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“I was thinking about going to a vineyard,” he replies. “But I like the way your mind works.”

The vineyard belongs to a friend of his. It hasn’t officially opened yet, but a small shop on the ground floor is selling wine and cheese. Brendan buys a bottle of pinot noir and way more food than we could possibly eat—four kinds of cheese, crackers, prosciutto, Marcona almonds—and leads me across the grounds to a spot near the lake.

It's a perfect day for a picnic: a light breeze, sunny but not hot. I spread the blanket, and he lays out the food. Does he realize how romantic this is? It may be the most romantic, date-type thing I’ve ever done in my life. All we need is a violinist and maybe some swans and we’re straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel.

He opens the bottle of pinot and pours some into plastic cups for both of us.

"You bought a lot of cheese. We're never eating all this."

"Don't try to act like you're a delicate little sparrow,” he says. “I saw you pound a large movie popcorn last week, remember?"

I flush, remembering what else occurred in that theater.

He hands me a glass of wine. "You're blushing, Erin."

"No, I'm not."

He catches my eye, his mouth turning up almost imperceptibly. "What are you thinking about?”

"Syria," I reply primly. "Did you know we've now got a large percentage of our military deployed to Syria?"

I completely made this up, but I don’t see Brendan reading The Wall Street Journal too often, so I’m probably safe.

"Do you always blush when you're talking about Syria?" he asks. “Where, by the way, we do not have a large military presence. Just admit that you’ll never enter a theater again without thinking about last week."

"Will you?"

That light in his eyes turns feral. God, it's ridiculous how little it takes to make me want him. He takes the wine from my hand. “Yeah, but there are one or two more things I wish we’d done there, though.”

He pushes me onto my back, wrapping a hand under one knee to pull my legs apart. "What are you doing, Brendan?" I ask, but my voice has already gone breathy and slightly desperate. He pushes my skirt up around my waist. "Someone could see us."

"They can't. I've checked every angle from the main building." He slides my panties off and pockets them. “And sex out here is on my bucket list.”

“You’re sure no one can see us?” I ask.

“Positive.”

I smile. “Then get on your back. I have a bucket list too.”

54

Erin

Present

On Monday, Brendan goes back to Boulder to see his mother, who is getting her final round of radiation this afternoon. Bringing me with him would give her false hope about us as a couple, so I understand why he doesn’t ask me to come. But it still hurts.

I stop by Human Resources on my way in to work. They’ve apparently done enough team building that they can do their jobs today, but I hate the counselor from the moment I enter her office. She speaks to me in an overly soft voice, but there’s something patronizing there too, as if she’s humoring me, before I’ve even said a word.

I tell her about the incident, about Timothy’s habit of putting assignments on my desk late in the day and demanding they be done by morning. When I conclude, she asks me why I didn’t report this sooner.

“I came by on Friday,” I reply. “But the note on the door said you were at a retreat.”

“You could have emailed, though, or left a message.” Her voice is still gentle, but there’s an undeniable message of you fucked up underlying it.

“Or I could come back first thing Monday morning, which is what I’m doing,” I reply.

“The problem, Erin, is that when an employee comes in to file a complaint after she’s already been written up, it looks somewhat suspicious.”