I walked into the women’s room and immediately looked back to the showers. I’d never walk in here without thinking about that. “Good advice. I think I’ll give him a little bit of both.”
“Go for it. And if you see Tris, tell him I have a surprise waiting for him.”
“Ooo, intriguing. What is it?”
“Just tell him we’re having some bad weather in Bridgewater. That it’s supposed to be a little blowy this week.”
“Blowy? You mean windy?”
“Nope. I don’t,” she said deviously. Took me a second to catch on. When I did, I said, “You know what’s funny? It’s supposed to be a little blowy this week here too.”
We both laughed, and now, at least, I knew exactly what to do.
THIRTY-TWO
marco
“Are you sure?”
My father pushed his phone across the bar to show me the text. It was from one of his oldest friends, the head of the Finger Lakes Wineries Association.
All it said was, “Done.”
“By the end of the day...” I looked over to the bar. Hudson had flipped a glass in the air before filling it earning him a round of applause. Although he was technically Grado Brewing’s manager, Hudson seemed to enjoy tending as much as he did running the place.
He was good at both, thankfully.
“By the end of the day, Jerry will be as freezing as,” my dad made a face. He was terrible at analogies.
“Why do you even try?” I asked, the two of us sitting at a high-top sharing our latest brew.
“I don’t know,” he said. Looking up at the wooden rafters, and then all around the bar, his gaze landed back on me. “So...don’t be upset with your sister.”
“That’s not a great start, Dad.” It usually meant I was about to be upset with my sister.
“Min told me you weren’t coming tonight.”
“I’m not,” I admitted. “I’m having Rae over for dinner.”
It had been four days since our fight, three days since she texted me that she wanted to talk. Nothing in the world would have given me more pleasure Sunday to go over to Sunset and attempt to make things right. Instead, I asked her if we could wait a few days. That I wanted to see her, but also was trying to respect the time she’d asked for.
In reality, I needed a few days to put this plan into motion.
“I also heard you proclaimed your love for Rachel after Mom and I went to bed on Sunday?”
“Tris is a bad influence.” He was also one of the golden children of our family and could do no wrong. But my father wasn’t buying my cover. “Mmm, hmm. It’s all your cousin’s fault. Tris wasn’t here when you came to dinner with a headache. Which you never get unless it’s from a hangover?”
Snagged. “That one was actually Neo. He insisted on doing shots at KC’s Saturday night. Your son is also a bad influence.”
My father’s brows raised. “Insisted?”
“Yeah. You should probably talk to him about that.”
Dad chuckled. “I’ll do that. In the meantime, I want to talk to you about this thing with Rachel.”
And our day had been going so well. “I thought that’s what we’ve been doing all week?”
“Freezing out Jerry Reed and your personal relationship with Rachel are two different things.”