Page 130 of Love Among Vines

“It needs to rest,” he said when he noticed her gaze.

“Of course. That wine must be exhausted from carrying the crushing weight of all this silence.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. I have a hard time talking about it.”

“I know. It’s okay. I’m worried about you, though. There’s been a night and day difference in you from before your brother got here and after.”

“I hate that it has this effect on me,” Rett said vehemently. “It’s been two years. I should be over this.”

“A betrayal of that magnitude is not something you just get over,” she said quietly. “It takes time. And a lot of wine. Even an adopted dog in my case.”

“I wish it was that easy. He’s going to be in my life forever. He’s my brother.”

She put another plate into the microwave. “Yeah, that definitely complicates things. They don’t live around here, though?”

He shook his head. “In the city.”

“Good. That’ll make it harder for them to drop in unexpectedly in the future.”

Silence stretched between them as they ate. An internal alarm went off, and he downed his glass in a couple of gulps.

“Did they teach that tasting method at sommelier school?” she asked with a smile.

“No, that was all undergrad.” He managed to smile in return.

There was no point in endlessly ruminating on Chris leeching off him yet again. If he knew his brother, dinner tomorrow was going to involve either a request for money or an outlandish business proposition. Even though the vineyard had been left to Rett, Chris couldn’t help but try to insert himself every time trouble brewed. It was exhausting.

But at least Jade would be with him. She, at least, seemed to believe that he was enough.

She finished her glass and clapped her hands. “Okay. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this, but I think you need it.”

“Need what?”

She opened a kitchen cabinet and started pulling out baking ingredients. A minute later, she pushed a set of ramekins across the kitchen island.

“Stress bake me a chocolate soufflé.”

“A soufflé? I’ve never attempted one. I don’t even have a recipe.”

His phone chimed.

“Now you do. No excuses. Go.”

“I doubt Margie keeps a double boiler in her guest house.”

She leaned across the counter and looked him dead in the eyes. “If I can attend my ex-boyfriend’s wedding, recapture my muse, paint a gigantic mural, and try to get a driver’s license a decade later than most people, you can make a soufflé.”

“Fair enough,” he said. He loosened his collar and rolled up his sleeves. Maybe a new challenge would be enough to pull him out of this rut.

Baking gave him such peace. It was a delicate science, just like winemaking. But unlike wine, he didn’t have to stare at a barrel for a year before discovering the outcome.

One heavy-handed measurement could ruin the whole thing, especially with something as finnicky as a soufflé. But there was something invigorating about the challenge.

Jade tapped away on her new laptop as he chopped chocolate and whisked yolks. She already knew him so well. Ninety percent of the people in his life had no idea that he even baked, but she could tell when he needed it to distract him.

And she was staying. A world of possibility had opened. What would their future together look like? Would she get tired of him when she realized his sixty-hour work weeks were not an exaggeration?

The winery drifted into his mind. It really was a lot of work. Beyond the actual winemaking, most of it wasn’t something that required him specifically. Even his grandmother had outsourced most of the administrative stuff, so why was he so insistent on doing everything himself?

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