Drunk on Love(24)

Avery giggled.

“Good point, but that feels like an isolated incident. More of that, though.”

He laughed, and then sighed.

“Anyway, I’m sorry for involving you in all of this, even though I did it accidentally. I feel like such a child, lying to my mother about all of this.”

Avery shook her head.

“Luke, you’re talking to someone who still hasn’t told her mother that she broke up with Derek. I just have to text her and get it over with, but I’m dreading it. I get it.” Her face relaxed into a grin. “But you and me? Gross.”

“I’m a little offended that your reaction to the idea of dating me seems to be abject horror,” he said.

Avery rolled her eyes again.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a great catch, I love you with my whole heart, and I can’t wait for you to date a woman worthy of you, but we all know it’s not going to be me. It’s still hilarious to me that your mom keeps wanting us to get back together. While we were dating, I thought she hated me.”

Luke laughed.

“Yeah, well, she’s mellowed some over the years.” He paused. “About some things.”

Avery looked at him over her wineglass.

“Okay. I owe you one. After last week, and everything. You can keep up this pretense with your mom—I won’t blow your cover.”

He shook his head.

“Avery, no, you don’t have to do that. You don’t owe me anything. I did all of that for you because I’m your friend and I love you.”

She touched his hand, for just a second, and smiled at him.

“Fine, I don’t owe you anything. But I’ll do this for you anyway. Because I’m your friend and I love you. Not like your mom wants me to, but still. We’ll let her think so for a little while.”

Was she sure about this?

“You don’t have to do this, just because I’m a coward.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“One, you’re not a coward. Two, if you tell your mom you quit, you’re going to try to rush yourself back into another tech job, and you need a break. Let her keep thinking this for a while, chill out, work at Noble, lust after Margot. Okay?”

Well. That last part wouldn’t be too hard.

He nodded.

“Okay. And Avery? Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She took a sip of wine. “Just promise me you’ll let me know if you’re cheating on me with your boss.”

He thought about Margot, smiling at him as they walked back from the tour today.

“If only.”

Avery grimaced, and he laughed.





Six


ON SUNDAY EVENING, AFTER the tasting room was closed, Margot rummaged through the hall closet at the winery. She should be getting ready for the staff dinner that night, but she wanted to find that old landscaping plan for the winery she was sure she’d seen in Uncle Stan’s office years ago. She knew she didn’t have to do the landscaping just the way he’d wanted, but she wanted to at least see what he’d wanted. And maybe then Elliot would be happier about this work, and her plans, and the party. Or, at least, less unhappy.

She grabbed two big boxes from the back of the closet and brought them into her office to look through. She kept getting sidetracked from her search as she flipped through all of these papers—handwritten notes from Uncle Stan from the early years of the winery, ancient bills for a fraction of what everything cost now, old newspaper clippings about Noble Family Vineyards. She should pull all of this stuff out, get some of it framed to hang on their walls.

Finally, right along the bottom of the second box, she found it. There was his sketch of the winery building, the barn, the vineyards in the distance. Oh wow, he’d wanted paths around the lawn and to and from the winery building just like she did, and he even had a little garden there, next to the winery building, with chairs and tables, like she’d told Elliot she wanted. They’d had a makeshift outdoor seating area in that space for the past year, but she wanted to improve the seating, make it feel like a real part of the winery. Maybe Uncle Stan had wanted it to look like she did.

She could picture the winery like this, see it in her head, just from seeing these plans. The back lawn, green and well taken care of, brand-new paths around it leading to the barn, to the winery building, to the parking lot, to the garden. Flowers everywhere, chairs and benches around, with the vineyard in the distance.

“Why are you all covered in dust?”

She blinked away her daydream and looked up to see Elliot in her doorway.

“I found them!” She beckoned to him. “Those old landscaping plans of Uncle Stan’s.”

She wasn’t sure if Elliot would care about this, but he came right over to her desk.

“Oh wow, you actually found them. I was sure they were lost.”

They stood there and looked down at them together for a few moments.

“He wanted a garden back there, just like you do,” Elliot said finally.

She’d thought he hadn’t been paying attention when she’d told him.

“Yeah,” she said. “He did.”

They smiled at each other for a second. Her eyes were suddenly full of tears. She blinked them back so they wouldn’t drop down onto the plans.