AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even though about half the wine at Somerville’s is bottled off-site, Jack decided to keep all the cider stuff in-house. It’s a big job, bottling up the batches, but he didn’t skimp on the equipment, so it’s not too big of a deal.
“What do you mean, the real story?” I ask, stalling. I’d already spilled my guts, at least more than I’d intended to, to both Penny and Tommy, something which still feels weird, even more so with Tessa suddenly showing up here. The last thing I need is to fill Jack in too. Fuck knows I’ve seen the shit he gets up to and if he knew even a fraction of what had happened, he’ll either be kicking my ass or telling Tessa to run a mile.
Jack laughs and when I look over at him, he’s smirking at me. “God, you’re full of shit,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s obvious you like her, you’ve admitted you know her, so what’s the story? You hook up and it didn’t go well? Performance issues, maybe?”
He’s laughing again and I roll my eyes, despite the fact this is the guy who signs my paychecks. “No, no performance issues, jesus,” I say as my mind goes back to the times we did hook up.
I mean she seemed to enjoy it and up until the time she blew me off, she’d always said yes when I texted about hooking up. Surely, she wouldn’t say yes if the sex was shit, right?
“Okay, so what’s the story then?” he asks as he rolls a keg of cider over and hooks it up to the bottler.
I load up a rack of clean bottles, ready to start the machine as soon as the keg’s hooked up.
“Dylan?” Jack asks.
“What?”
Jack rolls his eyes as he punches the start button and we watch the machine’s conveyor belt start up, the first bottle sliding under the tap as the clear yellow liquid starts to fill it. We stand in silence for a few minutes, both of us waiting to make sure nothing fucks up.
Eventually Jack walks around to my side of the machine. “What’s the story with you and Tessa?” he repeats. “’Cause she’s gonna be around here an awful lot and you’re like this sad little puppy every time she is, all distracted and shit.”
“Sorry,” I say, my hand scrubbing over the beard I’ve recently grown. It still feels weird, my fingers still getting used to the scrape and bristle of hair. I’d started growing it pretty much after she’d blown me off. Not because of any sad pathetic bullshit or whatever, but because I couldn’t be fucked to shave.
Tommy had given me a load of shit about it, but in the end, I hadn’t cared, figuring it was something different and saved me ten minutes each morning too.
“You’re into her, aren’t you?” he says, watching me.
“What? No!” I immediately say, suddenly grateful for the beard as it covers the way my cheeks heat.
Jack bursts out laughing. “Yeah, you are,” he says, as he walks over to grab another keg. “It’s pretty obvious, dude and if I had to guess I’d say you hooked up, you fucked up and then you realized you wanted her again. Am I right?”
“What is this, like some kind of therapy session or something?” I ask, a brow raised in question.
“Nah, just a little relationship advice, that’s all,” he says with a grin. “I mean, I did win Lu over. Then I got Tommy and Pen together and look at how well that all panned out,” he adds, rolling the next keg over to the machine. “It’s like I’m a match-making genius or something. So, if you want my advice—”
“I don’t,” I say, cutting him off.
Jack glances up at me, a smug grin on his face as he continues, apparently ignoring what I just said. “I’d say, you gotta lose the hook up bullshit and win her over with romance and charm.”
“Romance and charm?” I repeat. “What the fuck is that?”
“Oh boy,” he says, rolling his eyes as he straightens. “This is gonna be harder than I thought.” He walks over to me, stopping beside me as he places a hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye. “Don’t worry, mate, you’re in good hands. Just give me twenty-four hours and I’ll come up with a plan that will have you getting laid on the regular in no time. Trust me.”
“Jack, wait, what—”
Jack grins, ignoring whatever it is I’m trying to say as he slaps my shoulder and walks out of the shed, leaving me standing there and wondering what the fuck just happened.
I spend the next several hours finishing off the bottling, managing to knock off all four kegs by early afternoon. Starving, I shut off the bottling machine before heading out of the shed and over to the back entrance of Apple Jacks.
Opening the door to the kitchen, I stick my head inside, calling out to Leo. “Dude, any chance of some lunch?”
Leo, the chef who joined Apple Jacks around the same time I did, wanders over, a huge grin on his face. “Yeah, I might, what do you feel like?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, burger, fries?”
Leo rolls his eyes. “This isn’t fucking McDonalds, you know? My shit is way classier than that.”
I laugh, even though he’s right. He’s an awesome chef and Jack is damn lucky to have him working here. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Okay, give me whatever you have from the specials board.”
