She laughed as they walked back to the lawn. She couldn’t wait to drink that wine on the couch. With Luke.
* * *
WHEN LUKE LEFT MARGOT’S office, his first impulse was to stand outside of her door and listen to whatever went on between her and Elliot. So he could burst in and protect her from her brother if he said something mean to her? No, Margot would hate that. He made himself leave the building and walk out to the lawn.
But on the way, he texted her.
LUKE
Text and let me know you’re okay? See you later, just let me know when
He hung around outside for a few minutes after he went back out there, helping Taylor pack up, but when Margot and Elliot didn’t come back after five minutes, he looked over at Avery.
“I’m going to take off—did you want a ride home?”
He figured that after Elliot had told him to go home, it might make things even more complicated between Margot and her brother if he lingered just to see how she was doing.
Avery looked surprised, but nodded.
“Let me just finish this.”
She set the last few wineglasses on the counter into a box, and then stood up.
“Let’s go.”
He hugged everyone goodbye, and Avery followed him out to the parking lot. She turned to him as soon as they got in his car.
“Is everything okay? Between you and Margot, I mean,” Avery asked.
He hadn’t expected that question.
“Yeah, of course. Why?”
She shrugged.
“I didn’t expect you to leave until she did, that’s all. And she disappeared a while ago, and then you did, and now you’re leaving and she’s still nowhere to be seen, so . . . I just wondered if you had a fight.”
He shook his head.
“No, we’re fine. Better than fine. She’s just—” He couldn’t tell her about the Elliot stuff. “I was worried about her, I knew she’d be upset, after that thing with the drunk guy, so that’s why I went looking for her. She’s talking to Elliot now, so I wanted to give them some space. I’ll see her later, though.”
Avery sighed.
“Poor Margot. That drunk guy was nothing, there’s always one, I should have told her that when we met to talk party planning. But this was her first big event, of course she would think that was the end of the world. I hope Elliot is telling her it’s no big deal.”
Luke tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“I hope so, too.”
Avery looked sharply at him. Damn it, he didn’t want her to know there was any friction between Margot and Elliot.
“Elliot doesn’t know about you and Margot, does he?”
Well, okay, that wasn’t quite the topic he would have picked, but at least it wasn’t exposing a secret that wasn’t his to tell.
“No, he doesn’t know,” he said. “Margot felt weird about it, because of the whole she-used-to-be-my-boss thing. No one from the winery knows—at least, I don’t think so.”
She raised her eyebrows at him.
“Is that weird for you? That she’s keeping it a secret?”
He shook his head.
“It’s not a secret,” he said. Avery just looked at him. “It’s not! Lots of people know. We go out together all the time. She just hasn’t told her brother, that’s all. It’s complicated there.”
Avery put her hand on his shoulder.
“Okay. I’m just worried about you. I saw the way you looked at her today. And I especially saw the way you looked when she backed away from you when Taylor came over.”
He brushed that off.
“I don’t know what you mean. She’s just been so stressed about this party that it didn’t make sense to deal with anything else until it was over. Plus, I haven’t—”
“Yes, I was just about to say, you’ve let your mom keep believing this ridiculous story about the two of us dating. She came up to me today, and I swear she was about to ask me when the wedding date was!”
Luke laughed.
“Sorry about that. I had no idea she’d be there today. And yeah, I’m going to have to come clean to her soon, I think. About everything.” He sighed. “Especially with this interview next week.”
“Interview? What interview?” Avery asked.
He’d forgotten that he hadn’t told Avery about this yet.
“My old boss is leaving, and Craig—my old mentor there—reached out to me to see if I wanted to interview for the job. They’ve made a bunch of changes there, so I thought it was worth having a conversation. I was kind of suspicious that the whole thing was bullshit, but when I talked to Craig, he talked a lot about how much everyone there liked me, and then Brian’s old boss called to say how great my work had been, and how glad he was that I was interviewing for that job. Granted, it would have been nice if he’d said any of that while I was actually there, but whatever. I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about my chances.” He grinned. “Even a little smug, that after everything, they still want me.”