“When did this all happen?” Avery asked.
“Just earlier this week,” he said. “Everything has moved pretty quickly—I’m heading back down there for an interview on Thursday. It would be a big pay bump, and a level up. And it would be kind of fun to prove something to all of those people who thought I wasn’t good enough.”
He hadn’t told Margot about the interview yet. He’d almost told her a few times that week, but every time, something had stopped him.
“Oh wow,” Avery said. “Well, congratulations, I guess. Let me know how it goes.”
He nodded.
“I will.”
“And like I said before,” she said. “I’ll keep up this pretense with your mom as long as you need me to, because I’m your friend, but as your friend, I have to tell you: You have to tell her the truth. Interview or no interview. After all, you have a real girlfriend now—that should make her happy.”
He laughed.
“It should, you’re right, but you know you’ve always been her favorite.”
Avery tossed her hair back.
“Well, obviously.” She looked at him sideways. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you just let me call Margot your girlfriend. You didn’t even try to deny it.”
He actually hadn’t noticed that. He’d try to play that off with most people, but Avery knew him too well for that.
“We actually haven’t really talked about that, but . . .” He grinned. “We’re usually too busy doing other things to talk much.”
That wasn’t true, but he knew what Avery’s reaction to that statement would be. She didn’t let him down.
“Ewww! I told you I didn’t need to hear the details!”
He laughed again as he pulled up in front of her apartment.
“Have a good night, Avery,” he said as she got out of the car. “Talk to you soon.”
He checked his phone as soon as Avery went inside. Margot had texted back.
MARGOT
I’m ok. Better than ok, actually. We’ll talk later; I’ll text when I’m leaving here
He felt a rush of relief, along with another emotion he didn’t have words for right now.
LUKE
I’m glad. See you soon
Twenty-Two
WHEN MARGOT LEFT THE winery, she was exhausted. It was the kind of bone-tired that came from waking up at five a.m., walking and standing and smiling and laughing all day, occasional physical labor, sobbing on Luke’s shoulder, and a very emotional and cathartic confrontation with her brother, which had upended so much of what she thought she’d known.
She didn’t know if she should trust Luke’s and Elliot’s versions of how the party had gone. She was still getting a ton of social media notifications, but she was too tired to check them to see if they were good or bad. And anyway, the proof would be in how much money they’d made, how many new memberships they’d gotten, what their press would be, how sales would be over the next few weeks and months. She wouldn’t know some of that for a while, and she didn’t have the strength—or the energy—to stay at the winery that night and look hard at the numbers from the party.
She couldn’t wait to get home, hop in a hot shower, take off her bra, and put comfortable clothes on. But most of all, she couldn’t wait to be with Luke.
She texted him when she locked up the winery.
MARGOT
Leaving now. Meet me at my place?
Can’t wait to see you
She normally would have hesitated to send that last text, to let Luke know how much she looked forward to seeing him, how important he was to her. But after today, she just wanted to be honest. It felt almost too good to be true that she was going home to him now. He almost felt too good to be true.
She got right in the shower as soon as she got home. Just as she got out and wrapped herself in her fluffiest robe, her doorbell rang. She pulled her shower cap off and opened the door to Luke, his arms full.
“What’s all that?” she asked as he walked in and set everything down on the counter.
He started opening boxes full of food.
“I thought you might be hungry,” he said. “You barely ate anything today, at least that I saw, and I bet you were too stressed this morning to do anything but drink an enormous amount of coffee.”
She smiled at how well he knew her.
“I also ate a muffin, but point taken,” she said. The smells coming out of those boxes made her swoon a little. Or maybe it was that they were here, in her kitchen, because Luke had brought them to her. She opened the boxes and grinned at him.