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Penny smirks. “Okay, a jealous dick then,” she adds, hands on her hips as she leans closer, so her mouth is at my ear. “You know, if you’re jealous, Tommy,” she whispers, her breath tickling my neck and sending a shiver down my spine, “you could always do something about it.”
She walks out before I have a chance to say or do anything, leaving me standing in the storeroom. My heart is racing, my body is wired with electricity and my brain is screaming at me to walk out there and drag her back in here so I can kiss the shit out of her.
Fuck, what the hell is wrong with me?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Penny
I don’t want to flirt with him, but for some reason I find myself drawn to his impulsive and ever-changing reaction to me. He doesn’t need to be jealous because I’ve made it perfectly clear that he’s the one I want. I’m just waiting here for him to say it, too.
It doesn’t matter how loud I scream what I want, he’s the one who ultimately has to decide if I’m worth foregoing all his reservations, albeit stupid reservations, to finally come to his senses.
Maybe he never will.
And that’s totally okay, because I’m not pushing things.
I can’t stand around and dwell on his indecisiveness when I have customers to serve and a packed tasting room. Luckily Dylan stopped in and while he’s a little rough around the edges, he’s been a huge help.
I can’t fault him for not being super knowledgeable about wine, especially since I was in his shoes when Lauren first hired me, and I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. With Terra out with a sick kid and the second shift person having car trouble, I’m stuck here working a double when I was supposed to have the whole day off.
“Thank god you’re back,” he says, passing me a bottle to put away. “These people have a few questions about what they’re drinking. I can serve, but I sure as hell can’t answer questions.” He shrugs and hits me with a sweet smile.
He’s cute in a dirty, tattooed kind of way, but more than that he’s actually far nicer than I expected him to be. He seemed all schmoozer-sweet-talker-hits-on-all-the-ladies, and while he’s definitely a flirt, he’s got more going on than that.
The poor guy recently realized the girl who was just supposed to be a fuck-buddy, turned out to be pretty damn great. But he realized a little too late and she left Napa for San Francisco in the hopes of getting out of this shitty tourist town. Those were her words according to Dylan. I get it though. I’ve been there; restless and wanting more, more than a hometown can ever offer, but those people you leave behind feel slighted.
My parents are still angry with me for running off at twenty-one and never finishing school, never seeing anything through to completion. Being here in Napa though and away from the judgment has made me see this place might have everything I have always been looking for. It doesn’t even have to include Tommy, but if he gets on board that would be amazing.
“Have you made sure you’re offering the samples of Apple Jacks cider?” I ask Dylan as I move over to the couple at the end of the bar.
“Yep, and I’m making sure to tell them about the contest if they fill out the survey.”
“Ah, Dylan, you’re making my job so much easier today,” I tell him, smiling back as he nods with a goofy grin on his face.
Something about the way he’s moving around in here and the way he’s smiling tells me he may have found something that’s helping him forget that girl. He’s far better at this than I ever would’ve expected. We just need to clean the dirt off of him and maybe he could cover a few shifts when I’m in a bind like this again.
“Hi, welcome to Somerville’s. I was told you have a few questions for me,” I say, greeting the couple sitting at the end of the bar.
It’s an older gentleman and a woman roughly the same age as him and while they aren’t regulars, they certainly don’t look like tourists either. I can’t really put my finger on it, but something about them is different than most of the people who come in here.
The age ranges generally vary from bachelorette parties to girls weekends to couples on a romantic getaway. Seems Napa and wine scream romance, but these two don’t. They seem more interested in the wine than anything else.
Now don’t get me wrong, most people who come in here are interested in wine, but not in a way that shows they want to know the backstory behind it all. They honestly love booze and that’s the reason they’re here. There’s nothing better than good wine and catching a bit of a buzz.
“Yes, can you give us a little background on this particular wine?” the man asks, showing me the small card that comes with the tasting they have chosen.
“Of course. Everything that is sold here is locally grown and sourced. The wine you’re asking about has been aged for ten years. What’s funny is that most people go with that old adage “aged like a fine wine”, but in reality, most wines don’t need to age for years. Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, but this holds especially true for white wines like the one you enquired about.”
Both of these people are hanging on my every word and sometimes I wonder if they think I’m full of shit. Some twenty-three-year-old girl with a ridiculously stupid amount of knowledge about wines, but it’s the one thing I’ve found that I want to understand, the one thing I’m confident in my knowledge of. If you’re coming to a winery, be prepared to hear everything I know about wine.
“So, this particular wine is our Olivia Chardonnay. It’s named after the owner’s daughter because it went into production while she was pregnant. Her daughter, who can be seen running around here, is just turning ten. I’ve always found it kind of fun seeing her here at the vineyard and knowing the wine is aging like she is, but she won’t go bad if left too long. Her brother on the other hand, he’s already gone bad.” I smirk at them, joking about Oscar and his witty little brain.
“Is everything aged on the property?” the man asks, looking around. What you see from the tasting room just looks like rows and rows of grapevines.
Somerville’s is so well designed that to the public, all you see is the beauty of the vineyards and the rolling hills in the background. The sheds and storage areas are all set back on the property, making it so that all the observer sees is the landscape.
“Everything in the tasting room is aged here on property. We have a production facility that assists with some of our lower cost wines that are mass-produced. Those are generally sold in local stores.”
