Page 30 of While You Were Trending

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fucking fine, Ginny.”

“Mom’s gone. You don’t have to keep dropping all the fucks. She can’t hear you anymore.”

He grunts. “Don’t change the subject. Why’s he staying?”

“Declan?”

“Yes.”

“He got a TV deal for his web series, and the production company is paying us to let him record a few videos for his social channels.”

“You don’t need him. You have all that shit in the cellar that you’re going to sell.”

It’s my turn to grunt. “No, we don’t.”

“What?”

“Pip drained most of it not long after Dean died.”

“What?”

“She missed some, mostly chardonnay that went bad.”

“But—but—the barrel we tapped when I was here?—”

“Like I said, she missed some.”

“Shit, Ginny.”

“We have a dozen barrels. A few merlots, one chardonnay that’s miraculously fine, some Syrah, and a Riesling.”

“Limited edition. You can charge a mint for that.”

If only. “I’ve been in touch with auction houses, and it turns out Dean was a shitty winemaker. There’s no demand for old bottles of Makepeace wine.”

“That shit I had the last time I was here wasn’t shitty.”

“Shit wasn’t shitty?”

“Nobody called the grammar police, Ginny.”

I snort in amusement, then clutch at my head again.

After I swallow hard, I look at Ten. “It doesn’t actually matter if it’s good or bad. Pip won’t let us sell it with Makepeace’s labels on it anyway. Once we’re up and running, we can sell it under new labels, but we need to be up and running and some level of successful before it’ll have an impact. So hosting private events and taking payment for providing a filming location is what we’ll do.”

Ten looks out at Declan again. “I don’t like it.”

Neither do I. “Have a better idea for massive publicity that we’re actually getting paid for, rather than the other way around?”

He grunts.

“Could be worse,” I say. “Mom could be here.”

That earns me a side-eye and a sigh. “Sure. Let’s make lemonade. And it’s not like he’s the real guy from your past that we don’t talk about. He’s more…ancillary.”

“Ancillary?”