Twisting in her seat so she could see his profile better, she leaned her temple against the leather headrest. “You’re so driven.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you like to talk about that?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“When did you know you wanted to open a winery?”
He smiled a bit. “When I was in university. I was doing a business undergrad degree, and I came home…maybe it was reading week? And Ty wasn’t around. He’d gotten hired at a winery that was doing ice wine harvesting. He was sleeping there, ready to leap into harvesting action in the middle of the night. He was seventeen years old, and had found his passion in life. When he finally showed up at the end of the week, I saw a whole new person. He was a man, suddenly. He had a vision, a purpose, and I wanted to be a part of that with him.”
“It’s a remarkable story.”
“We had a lot of luck along the way. Taking over grape vines that had had a chance to mature, for example. We didn’t need to wait decades for the fruit. And Wardham—when I left, I thought I’d never come back. But every time I did, I saw another slice of potential.” He slid a glance her way. “You see it, too.”
She nodded. “It’s a wonderful town.”
“I want to do for Wardham what the Festival did for Stratford. I want Wardham to be the Niagara-on-the-Lake of Essex County.”
“Why?”
“Because a vibrant town is a better one for gay kids to grow up in.” He shrugged. “It’s just that simple to me. The more progressive, more successful I make my town, the better it will be for kids just like me. I grew up with a lot of economic fear, and not just in my own family. It pressed against me on all sides. People who are poor, people who can’t get ahead—they look for people to blame.”
“They should look up the chain. To government, to businesses.”
“Yeah. But they don’t. They look for the skinny kid in gym class and they beat him up to feel good.”
Her heart ached for young Evan. “You were that kid?”
“I didn’t always look like this. I didn’t always have money. I was the scapegoat growing up, yeah. The kid without a dad. And then I had a massive growth spurt right before high school, and boom, I was a football player. I clawed myself to the top of that heap, but I didn’t love any part of it. Evie was the only one who knew I planned to leave and never come back, that I was counting down the days to graduation.”
“But then your brother discovered wine.”
He laughed. “And I’d had a couple of years at university. I’d realized the whole world is like that. Doesn’t matter how big the city, there are still bullies looking to shit on people. I came out in university, but once I graduated, the workplace—back then, anyway—wasn’t as welcoming as campus. I dunno. I guess I had to leave to come back and fully appreciate what home was.”
“That’s really something.” She touched his forearm, resting on the console between them. “Thanks for telling me all of that.”
They both fell silent after that.
Her hand stayed on his arm, and she traced the curve of his muscles until he had to reach forward and change gears.
When they arrived at the restaurant, there was a line out the door.
“Wow,” Jess said. “This place is popular.”
“Good food wins every time.”
“Best marketing plan is a good product,” she said.
“You know it.”
They got in line, which moved quickly, and she noticed a good number of people in line—maybe half—were Latino. Some obviously looked like seasonal workers, their skin dark from the outside work, but not all. A family ahead of them spoke Spanish, but their English wasn’t accented when they flipped back and forth.
Maybe she’d known that this area had a big Spanish-speaking population, but she hadn’t been conscious of it.
Evan pointed at the specials board. “They always have a couple of daily things, too.”
The guy in front of them gave her a wide grin. “Everything is good,” he said in accented English.
