AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 18
ALEX
The week dragged on and on and on. Every time I looked at a clock, it was as if the time had just frozen in place, and I was spending hours fiddling around doing absolutely nothing of note. The only upside was the texts which hadn’t stopped once they started. At least I had those to look forward to all day, and they kept me motivated to at least not fall asleep in my chair and spend a few hours watching the backs of my eyelids.
My freelance work wrapped up, I was focused primarily on our own website and some of the app stuff that Kane asked me to fix. A few months back, he and Danica had developed a new app with me that kept track of various strains of grape, what temperature each day was, how much sun they got, and a whole host of other stats that made him all excited. It was like a baseball nerd and the backs of baseball cards—he could rattle statistics off the top of his head and seemed to have an idea about how to get every single grape in the vineyard growing better.
The issues with the app were rather simple, mostly integrating new menus for other things that were already being tracked but not being shown on certain screens. Once I had them showing or easily accessible, Kane was good, and I was done. That meant my job would slowly transition from developer to tech support, though I was hoping if it took off that the app would be put on the market and sold and that we could hire a tech support person to handle it.
As Thursday dawned, I was sad I wouldn’t be looking forward to visiting Mr. Proctor like I always did. I had a few things I wanted to talk about with him, namely new developments in the graphical engine department, and had a whole manilla envelope full of stuff to talk to him about. But early in the week, Camilla had let me know he had called out sick, and each day she mentioned he hadn’t returned. The worry was he had gotten the same stomach bug she had, and she was going to be covering for him until he was back.
With Camilla taking over his classes, I took it upon myself to send a steady stream of encouraging messages. With as often as we already were messaging, it was at least another reason to keep them up, and she seemed really happy to get them. I could only imagine the stress of taking on that responsibility, especially as a new teacher. It would be overwhelming for me, and the students were well aware of who I was.
Text message after text message, we spent the day talking ahead of our date. Our original plans for Friday were a little mixed up now that she was working during the day and would have some papers to grade before she could leave. I knew she might be tired after all that and decided to maybe make things a little more low-key than what I had been planning up to that point.
Before I made the call to her, I had made my change of plans. Rather than take her to the next town over and do something big and fancy in an effort to impress her, I went a little more sedated. Not that I was giving up on romance, but I was making it a little less pressure-filled for both of us. I cornered Derek in the kitchen and harangued him until I got him to agree to save me a table. Not my booth, but a table. Something impressive where I could show her off a little while still keeping things calmer.
“You want me to keep one of our high-turnover tables empty during the busiest part of the evening so you can bring a girl who you swear you are not yet dating in for dinner?” he asked.
“That is pretty much word for word what I asked, yes,” I said, not buying into his sarcasm.
“You know we’re running a business here,” he said. “Trying to make money. To pay bills. Like your paycheck.”
“I understand that. But I also know that you did this for Kane at least once, so why not?”
“Kane was tasting the wine menu with a professional in charge of us getting our licenses and clearances,” Derek said. “This is… a teacher?”
“Lay off, Derek,” Ally said as she chopped vegetables. She turned to me and gave me a sly smile. She was behind Derek, so I was seeing her over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’ve got your back, Alex,” she said.
I stuck my tongue out at my older brother. It was childish, but that was the point. No matter how old we got, I was still the younger brother. The baby. If I was going to stomp my feet and get my way, I might as well go all the way and do something silly to add an exclamation point.
