucks.