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Anything to dull this pain I’m feeling.
“Tom,” Jack prompts, suddenly serious as he too reaches for a cider.
I shake my head, mutteringfuck itas I figure I’ve got nothing to lose at this point. “Pen got offered this amazing opportunity,” I start, sucking back half of my cider in one go. “Running a well-known winery and being paid a shit load of cash to do it. She deserves it, she truly does, but it’s in Washington, so you know.” I pause, offering a shrug as if to elaborate. “I can’t ask her to stay, no matter how much she might want me to.”
Jack takes a sip of his cider as he contemplates my words. “Well, I mean you could ask her to stay,” he starts, holding up a hand when he sees me start to talk. “Or you could also go with her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why?” he asks. “You love her, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, exhaling. “So fucking much.”
“Okay,” Jack says with a nod. “Stay or go, but either way, do it together.”
I finish my cider, immediately reaching for another. “I can’t ask her to give this up for me,” I explain. “It’s too good, too much.”
“Okay,” Jack says, also reaching for another drink. “So why don’t you go with her?”
My eyes close as my brain replays all of the excuses I’ve come up with for why I can’t do that either. Even now, they sound lame as fuck, like I’m running from something, or trying to find a reason for something that should be so simple.
“You feel tied to this place,” he says, when it’s obvious I don’t have a reason for why I can go.
I shrug. “Yes and no,” I say, scrubbing a hand down my face. “I’ve worked here for most of my life, Jack. This place is my home, Lauren and Ellen are like family to me, it’s not…it’s just…” I trail off, unsure how to explain it.
“Okay, first up,” Jack says, turning to me with a smirk, “am I not also your family?”
I let out a long exhale, fighting a smile as I answer, “Yes, you are.”
“Good,” he says with a satisfied nod. “Secondly, this place will always be your home, Tommy. That’s not gonna change, just because you leave.”
“I know,” I admit. “It’s just that…” I pause, not really sure what I’m even trying to say right now. I know that I could leave, and I know Lauren and Ellen wouldn’t hate me for doing that. But there’s a part of me that worries that if I do leave and things don’t work out, that somehow Pen will blame me for it.
Eventually, I give up trying to work out how to explain it as I turn to Jack and ask, “Did you ever second guess your decision to leave Australia and move here?”
“Nope,” he immediately replies.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Jack repeats, turning to face me. “As young as we were, I’d never forgotten about Lu. When Ellen got in contact with me and offered me an opportunity to come back here, I always thought it was my second chance, a sign or whatever. I mean I had no idea if Lu was even here, or if she’d remember me, but I knew I’d be stupid to pass up an opportunity to find out. To see if I could find her and maybe have a crack at getting her to fall in love with me.”
I let out a half laugh. “I’d say you succeeded at that.”
Jack smiles as he nods in agreement. “It wasn’t always easy though,” he admits. “And in some ways, the hardest part was after.”
“What do you mean?”
Jack finishes off his cider and stands, wandering around to the other side of the kitchen island as he starts randomly opening cupboards. When he finds the one with glasses, he grabs two before moving toward the freezer. I watch as he helps himself to some ice, before moving back to the counter and pouring us both a generous shot of whiskey and sliding a glass toward me.
I tip my head in thanks, but don’t say anything as I wait for him to answer my question. Eventually, he sits back down beside me, sighing as he swallows a mouthful of liquid.
“Lu felt guilty about what she thought I was giving up,” he says, not looking at me. “She worried I’d regret leaving my home and my family, my job and my friends.”
“Do you?”
Jack turns to me, a small smile on his face. “Not one single day, Tommy. You know why? Because my home and my family is with Lu. Leaving Oz and coming here was not a difficult decision for me.”
“So you think I should go?” I ask, confused.
