Page 50 of Unbreakable
I sniffled and turned my back, spending a little too long picking up the next set of bottles. I’d only been gone a day and some change, but I kept seeing Alice, Grey, and Bella in my head. Was I right to leave them alone with Carla and Dylan? Even if they were physically and emotionally fine in their care, I had set a terrible example by leaving when things got tough. My babies needed me, and I walked away.
Maybe Dylan was right. Maybe I was selfish.
The door to the office creaked open.
“There she is.” Andy’s bright voice filled the space. I flipped my head up to find him already halfway across the room to me. He opened his arms. “How are ya, G9?”
I laughed off the name he and my brother called me, a play on how my name is spelled, and I reached up to hug him. “Hey, Andy.”
“You didn’t get any taller,” he said, stooping to wrap his arms under mine.
“And you didn’t get any shorter,” I teased, ruffling his hair.
“How long do we have ya for? You gonna stick around this time? Dyl keep the kids?”
My mom made a very obvious slicing motion across her throat and he held up his hands.
“Well, it’s good to see you either way.”
“How’s your mom?” I asked, changing the subject.
His smile was wry. “Hangin’ in there. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”
I nodded, not really sure how much longer I’d be hiding from my life at the winery. I was also unsure how much time I wanted to spend with Andy. I’d seen him the summer before when the whole family came up for a week at Gammy and Gampa’s, but that was with Dyl and the kids. There was something unsettling about potentially spending time alone with him. “Tell her I said hey, at least.”
He looked over the stack of boxes Mom and I had piled up. “These ready to go?”
“Yep,” Mom said. “Oh, Andy, why don’t you and your mom come for dinner tonight? Then we can all have a chance to catch up.”
Maybe it’s because Andy was my little brother’s best friend, but to me, he still had this boyish smile. A permanent haze of sandy hair covered his cheeks and neck, making his deep blue eyes pop out of his tan face. He was long and lean, but not quite as lanky as he was when we were kids.
In short, he could easily be cast as the humble hometown hero in any given Hallmark movie.
He flashed that wholesome Hallmark grin at my mom, his whole face brightening. “Yeah, that’d be great. I’ll let her know.”
They droned on about something pertaining to the tasting room that most certainly didn’t involve me, so I zoned out. Eventually, Andy loaded the shipments onto a dolly and was gone.
When the door closed behind him, I turned to Mom. “What are you doing?”
“What?” she asked, bringing a hand to her chest to indicate her obvious innocence.
“Don’t think I don’t see you,” I said. “I’m still with Dylan and I’m hoping to stay that way.”
“I know, sweetheart,” she said as she put down a tape gun. “Sometimes you just need to see what the other choice was so you can know how good you have it.” She got a little smirk. “Besides, never hurts to have an old flame make you feel pretty when you’re going through something.”
Andy and I had the most minimal of history. He always carried a torch for me, and for one summer in college, I gave in. I was a junior and he was a freshman. We kissed one very late night at a party of kids home for the summer.
I woke up in his arms in the twin bed at his mom’s house. Clearly, she knew what we’d gotten up to, because she placed a tray with two plates of pancakes with coffee outside his room.
Mortifying. She was already trying to fill the role of meddling mother-in-law. I slammed the cup of coffee and left out their side door.
But then I couldn’t get away from him. We were both seasonal workers at my family’s winery, and he just . . . kept being his charming self. He convinced me to give him a real chance. So, we dated. We had a sweet month or so where we stole kisses among the vines and went through a lot of boxes of condoms.
He told me he loved me in the middle of the night in the bed of his shitty truck. I didn’t reciprocate, and I think it killed him.
Right when I was about to end things, he showed up at my door in tears. “Mom’s sick.”
Well, I couldn’t dump him then. I loved his mom, and everyone in town would have known how cruel I was if I dumped him right when he found out his mom would be disabled for the rest of her life, needing frequent attention and care.
