And Avery had congratulated him for the interview, wished him luck. Unlike Margot.
“I’m not asking you to apologize for that!” she said. “I’m asking why I’m not important enough for you to want to talk to me about that. But I guess I don’t have to ask, there’s my answer.” She looked away from him. “I don’t even understand why you’re thinking about going back to that job in the first place. I thought you never wanted to go back there. I can’t believe it’s more important to you than me.”
“Oh my God, Margot, it’s not a choice! Why are you being so irrational about this? I don’t try to make you choose between the winery and me, do I?”
She shook her head.
“That’s different.”
He laughed.
“Why, because I’d always lose?”
She jumped out of bed, grabbed a robe from her closet, and wrapped it around herself.
“You told me this, between us, was something. My life includes you; you are a part of my life. I thought I was a part of yours. I guess I was wrong.”
He shook his head.
“You can’t spare one moment, one second, to be excited for me about this? To say ‘Congratulations, Luke, how exciting’？ Getting this interview is a big deal. I worked my ass off, and I thought quitting would put me behind; instead, I’m getting offers like this out of the blue. But you’re not even happy for me.”
He got out of bed and started pulling his clothes on.
“You don’t think I’m good enough for a job like this, like everyone else. That’s it, isn’t it? You only think of me as your ‘young, impressionable employee,’ an extra set of hands in the tasting room, that guy who’s helping out his mom, who’s available at your beck and call whenever you happen to have time to see me. That’s why you haven’t told anyone about us. You don’t care about me, or what I want. It’s all about you, Margot, isn’t it?”
Margot stepped back. She had a blank, empty look on her face.
“Is that what you really think of me?”
He picked his belt up from the floor.
“Maybe I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d be supportive,” he said. “Or that you’d care about me, instead of only about yourself. And I was right.”
“I guess there’s my answer,” she said right before he slammed her front door.
Twenty-Four
MARGOT DIDN’T GET TO the winery until well after eleven that day. What with Luke, and the sex, and the fight, and the worse fight, and all the crying she did in the shower after he stormed out of her house, she’d been a little delayed that morning.
She wished she could rewind, go back to that morning, to how happy they’d been. How did that fight get out of hand so quickly?
How could he walk out of her house, just like that? When he’d told her about the interview, so casually, right after telling her he’d been pretending to date Avery for months, she’d lost it. She’d tried to stay calm about the Avery thing, even though it freaked her out. She could have taken one of those hits alone. But both of those things, back-to-back, had been too much for her to handle. They made her realize how absolutely not casual she was about him, how important he was to her, how central he’d been to her life over the past month.
She should have just been happy for him, like he’d wanted her to be; congratulated him about the interview; asked more questions. And then, later, she could have asked him what this meant for the two of them.
Why didn’t you tell me? she’d whined, like Luke owed it to her to discuss every single thing with her. He didn’t! He hadn’t wanted to tell her!
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? He hadn’t wanted to tell her. She wasn’t important enough for him to want to tell her this major thing in his life, about how and why he’d changed his mind so quickly, so completely. He hadn’t trusted her to talk to about something like this.
They’d only been together for a month; that wasn’t that long. Just because she’d gotten herself in so deep, so fast, that didn’t mean he had.
But it felt like it had been more than a month. It felt like they’d been together since that very first night.
She wanted to call him, apologize, start over. But when she thought about some of those things he’d said that morning, she stopped herself. No. She had too much pride for that. Plus, if they could have such a big and terrible fight like that after only a month, there was no hope for their relationship. This should be the honeymoon period, right?