Page 48 of Gone With the Wine

Oh. He thought I was agreeing. Ah, fuck.

We enter the Golden Cougar. This is the second time I’ve been here. It’s dim and old and smells like beer.

Turns out the guys want food, too. They order burgers, I go for fish tacos. And a beer.

“So are you getting ready for harvest?” Nolan asks.

“Yeah. Yesterday Bianca came over and looked at the grapes. My viticulturist guy…” That still feels weird, saying that… “thinks we’re nearly there, but he wanted another opinion.”

“Bianca should know. She’s been harvesting grapes since she was old enough to walk.”

“Yeah. She knows a lot.” I take a pull of my amber ale. I don’t tell them that I want to hire her temporarily. That’s between us. Until she makes a decision.

I was hoping I’d hear from her today, but I didn’t. I won’t take that as a no, though. She probably has her own things to worry about. Like finding people to help her harvest her own grapes.

Maybe I could help with that? We’ve got people and machinery lined up. Depending on the timing, maybe they could help her, too?

I’m probably being naïve. I don’t know how this works.

There’s no problem keeping a conversation going with Nolan, or Murrdawg here, who seems to never stop talking. We talk about harvest, running, and wedding plans for Miles and Millie.

“When’s the wedding?” I ask.

“October. After harvest. Not that we’re busy, but lots of our friends are, so it made sense to plan the wedding for after.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re just about ready to send out invitations,” Miles says. “I think they look really cool. They have sort of watercolor flowers on the top and the bottom—dark pink and light pink—which are the wedding colors. It was really hard picking out fonts. You need a couple of different fonts that complement each other?—”

Nolan holds up a hand. “Enough. I can’t handle all the wedding shit.”

I press my lips together on a smile.

“He goes on about this stuff for hours,” Nolan tells me.

I don’t want to offend either of them so I just smile. I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy who’s so into wedding stuff.

“Fine,” Miles grumbles. “Your invitation might get lost in the mail.”

Nolan laughs. “I’m your fucking best man.”

“Maybe.” Then he laughs, too. “Sorry. I get carried away. Anyway, I was reading this article online you might be interested inMurrdawg. Sex positions for guys with a small penis.”

Nolan and I both choke.

“What the fuck,” Nolan says.

“Yeah, it said guys with a small penis can actually be better in bed because they make an effort.”

“Fuck right off,” Nolan says mildly and take a swallow of beer.

“Doggie style is apparently perfect. You can get really ‘deep’ penetration.”

“Ana does love doggie style,” Nolan says slowly.

“There you go.” Miles lifts his beer.

“Asshole,” Nolan says.

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