“We can talk over lunch. Come on!”
I led out first and she tailed behind me. “Wait! You’re going the wrong way!”
But I didn’t care. I walked until I reached a dead end. Cold. Dim. Floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with bottles, crates, and dusty boxes stamped with years older than me.
“Ew…”
“This is… regular storage,” Lavender said carefully as she caught up to me. “And—” she gestured toward a heavy steel door with a keypad “—that’s the vintage inventory.”
“What’s in there?” I asked immediately.
Lavender shook her head. “Only Mr. Sinclair has access so only Mr. Sinclair knows.”
Of course.
Well, since Marlon thought it was so funny for me to do all that filing, maybe I’ll play a few jokes on my own and start rumors.
“You think it’s dead bodies?”
“What!” Lavender cringed. “No! Why would you even suggest that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. He got that prison look. Low fade, tats and muscles? He definitely did time. Maybe that’s where he hid the bodies.”
“For your information,” she huffed. " Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Rodriguez were gifted this vineyard and all the buildings by the original owner when he passed. That vault has barely been opened since then.”
“I see.” Seeing as the Mr. Rodriguez in this story was my father, I knew that already. Still. It’s fun to tease. “So, do you think the original owner’s buried down there?”
She looked at me. “Come on. The lunch room is this way Ms. Rodriguez.”
By the time we made it to the lunchroom, I was stomach-eating-itself starving.
Lavender slowed outside the door, suddenly hesitant. “So…this is the lunchroom.”
She glanced at me like she was bracing for a complaint.
“Girl, open this damn door. I’m so damn hungry… Matter of fact. MOVE!”
I pushed it open myself and was greeted by couches, a ping-pong table and a couple arcade machines.
“Y’all serious?” I asked.
Lavender nodded nervously. “People work long hours during harvest season. Mr. Sinclair insists everyone has space to decompress.”
I scoffed softly. “That man don’t play about his people. Still. Where the food at?”
She smiled, clearly relieved I wasn’t judging. “Towards the back. Through the double door.”
I almost broke my heels to get to the food.
Behind the double doors, it was simple. The first thing that caught my attention was the long tables and big fridge covered in magnets and handwritten notes.
People stop mid-laugh, mid-bite, mid-conversation to look at me but I didn’t care.
The smell of real food hit me immediately.
I stepped in, eyes lighting up. “Oh thank God.”
Lavender frowned. “Really? I thought you’d be into something catered or ordered in.”
