Page 116 of Gone With the Wine

One corner of Leo’s mouth hikes, and Vitto hoots. “Ha! Good job, Bee.”

“It still seems like a lot,” Vitto says.

“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell her,” Rosa says.

I’m getting an overprotective vibe from the room. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“At the harvest dinner, you two looked pretty friendly,” Gianni says.

The other cousins nod.

Rosa gives me a look.

“Are you going to stay here, then?” Leo asks.

“No.” I shake my head and sip my wine. “I need to go back to Castillo Lorenzo.”

“So you’re just going to abandon Caparelli,” Gianni says. “And your sisters.”

“I’m not abandoning them!” I glance at Rosa. Even as I protest, guilt pinches in my chest. “I’ll still do what I can to help. I can come home sometimes.”

They all make noises like “huh” and shake their heads.

It’s midnight by the time everyone leaves, and Rosa and I survey the damage in the kitchen. Neither of us can leave it till morning, though, and Jake helps, too, as we store leftovers and clean up and haul an embarrassing number of wine bottles to the recycling.

“That was fun,” Rosa says. “I’m so glad you did that.”

“Me, too. I’m glad we talked things out. A little.”

“Yeah. And I’m sure Uncle Geno will come around, too.”

I’m not so sure. Hearing that Uncle Geno hasn’t even given Vitto the freedom he needs to create his own wines kind of pisses me off.

This puts things in a different light than I’ve always seen them. In my head, my cousins were the same as Uncle Geno—set in his ways, traditional, a little chauvinistic. But now I’m seeing that Vitto faces challenges, too. I wanted to come home and do my duty, help my sisters. Then when I got here, I was sucked into the magic of Caparelli—the history, the mythos—and memories of Nonna made me want to do this for her. And now, I feel like a lot of my resentment and feelings of being overlooked and unworthy were maybe a me problem. Like I said to Rosa…maybe it’s time to let my youthful insecurities go. Because I didn’t feel like that tonight with the cousins. Vitto was interested in what I had to say. He asked me questions and we shared experiences. We all have a history together and I felt part of that. Part of the legacy. The heritage. Part of the family.

Chapter25

Jansen

“They’re coming at one o’clock. I have to go pack up his stuff.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Bianca asks.

I shake my head. “Nah, it’s fine.” It’s better she’s not there if I break into tears when they take Moose away.

I don’t even like dogs.

“You’re going to give them all his stuff?”

“Of course. What am I going to do with it?”

She bites her lip.

I rub my forehead. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I better go.”

“Could I come say goodbye to him?” Her voice is small.

I glance at her and see the sadness in her eyes. She probably loves the little dude more than I do. “Sure,” I say gruffly.

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