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Without letting him say anything more I do something I should’ve done the moment I saw him in here.
I walk away, but he can’t take a hint and he follows me out to my car, calling my name as I ignore him.
“You going to tell me who the guy is?” he calls out and I roll my eyes knowing this is exactly what this is about. He has no interest in me, but rather his interest is in that someone else wants me.
“I blocked your number for a reason. Take a fucking hint,” I shout back as I approach my car and climb in.
I will not let this turn into a screaming match in a parking lot. He will not knock on my window. He will not continue to embarrass me. I’ve done enough of that on my own today.
Right now all I want to do is get the hell out of here and get home to Jack. There’s a safety in Jack that I’ve never had in anyone else, especially not with Nate. I find comfort in being with him, being near him and being able to be myself around him.
Now if I could only figure out a way to tell him I didn’t just date Nate, but that we were supposed to be married.
The whole getting left thing really fucks with you. It says so much with one small act. It told me I wasn’t enough, it said he wanted to do it in a way that I would remember forever, but more than all of that, he did it because it left him in control.
It also made me question why he couldn’t have just told me before we got that far into it all.
I contemplate this whole idea more than I should, the idea that I could right now be married to Nate.
As much as I was devastated by the turn of events at our wedding, a part of me wonders if I would’ve been able to go through with it too. I wasn’t so much embarrassed by the fact that he left me, but more by the fact that I made the mistake of thinking I really wanted to marry him.
Admitting it now is hard, but I went into it knowing I was marrying him for all the wrong reasons. I was alone, nearly thirty, far too dedicated to my job and wanting to have kids someday, but that someday was so far in the distance that it seemed it would never happen.
Desperate.
I guess that’s the best word to describe me at that time. I met Nate on a dating app and it escalated quickly from there. The crazy thing is, on my first date with him as I walked through the vineyard toward the front gate, all I could picture was skinny, nerdy Jack Wilson with his mud-covered glasses and his sincere smile as he apologized for tackling me.
At the time I thought it was just loneliness and the memory of the last time I had felt anything for someone. But in the end it was more than that.
At fifteen any attention from a boy will give you butterflies, but I missed that feeling and I wouldn’t feel it again until Jack walked back into my life.
Marrying some who can’t give you that is a mistake and I almost made it. My mother always said that marriage should be easy; the person you’re with should make your life easier. If he or she doesn’t then it wasn’t right in the first place.
When I pull in to the vineyard, Jack is helping unload a shipment from our restaurant supplier. Something he doesn’t have to do, but he does it anyway. From the day he arrived, he fit right in, picking up where he left off fourteen years ago, just knowing exactly what to do.
Stopping on the gravel path that leads back to my house, I park my car and wave to him. A strange calm washes over me as I take him in.
He’s disheveled from the work around the vineyard; his face smudged with dirt and his clothes stained with purple splotches, his blonde hair rumpled. He’s exactly who I pictured I’d someday end up with, someone who wants to be here, someone who loves this place and all its work as much as I do.
Jack says something to the guys he’s helping and then jogs over to my car.
“Okay if I get in?” he asks, giving his shoulders a shrug as he holds up his dirty hands.
“Of course. This car has seen its fair share of dirty.” As I say it, I laugh, knowing what’s about to come next.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure we can show it something far dirtier,” Jack jokes, leaning in through the open window to kiss me.
“We’ll save that for later,” I reply winking at him, but shoving his hand away as he tries to grope my boob, too.
We pull up to my house and he goes around to the back of my car, trying to open the trunk.
“Open the boot,” he yells as I’m climbing out of the driver’s seat.
“What?” Open what?”
“The boot, silly girl. I need to get your groceries out.”
“You mean the trunk?” I ask, as I stand beside him with one eyebrow cocked. “If you’re going to stick around here, you gotta brush up on your American dialect.”
