Page 28 of Rules of Association

“You were bouncing around your party like a blue Big Bird Ceci, weallcould tell.” I laughed, finding the thought of my parents knowing I was high on pain meds hilarious. Mateo laughed too and reached out an arm to me, grasping my shoulder and tucking me into his side. “C’mon then. We have to get going for your first day of work.”

* * *

“I’m not going to go easy on her just because she’s your sister, Signore Fernandez. If you say she’s here to help, I want her to help,” said the wiry man with a thick Italian accent. Paulo, I think his name was.

Talk about a character. He wore black from head to toe. His neatly pressed slacks straight and tighter than my jeans. His equally tight turtleneck reached so high on his jaw I’m pretty sure the rim of it touched his earlobes. The most alarming was dark brown hair with tips so blonde they were almost white, despite him having to be at least forty. And not to mention he had a serious attitude problem.

Ever since Mattí stepped aside and revealed me as the‘extra set of hands’he was offering to Paulo, the man had looked at me like I was some sort of virus.

“When you messaged me to ask if I needed any help, I was under the impression it would be from you, Signore, not your little ant friend.” The man was barely suppressing a sneer as he peered down his shoulder at me, both his arms wrapped around himself as if he was trying to keep from catching something.

Did he just call me an ant?

I sputtered, and Mattí smiled big. The little shit. He must have known how ridiculous this man was and chose him for me to work with just to torture me. Of all of us Fernandez’s Alta was the nice one by landslides, but Mattí took up the runner-up position easily. Even so, he wasn’t all hugs and kisses. The boy had a devilish streak all in the name of “good fun” and it was amateur of me not to take that into consideration the second he’d asked me if I was willing to do “anything” for work.

Rookie mistake.

But when he spoke again, his voice didn’t let onto any trickery as he addressed his client.

Impressive.

“Now Paulo, this is mybaby sister. I’m not asking that you go easy on her and she’s not going to be here every day, she’s just here to lend a helping hand and maybe learn a thing or two from you. Is that okay? Can I trust you with her?” My brother asked the man.

“She has but one hand to offer anyway,” Paulo spat, looking at my brace in disgust. “She is obviously clumsy if she has injured herself so. And you expect me to trust her around all this fine glass?”

“I can offer you somethingreal nicewith just one finger if you keep—” Mateo stepped in front of me before I could continue my sentence.

“She’ll be careful, Paulo,” Mattí promised, this strange, responsible tone overtaking his previously jesting one. “I promise, I wouldn’t leave you with untrustworthy help.”

Aww.

“You are not staying?” Paulo asked, looking shocked.

Wait?What?

I stood up a little straighter. The surprise that he wasn’t staying immediately erasing the fuzzy feeling my older brother calling me trustworthy had given me. It was replaced with raw panic. “You’re going to leave me here?”

“I’ve got a few meetings today, so I can’t stick around,” he said, and the more he usedthatvoice, the more it sounded like he was placating children. With Paulo, he remained calm and assuring. With me, he supplied an ugly face that only got uglier until he successfully made me chuckle. Turning back to Paulo, Mattí grasped the man on either shoulder and looked down into his eyes as he repeated, “Can I trust you with her, Pau?”

Paulo’s eyes nearly rolled in the back of his head. “Yes, yes. I will make sure your little itty-bitty sister does not break her other hand before the day is up.Go.”

* * *

What a fucking liar.

Contrary to what he promised my brother, I’m pretty sure Paulo Mizotti wastryingto break more than my other hand.

We started the day off in the cellars. Paulo was the owner of a small wine shop in the market district of the Seaside beach areas. He’d attracted my brother as an investor by his great location, extensive knowledge of wine, and his roots back to Italy where most of his stock was imported from. The wine shop, which didn’t officially open for another week or so, was Paulo’s passion project. He wasn’t forty, but sixty and he’d retired to Seaside with his husband. A whirlwind romance that brought him to America rather than the other way around. Now he was seeking to bring a little bit of Italy to our front doors.

Even though he was a stuck-up son of a bitch, I appreciated his story. Passion so wild it struck like lightning. It hadn’t happened for me yet, but I assumed when it did, I wouldn’t be able to help going for it with everything in me, either.

We worked on rotating the wine in the cellar first. Injured hand shaking, I pulled free old wooden crate after old wooden crate. Cracking them open using only my good hand, an old, rusted crowbar Paulo had given me, and borrowed patience that was teetering often with frustration.

This frustration had been met with the many unsolicited lessons of one Paulo Mizotti and his shaking head. “You young people do not appreciate the payoff ofpatience. You have to have everything now, now, now. Work with it, little Ant Girl, and it’ll work with you in return.”

After de-crating a boatload of already bottled wine, the next task was bottling the aged wine. Apparently it had sat in these huge, spouted barrels making up most of the back wall of the cellar long enough. Now they were ready to be bottled so they could sit some more.

I thought I appreciated a good glass of wine, but I was quickly learning it was nowhere near the level Paulo did. I don’t even think it waspossibleto appreciate wine as much as he did. And it was painfully obvious I was beyond my depth here.

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