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“I am a professional!” I shout inches from her face and Ellen hauls back like she’s going to smack me and I finch, making her laugh. “But I’m certain he’s not. Did you see the way he’s dressed? Ugh…”
Ellen cocks an eyebrow at me, her hands on her hips, “Listen, Pot, you and the Kettle out there aren’t dressed all that differently.”
“Oh my god, why are you taking his side?” I lament before defending myself. “For your information I was out trying to unclog that damn crusher…”
My words stop me in my tracks and so do my purple stained hands that I quickly shove into the back pockets of my shorts.
“Point. Made,” Ellen quips as she turns to leave the room, but just before she opens the door she turns back to me. “You never told me he was so hot.” She opens her mouth into a perfect O-shape and fans her face.
I slap at her and practically shove her into the door. “He wasn’t,” I hiss as I reach around her for the doorknob, opening the door and forcing her out before me.
“You never told me he was so hot,” I mockingly mutter as we both leave my bedroom. Hot, if you like that tanned, blue-eyed, Australian accent, total dickhead, conceited prick look. Pffft…
“Come on kids,” Ellen says, flagging them off the couch where they were already nestled up against Jack looking at pictures on his phone. He’s so charming even they’ve turned on me.
Jack stands up and advances toward me with a look on his face that says he’s thrilled to be here, and it takes everything in me not to charge at him and slug him in the face.
We didn’t exactly part on the best terms. Hell, we didn’t even start on the best terms. “You look good, Lulu,” he says, smiling as his eyes trail over my body.
My hand whips up, “Don’t even start, and let’s get a few things straight: my name is Lauren. Not Lulu, Lu or anything else, just Lauren. And I am your boss. It might be Ellen who hands you a check, but make no mistake, I am in charge.”
“You got it,” Jack says shrugging his shoulders as he slips past me and back into the kitchen. He takes a seat on the stool that Ellen vacated earlier, picking up his wine, he indicates for me to sit down.
“How’ve you been going, Lu…Lauren?” he corrects, his tone casual like we’re old friends.
“I’m fine,” I reply, my response clipped, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing.
“Your kids are quite cheeky, especially the boy,” Jack says, his eye glancing at door they left through.
“We’re not doing this,” I tell him and he raises his eyebrows, a confused look on his face.
“Not doing what?”
“This,” I motion a hand between us. “The pleasantries, the acting like we’re friends.”
“We are friends,” he deadpans, and it takes everything in me not to burst out laughing.
He clearly forgot all the times I told him I hated him. All the times he made me completely miserable, but the biggest of them all, the day he left when he tackled me and I fell face first into a muddy gully out in the vineyard. That’s the one that stands out in my mind.
“You going to ask me how I’ve been going?”
“No, because you’re here to fix my crusher and that’s where we’re going.”
I leave the kitchen, hearing Jack slide off the stool and push it in, following me into the mudroom where I left my boots. I bend down to pull on my boots and a nearly inaudible gasp leaves Jack’s mouth, but it’s enough to make me sit down and tug on my boots.
He does not need to be looking at my ass as I bend over. This is a professional relationship and the fact that Ellen let him into my house has already crossed that line.
He must take the hint that I have no interest in speaking to him, because he stays silent until we reach the building. But I notice him taking in the grounds, looking around at everything.
“So, here it is,” I say, gesturing with great flourish at the oversized machine in the center of the room. My stained purple hands indicating that this machine and I are in a never-ending battle. “Things start to go wrong when it reaches the point where the crushed grapes need to move through…” My thoughts are halted as Jack walks around me and climbs the small stairs to look into the large metal drum.
He slides his hands into a pair of black rubber gloves that are clipped to railing and begins digging around without waiting for me to finish.
“No, not there,” I mutter, climbing up behind him and squeezing next to him. Jack shifts sideways, making room and I point out the place where things seem to be going wrong, grabbing a handful of barely mashed grapes. “See,” I say, showing him, my hand now dyed an even more bright purple than before.
“Few things,” Jack says, a perplexed look on his face as he takes the grapes from my hands and dumps them into a bucket, hanging up the gloves. “I’d say your first problem is that you’re contaminating your wine by shoving your dirty ungloved hands in there. Second…”
“Oh my god, and to think I thought you were here to help,” I say on an exasperated sigh as I climb down the steps.
