As much as I would like to think my parents really saw me as a full-grown adult capable of making my own decisions and navigating my life, I knew them better than that. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to “save” my career and get my position at the restaurant back for me.
Instead, I emphasized how excited I was, and the good things Derek and I had come up with. The menu planning was well underway, and the next week we had plans to test out a long list of recipes and ideas to narrow down the options to our final menu. They did their best to encourage me and promised to come out to the vineyard when it opened.
I’d gotten off the call with my parents and was making myself dinner when I heard the ping of a Skype call coming in. Relief washed over me, and I pulled the pan off the heat before rushing over to my computer.
“Hey,” I said happily when Holly appeared on the screen. “Oh. You look tired.”
She nodded and ran her hand back through her hair, pushing it away from eyes that looked freshly scrubbed of makeup and ready to close for the night.
“It was a long day,” she said. “I got your message. I can look into that stuff for you. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Great. Thank you,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she looked at me with suspicion.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
I wasn’t going to even try to beat around the bush or act like I didn’t kiss and tell. That didn’t apply when it came to Holly. Probably more than ever, I needed my best friend to help me figure this mess out.
“I slept with Noah,” I said.
Her expression didn’t change, and for a second, I thought the screen had frozen.
“You what?” she finally asked.
“I slept with Noah. Like, I had sex with him.”
“No, no, I got it. I’m familiar with the phrasing. I’m just…” She paused like she couldn’t come up with the right words. “You what?”
I let out a sigh. “I know.”
“Alright,” she said, straightening up and stretching her neck from side to side like she was trying to prepare herself for the conversation ahead. “Let’s talk this thing out. Tell me everything.”
This was exactly what I needed. Holly was all logic. She always had been. No matter what was going on, she was able to think it through and break it down. I explained the whole course of events, from the clash between Noah and me from the beginning, to the arguments we’d had over the last couple of weeks, to the explosive encounter down in the wine storage room.
“We haven’t spoken a word to each other since,” I said.
“Nothing?” she asked.
“Nothing. Literally nothing. When it was over, I got my clothes on and walked out of the room.”
“You didn’t say anything to him?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Like… nothing?” she asked.
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “What exactly was I supposed to say to him in that moment? ‘That was super fun, but for real, stop being an ass?’”
“I mean… it would have been something,” Holly said.
“Well, it didn’t come to mind. I was too busy being shocked at myself and trying to figure out what happened. You know I’ve never been the kind to throw myself at a man like that.”
“I know,” Holly said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re immune to attraction.”
“I didn’t say I was immune to attraction. I admitted I think Noah’s gorgeous. But there’s a big leap between thinking a guy is hot and totally losing control in my place of business,” I said.
“Alright. We’re going to think of it this way. You’ve been dealing with a ton of stress, right? And you said it yourself that Noah has been frustrating you. That’s going to build up. You two were in a pressure cooker. Eventually when something like that is all pent-up, you’re going to snap. And that’s what happened. But you’re right, it shouldn’t happen again. It’s done, that tension is over now, and you can just focus on the work to be done.”
“So, you don’t think we should talk about it?”
“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head adamantly. “You don’t need to talk about it. What good is that going to do for you? Again, it’s something that happened. It’s done now. You don’t want it to happen again. And you don’t want to have it hanging over you and everything going on at the vineyard. You need to just put it behind you, pretend it didn’t happen, and move on.”
When we got off the call, I felt better. Later that night, I went to bed and immediately drifted to sleep filled with dreams of Noah.
13
Noah
Early Monday morning, I pulled into the vineyard with a brand-new plan.
Ignore Ally.
Granted, it wasn’t a perfect plan. Nor was it smooth or well thought out or clever. But it was the best I could come up with, and at least I knew I could follow through with it. If I could just ignore her very presence, I could probably get through the next week or so until everything was less recent, and we could either talk about it or move on like nothing happened. In the meantime, though, I just needed to ignore her and go about my day.