Since then, I hadn’t even felt like trying. Not that there was much time to try in, that was. The vineyard took up pretty much all of the free time I had available. I didn’t set aside a ton of time for “people-ing” anyway. Most of the time, if I was off, I was content to spend it at home, curled up on the couch with the cat and reading or watching movies. Going out to crowded, loud bars and shouting over one another to be heard just wasn’t appealing to me.
But something about Danica made me want to try. I was willing to shout over the din of a crowded bar if I needed to in order to spend time with her. Granted, our idea was to go to a restaurant I partially owned and was quiet by design, but the point remained that I would go to a loud bar with her if she wanted. That was pretty important, I thought. A distinction that set her apart from everyone else. Danica had infiltrated the bubble and made me want to step outside of it.
As I toweled off and got dressed, I heard knocking at my front door. Wondering who it could be, I peeked out the side window to find Derek and Cam standing on my porch. I opened the door and stood in the entryway, not letting them inside. “What do you need?” I said, my tone giving away that they were interrupting. They didn’t seem to mind.
“Derek thinks that I’m being grumpy lately because I haven’t gone out with a girl recently,” Cam said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That sounds terrible. Anything else?”
Cam frowned and drew his eyebrows in together while Derek laughed.
“See? I told you he wouldn’t care,” Derek said. “He’s got his date tonight, who gives a shit? Right?”
“What now?” I asked.
“Your date,” Cam continued.
“With the hot blonde grape lady,” Derek said, as if I didn’t know. “I mean, I assumed it was a date since you went through the wholly unnecessary effort of booking a reservation at a restaurant you are a part owner of.”
“I thought it would help you plan meals is all,” I said. “Make sure we didn’t book up.”
“Uh-huh,” Derek said. “I think you just wanted to be very visible so I would do something special for you.”
“Well, are you?” I asked, calling his bluff. He huffed out a laugh and shook his head.
“You know what? Sure. I’ll do something special,” he said.
“I was thinking a simple tasting menu, but if you want to show off, go ahead, man,” I said.
Again, a look of condemnation and sarcasm, and I chuckled to myself. They were giving me crap on purpose to tease me, but I wasn’t bothered by it. It was good-natured, and they were single too. I didn’t mind them talking trash when I knew that if I hadn’t already asked her out, one of them would have tried.
They finished busting my balls and headed back to their respective areas of expertise, leaving me alone to finish getting ready. I threw on a button down and some dark jeans and headed over toe the restaurant.
I got to the door just in time to see Danica arrive, opening her door and clutching her clipboard to her chest. She was in her mud boots again, and something about it made me smile. I didn’t know why, but I found them charming and adorable.
It looked like she had tried to run a brush through her hair, but otherwise was exactly as she was when she went to the college with the samples. Her blue-rimmed glasses were sitting on the end of her nose when she made it to the building, and I opened the door for her. She pushed them back up, and the faintest smile fell across her lips. It quickly disappeared as she looked down at the clipboard and the files underneath it and wiggled them at me.
“We should take a look at these right away,” she said.
“Come on in,” I said. “Right this way.”
The restaurant was doing decent business, and the noise was fairly loud even at that early point in the evening. I had alerted my brothers that I needed some space away from all the commotion to talk to her about the tests, and a room we had designed to be a meeting space and possible banquet room was the perfect spot. It was still pretty sparse in there, but we had a few chairs and tables along with a bar that ran down one end. It was originally Grandpa’s bar and lived in the main office, but we moved it there so we could all access it whenever we wanted.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked, indicating the bar.
“A water, please,” Danica said.
“Coming right up,” I said, pouring her a glass of ice water that I had placed in there just before she showed up. I poured myself a glass of the pinot that I had been going back and forth over from a vineyard nearby. I wanted to make something that stood out from it, but theirs was clearly a leader in the category. I handed her the glass of water, and she looked at my wine. “Would you like a glass?”