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Chapter One
Penny
I’m a loser magnet. Or at least that’s what it feels like as I kick another one of my loser boyfriends to the curb, tossing his box of random things out the door with him.
Take your stupid electric toothbrush with the dead batteries and your gamer headphones that make it impossible to have a conversation with you.
No more guys who look good and talk big, but still live with their mother. No entrepreneurs, because that’s just code for unemployed. And no more moving in with someone after knowing them for a hot second.
This is the new me.
I slam the door, letting out a loud huff of approval as I nod my head. It’s done. It’s over and it won’t happen again, because I’m not dating anyone for a long time. I’ve said these words after almost every breakup and for some reason I just can’t stick to it. It’s not like I’m lonely or desperate to have a boyfriend. It just always feels like the situation presents itself and I hop on board. But this time, no hopping.
The only good thing that came from making a rash decision in a relationship was my move to Napa.
It’s been a little over two years since I landed in this beautiful little area of the country. It’s a place I’d never been to nor did I have any intention of moving here, but my flighty and hard to pin down boyfriend at the time decided we should leave the cold New England winters behind and drive across the country to California. Turns out winters weren’t the only thing he decided to leave behind. He dumped my ass just outside of Vegas for a showgirl with big boobs and ten pounds of makeup on her face.
Our original landing place was supposed to be San Francisco based on a book he read about some guy who takes a road trip and finds himself or some shit. All I needed to find at that moment was a place to live and I knew Vegas was not it.
I might be young and loud, but the lights of the strip made me feel like I was either going to puke or have a seizure. Luckily for me the car was mine and I just kept on driving with little idea of what the hell I was doing.
I wanted something quiet, some place that didn’t feel like it was suffocating me the way that asshole did the entire road trip. Some place that felt open, where I could smell the air and feel the open space around me. I wasn’t going to find that in San Francisco or any other city on the coast of California, so I went inland and landed in Napa.
It was all touristy and quaint and the air was warm, and if I’m being honest, I met a guy. That’s the real reason I stayed, that and the fact that I landed my amazing job at Somerville Winery and Vineyard. I like to believe the guy led me to the job and that was the reason I was destined to meet him. It’s a little bit of bullshit I like to spin to make myself feel better, because he was gone before I even learned the different temperatures wine should be kept at.
I didn’t intend on working in the tasting room at Somerville’s. I knew nothing about wine or anything that could be considered classy by any means. I was twenty-one years old with two grand to my name, a ten year old car and three years of random college classes under my belt. I never could quite pin down a major, let alone pin myself down.
I applied for a waitressing job in their little restaurant that held wonderful smells and smiling people and everything about it felt like the calm and normalcy I so desperately needed. But Lauren, one of the owners, swooped in, all blonde hair and bossy, and put me in charge of the tasting room, despite my protests.
They hadn’t had someone in there in months and she and her sister Ellen were handling it on their own. She had no concerns about me being able to learn the job and put me to work immediately.
Turns out it was exactly where I was supposed to be. It’s social and fun and I never thought I could make a living chatting with people, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.
“You’re a natural,” Lauren had said during my interview. “You’re young and cute and fun, and people will love you. Just wait.”
She ushered me out of her office and into the tasting room, and it was in that moment that I fell in love. No guy I had ever been with ever looked like this or smelled like this or felt like this. This tasting room was my new home.
It was wood and metal and terracotta tile, it felt so industrial but also amazingly welcoming with its smell of wood and grapes and I loved the sound of conversations and the din of people laughing. It was my new home and would be a place I would find solace even when my personal life was a disaster.
It’s the only place I want to be right now.
“I’m done with men!” I announce with flourish, flinging my brown hair over my shoulder, as if this makes it more final when I walk into Lauren and Jack’s office.
Jack’s the first to let out a riotous laugh and Lauren smacks him on the arm, hitting him with a steely glare telling him to shut up.
“Sorry,” he mutters, shrugging his shoulders sheepishly.
“Nah, it’s not like I haven’t said this a million times before, but I swear, this time I mean it.” I toss a fist into the air as if I’m psyching myself up for the new and improved me.
“I’m with you,” Lauren says. “Boys are so much work.” She rolls her eyes dramatically, giving me a wink, while Jack stands there with a mock appalled look on his face.
Lauren and Jack met as kids while his father was working at Somerville’s. They always had this teenage crush, love-hate thing going on and were separated when Jack’s dad returned to Australia after his work at Somerville’s was done. But fate wouldn’t hear of it, or maybe it had more to do with Lauren’s meddling sister Ellen, when Jack walked back into Lauren’s life to fix a machine his father installed all those years ago. They now own and run the vineyard together along with Ellen and they’re currently working on getting their new business venture up and running. They’re moving into cider production after purchasing the land adjacent to Somerville’s that just so happened to be a fully planted apple orchard. They are literally who I aspire to be someday.
They got married here at the vineyard in the most beautiful ceremony I’ve ever seen, and they’ve been living their happily ever after ever since. They are legit relationship goals, and it doesn’t go unnoticed that this playful banter they have going on keeps things light and fun in their relationship. I want what they have, but I’ve clearly been looking in all the wrong places...like bars, the gas station, the Las Vegas strip and even, dare I say it, Tinder. It makes me shudder just thinking about it.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“You know what you should do, mate?” Jack says. I still love his accent and the way he calls everyone mate. “I was just reading about this dating app that doesn’t use any pictures, so it’s all based on compatibility rather than looks.”
