Page 37 of Falling for My Boss

I raised one finger as I slid to a stop and then turned around on my heels. I made my way back to my personal cooler and pulled out two beers and grabbed a bottle opener to go with me. I made my way back to the door and overheard a slight whispering followed by a giggle coming from the girls. Girl Talk had begun, I supposed.

As soon as I was out of the door, I saw Alex coming out of the office that was quickly becoming his sole property. Cam had taken over a small office space closer to the kitchen and near the tasting room, and Kane was always down in his cellar office or out in the fields, leaving Alex alone since I was always in the kitchen.

“Alex,” I said, coming up to him and holding out a beer. “I need to talk to you for a sec. Have a beer.”

“Beer?” Alex said. “You know we own and operate an entire vineyard, right?”

“Yes, but a dealer never takes from his own supply. Come on,” I said.

“I just got out of there,” he said. “I was going to go to the kitchen and see if you would make me another one of those Reubens.”

“I’ll make you all the Reubens you want in about twenty minutes. Ally is in the kitchen with Jodi, and I need some brotherly advice,” I said.

“Ah,” Alex said, finally following me into the office and shutting the door behind him. “So, you finally have come to the master, have you, grasshopper?”

“Are you seriously quoting a television show that came on ten years before you were born?” I asked.

“Pop culture, Derek,” Alex said without a wisp of irony. He was the youngest of us, and yet at times I felt like he was the oldest soul. “Get with it.”

“Yeah, anyway,” I said. “I need some advice about Jodi.”

“Are you two…” he began and then looked over to the door before making a lewd gesture.

I sighed.

“Yes, but it’s more than that.”

“I figured,” Alex said. “I just wanted to watch you squirm. It’s fun.”

“Dick,” I said.

Alex did a short bow. “Thank you

“Look, I’m not good with this sort of thing,” I said. “I never really did the whole girlfriend thing, you know? I just dated waitresses, and then once we had some fun, we went our separate ways. But this… this is different.”

“Is she, or is she not, a waitress?”

“No, it’s not that,” I said. “It’s different with her. She’s different.”

“I should say so,” Alex said. “I doubt you’ve ever been with anyone actively on the run from her own family before.”

“I might have been,” I said. “Culinary school was a blur. But that’s not the point. She’s different. There’s something about her that I can’t shake.”

“Hmmm,” Alex said, sitting on his desk, his expression changing a bit. It was as if he was finally recognizing that I wasn’t kidding. That I really did need real advice. That had to be hard for a younger brother to accept, but it was real, and it was there. The baby of the boys was being asked to help his older brother with something.

“We’ve been pretty much acting like a couple for a bit now,” I said. “Sleeping in the same bed, doing couple stuff, the whole bit.”

“That’s why you didn’t come to Sunday dinner?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I didn’t think it was time to bring her either.”

“Fair,” he said. “I won’t tell anybody.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But, well, I don’t know where she stands on all this. I know how I feel about her, but we just… haven’t talked about it. She’s had such a hard time through everything, with her brother and her family and all that. And her living at my place, I feel like it might put a level of expectation on her. Like if she isn’t actually interested in something, she might be afraid I’d kick her out and we would fire her. Then she’d be homeless and without income.”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Tex,” Alex said. “Before you go down the rabbit hole, what has she been acting like? Does she seem to be happy? Comfortable?”

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