“My former boss,” he said. “Why do you think I was so eager to quit that job? Anyway, I asked her out shortly after I quit, and you’re right. I was so happy.”
“Oh no,” his mom said. “?‘Was.’?” Her eyes widened. “Is that my fault? I said something to her at the party about you and Avery. Did she know about that?”
She didn’t have to remind him.
“Yeah, she mentioned that.” He sighed. “And no, I hadn’t told her. She was upset about that, yeah. But she was more upset about the job.” He looked down at the desk. “I thought she’d be impressed, excited. But she was so upset. She was mad about the Avery thing, too, don’t get me wrong, but she thought that me taking this interview . . . without talking to her about it meant I wasn’t serious about her. But . . .”
He folded his hands tightly on the desk and stared down at them. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, he looked up at his mom.
“I’ve been pretty stupid lately, haven’t I?”
She laughed and pulled him into a hug with her good arm.
“I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but since you did . . . yeah, probably.”
He let her hug him as tightly as she wanted to.
Twenty-Six
MARGOT WOKE UP FRIDAY morning, groaned, and closed her eyes again. On the plus side, she only had a splitting headache; it could be far worse. On the minus side . . . everything else.
She eventually made herself sit up, gulped down ibuprofen, and got in the shower. After a shower, two cups of coffee, and a whole lot of water, she felt almost human. It wasn’t until she’d gotten dressed that she remembered her car was still at the winery.
She grabbed her phone to get an overpriced rideshare up the valley and saw a text from her brother.
ELLIOT
I’ll come get you as soon as Taylor gets here
“Bless you, Elliot,” she said out loud.
MARGOT
Thank you! I’ll be ready!
He was at her house thirty minutes later. When she climbed into his truck, he handed her a greasy white bag.
“I thought you could use a breakfast sandwich today.”
She almost hugged him, but she and Elliot had hugged more in the past week than in the past three years before that. Better not to push it.
“You’re a hero and a saint,” she said instead. “Do I have to write ‘breakfast sandwiches’ into that contract?”
Elliot nodded.
“Make mine with bacon.”
On the way to the winery, Elliot didn’t bring up anything they’d talked about the night before, and neither did she. Friday was another busy day at the winery, with lots of appointments and tours and phone calls. But all day, as she joked with Taylor and chatted with guests and sent endless emails, she thought about what Elliot had said. That she should tell Luke how she felt about him, before it was too late.
What if Luke didn’t feel the same way? She already felt silly, juvenile, for feeling such big feelings for Luke, caring this much about him, letting him become so central to her life, after only a month. Yes, sure, it had been two months since she’d met him, but they’d been together for only a month, and she’d let herself fall this hard? For someone who had told her, since the beginning, that he wouldn’t be around that long?
But she had to do something. She had to say something. She’d almost done it last night, when she’d gotten home, despite what Elliot had said about not texting Luke while she was drunk. But luckily for her, she’d fallen asleep with her phone in her hand.
What was she supposed to say? How was the interview? I miss you. How important am I to you on a scale of one to ten? Probably not those last two things.
She drove home that night after a long day at the winery, got out of her car, and walked straight to the Barrel. If she was going to do this, she needed some food first.
“Hey!” Sydney greeted her as soon as she sat down. “I was just going to text you, to tell you to come by after work, or that I could come by later, if you wanted.” She picked up a bottle of wine, but Margot shook her head.
“No wine for me tonight, only your best sparkling water.” She sighed. “I drank entirely too much wine last night and had to get rescued by my brother.”
Sydney’s eyebrows went up.
“By your brother?”
Margot laughed and nodded. She’d told Sydney that she and Elliot had talked through things after the party and that everything was a lot better between them, but Sydney was still clearly holding a grudge against Elliot. This was why she loved her.
“I know, it sounds impossible, but it’s true.” She took a sip of the sparkling water Sydney poured into her wineglass. “He also said . . . that I should talk to Luke.”
Sydney glared at her.
“He would say that. Men always stick together.”
Margot laughed again.
“It’s true. They do. But I don’t want . . . I really—”
Sydney’s face softened.
“I know. Just . . . be careful.”
Just then, someone at the front door called Sydney’s name.
“Be right back,” Sydney said. “Food’s on its way.”
Margot knew that Be right back had no real meaning on a busy Friday night, but that was okay. She already felt better, just being somewhere other than her house or the winery for the first time all week. It cleared her head, to not have to be Margot Noble, co-owner of Noble Family Vineyards, and just be Margot, sitting here at the corner of the bar. A tomato and mozzarella salad landed in front of her, and she took a few bites and smiled over at the kitchen. Then she took a deep breath and reached for her phone.
A server came up behind her, to drop off some bread. She turned, to let him set it in front of her, and then stopped.
Luke was standing there.
“Is this seat available?” he asked, gesturing at the chair next to her.
She was still hurt, and uncertain of him, and angry. But she was so happy to see him, standing right there, so close she could almost touch him, that she had to look away to keep the tears from coming to her eyes.
“I can’t believe you showed up here,” Sydney said.
Sydney glared at Luke from behind the bar. Luke didn’t move. He looked at Margot.
“No, it’s okay, Syd,” Margot said, looking back at Luke.
Luke sat down next to her. Neither of them said anything for a moment.
Sydney came back and slid a glass of water in front of Luke without looking at either of them, and walked away.
“What are the odds she’s poisoned that?” Luke asked.
Margot thought about it.
“Well . . . not zero.”
They both laughed, without making eye contact.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“I went by your place, your car was there but you weren’t—at least, I hoped you weren’t, because you didn’t answer the door when I rang. It was an educated guess.”
They still hadn’t really looked at each other.
“How was the interview?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“Fine. Good, even. I got the job. I got the unofficial offer this afternoon.” She looked down. Had he come here to tell her that? And then say goodbye? “I’m not taking it, though.”
She looked up at him, trying to tamp down the hope that had risen in her chest.
“Why not?”
She had no idea how he would answer that question.
“Because I hated that job, as much as I tried not to admit it to myself. I thought I just had to work harder, be better, and I would be worthy of it. Quitting that job was the best thing I ever did, and then I beat myself up about it for months.”
She tried to smile.
“Probably better not to go back there if you hated it, then,” she said.
He gave her a tiny smile.
“Yeah, probably.” Then he turned and looked right at her. “I’m sorry, Margot. For . . . a lot of things. But especially for what I said to you on Sunday morning. About you being irrational, overreacting, that everything is all about you, all of that . . . that was shitty of me to say. And none of it was true.” She opened her mouth, to apologize, too, but he stopped her. “I didn’t tell you about the interview because I was so in my own head about that job and leaving it and what that said about me as a person that I was scared to tell you. Scared you’d say something to make it clear you thought the same thing about me that the rest of those people did. That I wasn’t strong enough, good enough, that I didn’t deserve you. I thought I had something to prove, to all of the assholes who doubted me, to you, to myself. I finally realized that’s a really stupid reason to take a job.”
“You didn’t have to prove anything to me,” she said. “I didn’t care about any of that.”