Page 7 of A Vine Mess
“One of Brie’s, I hope?”
“That cranberry orange scone with the vanilla icing gets me every time.”
In fact, Brie’s Bakery was one of two reasons I ever ventured into downtown Apple Blossom Bay.
The other sat two storefronts away.
At last, we reached the space cordoned off with stakes and string where, with my help, Brie and Ezra had decided to plant the apple trees. Though the town was full of them, the bulk were located on winery grounds and used for Chateau Delatou recipes like their spiced apple wine and Brie’s bakery treats. To give the community a piece of the pie, so to speak, they elected to plant a small grove of trees here at the garden as well.
Twenty trees would cross-pollinate year after year to ensure they remained ripe with fruit and adapted to their environments season after season.
Ezra and I worked in companionable silence, communicating mainly by grunts and clipped instructions.
It gave me too much time to think, too much time for my eyes to keep wandering toward the Delatou sisters.
To no one’s surprise, Ella was already up to her elbows in dirt, on the far perimeter of the garden where the raised boxes that would hold the fresh herbs sat. From here, I couldn’t tell what she was planting, but she stopped every so often to smell the leaves, or gently brush her fingers along the stem before carefully placing them in the earth and filling the hole.
I could watch her work all day like it was my favorite TV sitcom.
Unfortunately, Ezra noticed the way my gaze clung to her like a magnet.
“You’ve got it bad, my dude.”
I scoffed. “No, I don’t.”
“Please.” He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in aget realexpression. “I know that look. It’s the same one I gave Brie for months. So why don’t you just, I don’t know…man up and go for it?”
“She just got out of a relationship,” I said quietly, seeing no point in refuting him. He had, after all, hit the nail on the head.
Ezra snorted. “That guy was a fuckhead. From what Brie says, Ella was less upset that it ended and more about the fact that she’d wasted so much time on him.”
I cut him a look. “You shouldn’t be telling me this. That’s privileged information.”
Ezra dusted his hands off and clapped me on the shoulder. “You need it more than I do.”
I only hummed noncommittally.
“You want my advice?” Ezra asked.
“Not really.”
He gave it anyway. “Feel her out. Dip a toe in the water and see what happens. She might surprise you.”
I only glared at him and grumbled to get back to work.
Unfortunately, his words had taken root in my brain, and no amount of manual labor or reminding myself to stay away from Ella Delatou could shake them loose.
I contemplated hanging upthe phone no fewer than forty-seven times in the ten seconds it rang with an outgoing call. I couldn’t tell if it was because I was afraid he’d actually answer…or because I was terrified he wouldn’t. At least if he didn’t, I could simply chalk it up to a butt dial, though I’d never been very good at lying.
Because, obviously, the truth—that he’d been the first person I thought to call—was out of the question.
Right when I was sure it’d go to voicemail, his deep timbre came over the line.
“Ella? Are you okay?”
“Hi, Liam,” I croaked out. “I’m fine! I just…are you busy?”
“Just finishing up some last minute things around here before the weekend,” he said, clearly still at the winery. “Why, what’s up?”
