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Chapter Sixteen
Tessa
I read his text over for the hundredth time, not answering just yet. I don’t want him to think I’m leaving him on read, but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about a fifth date after everything that happened at Tommy and Penny’s still being unresolved.
Promise we’ll talk.
I want to trust that he means this, and he isn’t just trying to get to the sex part as quickly as possible. We are attempting to get to know each other and up until the other day, it felt like things were going well. Now I’m starting to wonder if we just want different things.
Talk about what though, because I’m not even sure what we need to talk about. It feels like we’ve let ourselves be far too guarded going into this and now everything I have to say seems like it will be too much. No guy wants to hear about marriage and babies after just a short time together, but I need to be honest with Dylan because that is what I want. I’m not out here looking to hook up or fuck, I’m looking for someone to spend the rest of my life with. And I would love it if it were him.
Not because he’s here and I haven’t had a ton of other options, but because I truly enjoy spending time with him. He’s funnier than I thought he would be and his kindness hasn’t gone unnoticed by me. He’s been trying so hard since we agreed to a relationship, and maybe I’m just putting too much into this one conversation. It was one poor reaction, one time that he messed up, and now I’m holding him to the fact that I feel like this is who he is now, when I know it isn’t.
I’m distracted and I need to get back to work. I’ve spent way too much time worrying about this whole situation when I need to focus on my job. Jack and Lauren’s house is moving along, but that doesn’t mean I’m off the hook. We have inspectors coming today and I’m meeting with Lauren to discuss an expansion to the restaurant. It feels like Somerville’s is my full-time employer now. While I would love that, I’m not sure there’s much more I can do to the property at this point.
We’ve worked on Apple Jacks, renovated outbuildings to make room for P, T and Bee, renovated the barns to create wedding venue locations and right now I’m currently working on Jack and Lauren’s house. The restaurant will be another large project that could take at least a year, keeping me here and making this feel like home.
“Tessa!” one of the crew members calls out to me, poking his head out the door, or at least where the door used to be. “Jim needs to see you.”
Jim is the general contractor on the job. I’ve worked with him since I started my business and have gotten to a point where he’s pretty much the only general contractor I’ll work with. Too many problems with the others.
“What’s going on?” I ask, as I follow the guy through the house to where Jim is standing, looking up at the ceiling.
“Beam’s late,” he says, matter of factly and I instantly let out a hard sigh. Without the beam we can’t begin the second floor, pushing our already tight timeline back.
“Can we start on the bathroom?” I now ask, pulling my phone from my pocket to review what’s supposed to begin next.
“Nope, plumbing inspector isn’t scheduled for another two days. Can’t close up anything in there until he—”
I cut Jim off, not meaning to be rude, but I hate that once something is delayed, it derails the whole project. “Yeah, I know,” I say, holding up a hand as I continue to scroll through my phone. “What inspections have been done?”
He begins to list off a few, but certainly not enough for us to move forward on anything big to offset this delay.
“You want me to send the guys home?” Jim questions, and I vehemently shake my head. As soon as they leave early, it’ll be hell to get them back here on time.
“No, no, no. Give me ten minutes. I should be able to rearrange a few things so we can keep working.”
“Whatever you say, Tessa,” Jim replies, knowing I will find a way to keep us on track. He calls for the guys to grab an early lunch, avoiding any questions about if the project will be stalled and the guys asking to leave.
I get why they want to. If they don’t work, they don’t get paid. They can easily pick up another job somewhere else and then I’m stuck waiting on them to return or attempting to find a few to fill in. It’s not ideal, and it will not happen here if I have anything to say about it.
As I’m deep in thought, walking back toward my car to grab my laptop, I hear Dylan call my name. I can hear his feet jogging to catch up to me and I know he’s going to want to know why I haven’t replied to his text.
This is definitely a negative of working at the same place as someone you’re dating. I can’t avoid him for long.
“Hey Tess, wait up,” he calls out, catching up with me and resting his hand on the small of my back. The moment he touches me, I well up with tears. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s the stress of the job not going the way I planned or Dylan’s text saying we’ll talk, or it could even be his reaction to Jack saying we should get married. Maybe it’s even a combination of all of it. There’s a lot riding on me finishing this house on time so Jack and Lauren can move in before the babies are born, and that I’ve put all my eggs in the Somerville basket, turning down other jobs to focus on this one. It’s something I’ve never done before and if I screw this up, I could be out of work faster than Dylan was out of my bed when we were hooking up.
I can’t look at him right now. If I do, I’ll start crying, suddenly overwhelmed by it all. I don’t want his sympathy, but strangely I do. I want him to comfort me and tell me it’ll all be okay. I want to find solace in him and have him be the person I run to when I am stressed out.
“How come you’re ignoring me?” he asks, letting out a bothered sigh. “I texted you about getting together, and you left me on read. Come on, Tess, I know I fucked up. Let me make this right.” He’s pleading with me and making me feel even worse than I already do.
“Not now, Dylan,” I mutter, feeling way too defeated. “I’ve gotta deal with some work stuff and I can’t…” I trail off, sniffing back the tears.
“Stop making excuses, Tessa, you’re still pissed at me,” he snaps back, and my eyes go wide. He can’t be serious. “I feel guilty as it is and now you’re ignoring me.”
“I’m not ignoring you,” I whisper-shout, embarrassed that we are having this conversation out in the open where both of us work.
There are customers here wandering around the vineyard and enjoying their day. The last thing they want is to see some petty fight blowing up their day away from the chaos of life.
