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Bringing the glasses into the living room, I sat hers down on the coffee table just as she came in. She picked it up, sniffed it, and looked at it critically over the rim.
“Fancy juice?” she asked, calling it what we used to call it as kids.
“Yup. Fancy juice for you, and fancier juice for me.”
“You deserve it. It’s a celebration.” She looked around the room and then back to me. “Where’s the pizza?”
“The oven is still preheating,” I said. “It’ll be a few minutes.”
“Good.” She flopped down on the easy chair and took a sip of the juice. “Then you can start telling me details. I want to know everything. How tall is he, what color is his hair? How big is his…”
“Nuh-uh,” I said. “Not before eating.”
“Car,” she finished. “You have such a dirty mind.”
I tried to frown at her but couldn’t. It turned into a smile too quickly.
The rest of the night was wonderful as we spent it talking like we used to. It was exactly what I needed to feel better about the entire situation. By the time Jaz started to drift off to sleep in the easy chair, a game show on the television, I was feeling like this might just work.
27
Kane
The first text was answered after about half an hour with a series of emojis that made me wonder if she meant to send them or if she had simply sat on her phone. It was followed by an apology and an explanation that her sister had taken her phone to look at something and responded for her. I laughed and shot off a response about how her sister needed to mind her own business, and we were off to the races.
A flurry of messages followed, and I learned that she and her sister had spoken and had a heart-to-heart, spilling the beans about the two of us. She admitted she had been scared, and I figured that meant she might have started to doubt me and what we had going on. So, sending a text was an easy way to keep in touch with her and make sure she knew I cared.
Probably a lot more than I should after such a short time.
I laughed as I read one of her messages and felt the eyes on me from across the room. I was stretched out in the office on the couch, Alex and Cameron each sitting at their desks. After finishing my work for the day, I had come in to talk about supplement investments with Cameron, but he hadn’t gotten done with what he was working on yet, so I stretched out to wait. Now it seemed I had his interest, albeit it had nothing to do with investments for the vineyard.
“Is this about the girl?” he asked.
“It has to be,” Alex said, not looking up from his tablet. His multiple screens were connected, and he was moving graphics over from his tablet, where he was drawing them, over to the desktop in a Wi-Fi-enabled magic I couldn’t quite understand.
“What’s her name again? I think I met her,” Cam said.
“Danica.”
Cam rolled his eyes. “Did you hear that?” he asked Alex. “Danica,” he said mockingly. “Man, you have it bad.”
“He’s been like this all day,” Alex said. “I went to talk to him earlier in the vines, and he was just as dopey out there.”
“Who would have thought?” Cam said to himself. “Kane getting all flustered over a girl.”
“So long as he doesn’t fuck up the grapes, I guess,” Alex said.
“Look, you two,” I said, sitting up. “Would you rather me be happy and dopey or sulking and mean? Because I seem to remember you all sitting me down and bitching about me not being cheery enough for you.”
“Whoa there, Buster,” Cam said, using a nickname he gave anyone who he thought needed to be checked. I’d hated it when I was a kid, and I hated it now. He knew it and grinned. “Calm your tits. Everybody’s happy for you. We’re just saying, it’s weird. You were an asshole last week. This is a rather large shift.”
“Fair enough,” I said, lying back down. Another message had come in and taken the edge off Cameron’s teasing. “Forget you guys.”
The thing was, I really was happy. Even the teasing didn’t bother me that much. I was happy and excited for Friday. I could barely wait, and ideas were streaming into my mind as to how I could make it bigger and better, or how I could streamline it and make it simple so I didn’t overwhelm her. Contradictory thoughts were battling for supremacy, but each one had one common thread: seeing a smile on Danica’s face.
There was one thing that was non-negotiable. I had reservations at a really nice place to eat. It was downtown and was highly rated as a romantic spot for dates. I figured having dinner had been a big help on our first date, might as well keep the trend going. Besides, it would be nice even for me to have dinner somewhere other than my family’s own restaurant. My brother Derek was an amazing chef, and I would never tell him to his face, but I was a little bored of the menu.
