Page 1 of You're So Vine

Page List

Font Size:

ChapterOne

AVA

Weddings give me hives. For a start, it’s bad form to wear black and black is all I wear. Okay, I had a purple phase in my teens, by which I mean I still wore black, but I dyed my hair purple and cut it mohawk style. My dad said I should have gone the whole hog and shaved it off—better airflow for track. Then I won all my race meets and he stopped complaining.

At fourteen, I painted my bedroom black. Thirteen years later, it’s primrose yellow because Mom finds black depressing. Can’t see that myself. Black is smart, simple, and efficient. Every item comes pre-coordinated: no fuss, just grab and go.

Except when you’re at a wedding. Your big brother’s wedding at that. In the vineyard he now partially owns with his new bride. The ceremony was under an arbor built for the occasion from old, woven vines, the backdrop red-gold—the last of the fall leaves hanging in there so as to be as picturesque as possible for the happy couple. There’s a chill in the air but the sky is blue and there’s not a breath of wind. It’s beautiful. Perfect. I want to take a flamethrower to the whole scene.

Okay, no … no I don’t. I’m super happy for my big bro, Nate. His last attempt at getting married ended with him being jilted the week before, so us Durants breathed a sigh of relief that this time he got to say “I do”—and to a girl who we all love almost as much as Nate does.

Shelby’s cute and funny andwaymore relaxed than Nate. Which isn’t hard. When God was handing out the sweet treats of inner calm, Nate was loading up on a double helping of gristly determination with a side order of dried duty. As our family doctor says, “If there’s a type above Type A, Nate’s it.” Actually, he says that about our whole family, but this is Nate’s big day, so he gets singled out.

Yep, it’s Nate and Shelby’s big ol’ wedding day and I’m wearing a dress that I bought in a hurry because—I may have mentioned this—everything I own is black. The dress is dark green and makes me look like I’ve been poisoned. I also did not follow Mom’s advice to take a shawl and now I’m blue with cold as well as poisoned-looking.

We’re being ushered toward the barn for the reception, which means this wedding is not even halfway through. Shelby and Nate own pigs that Nate swears would eat a human if you let them. Has anyone ever committed suicide by pig? Asking for a friend.

“You’re looking a little peaky, sis. One too many caramel apple martinis?”

Danny. Durant sibling number three. Up from LA for the weekend. Makes the perfect usher because he comes across as charming. Don’t be deceived.

“If you tell me we’re sitting together, I’ll brain you with an ornamental pumpkin.”

“Nope,” says Danny, way too cheerfully. “Durant clan’s being split up. Tables are all a random mix and match. Idea being that we get to mingle, meet the other guests, make new friends.”

Where did Nate say the pigsty was again?

Danny runs his finger along the seating plan.

“You’re on table three. Straight down, hang a left.”

A brief lurch in my gut. What ifhe’son the same table—?

“You’re with Chiara,” says Dan, “Shelby’s brother Jackson, Ted, Ted’s girlfriend du jour, and a guy named Doug.”

“The famous Toothless Doug?”

“I didn’t ask him to open his mouth.”

“Oh, Doug has a full set of teeth. Shelby told me.”

“Huh,” says Danny. “Shelby and Nate’s kids are going to be pretty weird, aren’t they?”

I don’t stay to answer because a queue is forming behind me. Everyone is eager to get into the warmth and start drinking in earnest. Or maybe that’s just me: the only person at this whole wedding who’s cold and morose.

Ava, snap out of it. It’s the happiest day of your brother’s life. Just becauseyourlife is in the crapper doesn’t mean you can skulk about all green and pinch-faced like a vengeful enchantress. Do better.

I make an effort to admire the barn. It’s cute. If you’re into décor based on an advertisement for pumpkin spice lattes. Loads of fairy lights strung from the rafters. Trestle tables covered in simple white cloths, tea lights, and flowers in jelly jars. Wine barrels with more jelly jars, surrounded by pinecones and the aforementioned ornamental pumpkins, a vegetable I don’t mind looking at as long as I don’t have to eat it.

Shelby’s mom, Lee, did the décor. She’s an artist and moved up the coast when Shelby’s dad died from cancer, leaving Shelby to run Flora Valley Wines on her own. That’s how Shelby met Nate. He was brought in to manage the place when McRae Capital took a stake in it. That’s J.P. McRae, who’s two tables away, sitting with his wife. J.P.’s an old friend and former business partner of my dad’s.

Yes, it’s a small world. But not small enough, apparently, for me to spot the one guy whose presencesomewherein this barn is partly responsible for my antsy mood. Last time he and I were in proximity, I asked him on a date. He turned me down—in a kindly manner, but as you know, a refusal no matter how polite often humiliates. I took the hint and backed off, kept my distance. That was two months ago, and I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.

Damn it, Iwishwe were seated together so I could get that uncomfortable first-meeting-after-a-knock-back over with. I don’t know how I’ll feel about seeing him, and not knowing is one of the things I hate most in the world. After being rejected, of course.

“Ava, how lovely to see you.”

I know two people at table three, and this is one of them. Ted. Blond, foppishly handsome in that upper-class British way. Current owner of Bartons, a boutique hotel that would fit perfectly in cosmopolitan London but because it’s in the main street of small-town Verity, looks like it’s been beamed down from an alien planet. Its patrons are like aliens, too: rich, shiny, and mostly English with hee-haw accents. Ted doesn’t hee-haw. He’s much too smooth.