The front door slammed behind me and caught part of thecloth shopping bag I had in my hands to take to Mom’s house. I tried to pull it free, but it was lodged pretty good. With a sigh, I grabbed my keys out of my purse to open my place back up, but then I fumbled the keys and almost spilled my travel mug of coffee.“Careful there, El,” came the voice I tried to avoid when I was running low on time or patience.Frank. My duplex neighbor.I gave him a weak smile, which froze in place when I saw him standing in his bathrobe and boxers, scratching his considerable beer belly. He had one of his female mannequins sitting in the single chair he could squeeze in on his tiny front porch. Usually, he kept those ladies inside the house, which was creepy enough. No need to bring them outside and remind us he had a few screws loose.“Off to your mom’s?” he called across our adjoining decks, then took a huge slurp of coffee before offering the cup to his inanimate friend.My routine was highly pre
She swung her arms out to the side, one of her splints catching me on the shoulder and nearly knocking me down. Her voice came out at a decibel equal to a rocket taking off in Florida. “It’s always about the boobs!”Heads swiveled and I was done. I pushed the cart out of the store, studiously ignoring her like I wasn’t with the crazy lady shouting about boobs. She would catch up eventually. Probably.The only mercy was that in all the conversation throughout the store, I hadn’t told Mom about Chad. Or the fact that I’d actually texted him last night in a moment of weakness. Ashley had been hounding me all afternoon to text him just to see what would happen. At twenty-eight, you’d think peer pressure wouldn’t be a thing anymore, but I was alive and well to tell you that it is. And it got me. I texted Chad and he’d texted me back and now the ball was in my court. Me and sports didn’t get along, so I knew nothing about what to do with this flirt ball or where my court even was. And also,
I shouldn’t have texted with her. I should have told her right away that I wasn’t Chad. I almost forgot she thought I was until that last text came in.Beautiful Accountant: Enjoy your work. Goodnight, Chad.I sat back in Dad’s chair, the loud groan of the hinges sending a wave of deep sadness rolling through me. The single lamp was on over the desk, and the room was otherwise dark and quiet. Seeing my phone light up with El’s name had brightened the place—and my evening—but the brutal reminder that she didn’t even know who she was texting dimmed things considerably.That and the news that she was going to quit.It was probably that information that had stopped me from coming clean. She was leaving anyway, and though Solano Creek wasn’t a big place, I spent all my time at West Wines or Cunning Ham Winery. The odds I’d ever see her again felt miniscule. And who knew if she was even staying here? I knew nothing about Isabel Watson.Nothing except that she was beautiful. And smart. And t
Beautiful Accountant: Not possible. Me: but he’s probably not as hot.Beautiful Accountant: No one is as hot. Doesn’t matter though. I’m done.Despite the fact I was now grinning at her assessment of me, two things occurred to me. One, Chad would not be as excited about her descriptions of me as I was. And two, she was still planning to leave, which dulled my happiness considerably.Me: Maybe there’s one person who is almost as ‘hot’? Like, for instance… me?Beautiful Accountant: Gah. I’m the only person who can put a foot in her mouth via text. Of course you are. Sorry.Me: Thank you.What kind of weird world was I in? I needed to make sure Chad’s feelings weren’t forgotten even though he didn’t care in the least about hers.I needed to come clean.I’d tell her at eleven. When she gave notice.***But at eleven, I was in the midst of a crisis. One of our most sought- after wineries had just called to tell us they’d had a storage issue in their wine cave, and half of last year’s bottl
Crap on a cracker. Please tell me this wasn’t happening.Inside I was cackling like Mom, complete with a coughing fit and some chest thumps to keep the ol’ ticker going, absolutely hysterical with the ironic turn of events. Outwardly, I was dying a slow death, frozen on the spot while all the realizations came tumbling through my brain to slap me in the face. Boston, my soon to be ex-boss, was the son of my new boss. And I’d told my new boss straight to her face that her son was an ass. I’d be fired before I even got the first day of training under my belt. And I couldn’t go back to West Wines once Pam told Boston why I’d been fired. Why couldn’t my life ever be smooth and graceful?My eyeballs dared to move, eyeing the black polo shirt Pam had in her hands that was to have been mine. I saw the cute pig logo, the one I would have proudly worn as I poured wines and schmoozed my way to higher and higher commissions. The Cunning Ham. Boston Cunningham. It was all coming together now. Wha
I guessed it also made me inhale sharply because the next thing I knew, one of the buttons on my polo decided enough was enough and shot straight toward Boston, pinging him on the chest before falling to the floor.“Oh!” I gasped, one hand going to the gaping hole on my shirt, the other covering my gaping mouth.Boston made a noise that sounded an awful lot like he was being strangled. He bent down and picked up the button, putting it on the counter and looking away. “Maybe you should just unbutton it and put that last button out of its misery.”My face flamed a thousand degrees. I looked down to see the remaining button sweating bullets. I took pity on it and unbuttoned it, which saved the button from popping off, but gave a wider expanse of cleavage than I preferred in a work setting. In a stroke of genius, I remembered a tool that would save the day. Spinning around, I took the clip off the cute bulletin board behind me that housed all the laminated wine menus, clamping it onto my
Despite having lost a favorite shirt over the course of the evening, I went to bed feeling oddly happy. It had been a rollercoaster of a day. I’d resigned myself to saying goodbye to El—not that she would actually want me (or allow me) to actually say goodbye to her when she left West Wines. But in my mind, I’d begun to try to get used to the idea of not having her around.It was strange. Up until the wine festival, I’d seen her at work now and then. I’d always thought she was attractive. But it was the texting, I decided, that had pushed that moderate attraction over the edge into something new, something different. The texts she sent me—well, okay, the texts she sent Chad—were honest and open, and I felt like I got an insight into the real El. The Isabel Watson she kept hidden most of the time, or covered up with too many words and a moderate amount of flailing around. They let me see the real her, and even though she didn’t know it was me, the ones I sent back allowed me the freedo
Me: I’m confident this time things will work out.Beautiful Accountant: I hope so. I’m really just not qualified to sell wine. I realized that late last night. I had to eat some ice cream to calm down.Me: All you need for sales is a great personality. You have that. And then some.Beautiful Accountant: If that were true, my boss would suck at sales.Ouch.Me: Being stunningly good looking helps too.Beautiful Accountant: I guess he’s got that one covered. Me: So do you.Beautiful Accountant: Thanks.A warm comfort filled my chest at having made El feel good about herself. She deserved that. Probably as much as I deserved the dig on my personality. It was just that most of the time, I was too busy to think much about being kind. Or having fun. Or anything, really. I didn’t want to let my family down, and they were all depending on me now.It was shaping into a good day, despite the quilter’s paradise I’d found myself in this morning. Until El’s next text arrived.Beautiful Accountant: