Page 51 of The Difference Between

Gavin clears his throat. “I do.”

I do a double take. Even with the nudist working the vines, property maintenance of this place is probably ten to twenty hours a week in peak growth season. It explains why he gets home so late every day. “Don’t you work full time?”

It’s Nancy who responds. “Once this deal goes through, that’ll be fixed.”

“I don’t mind,” Gavin says. To his mom: “I don’t.”

Here’s what I know about family and business—from my own and years of working with others—it’s a tenuous game of tug-of-war. It’s obligations versus wants. It’s heart versus head. It’s seeing how bad things are but not wanting to voice it. It’s wanting to do it your way but having to bend for theirs. Much like the clusterfuck Old Vines was in where neither my mom nor sister wanted to tell me how bad it was, this is the same thing. A family dealt a blow—several—and a business going down as collateral damage.

“The offer you have—” I eye the envelope in her hand. “What are your concerns?”

Nancy says, “None,” at the same time Gavin says, “It’s less than what they paid for the place by nearly two hundred grand.”

I turn toward the window and watch the weirdo with hand shears work his way down a vine, his lips moving like he’s talking to it, while Nancy fills me in on the other details.

They bought the place for just shy of a million then pumped money into it—explains why it looks so good. The current offer is eight hundred thousand. “They based that price on the fact the store isn’t open and it’s a risky buy,” Nancy finishes.

The potential buyer isn’t completely wrong—there isn’t a strong cash flow and profitability is unclear—but given the state and attention to detail, risky is a stretch. Even without the confidence I’d have with thorough research and knowing there’s not a steady stream of revenue, there’s no way in hell this place has depreciated that much.

I reassess the space. The view, the bottles of wine, the light fixture that could be studied by art school students as a masterclass on design. “When do you have to sign by?”

“Friday.”

Two days.

The bones are good. The building is perfect. It needs to be cleaned up, polished, and people need to be hired. Glass of Vine is clever, especially considering the glasses in these boxes, and the logo is good. Artistic even. A delicate wineglass wrapped with a vine and filled with grapes.

My gears turn.

This business is smaller than anything in my portfolio with the firm, but the sob story might be strong enough for them to want it—maybe even help my angle of working while I’m not supposed to be working—but even if they did, the day-to-day would be significantly different. Once a typical deal is done, my involvement includes high-level board meetings with CEOs. Strategy work. KPI reviews. There’s none of that here. There’s Nancy with a notebook, Gavin with a mower, and some freak in the vines with headphones. Nancy can’t keep running it—she isn’t now—The Family would likely want to bring in a professional CEO or team to manage the project, but it’s so small I don’t know how they’d justify the expenses involved.

I could do it—oversee the day-to-day—at least for the few months I’m here. Get it to a place where it’s thriving before we hire someone else to take over. It wouldn’t be the norm and it’s outside of my wheelhouse, but I can learn. And I have nothing else to do.

“What if instead of selling, I found an investor so you could make it profitable?” I ask Nancy. That would be an easier pitch for me, given the circumstances. “Could lighten the load without you losing it.”

She shakes her head. “I want to sell.”

“Why?”

She toys with the metal spiral of the notebook. “Some dreams don’t fit right without the people we dreamed them with.” This time, her smile is the kind made to hide hard things. “And Gavin—” She looks at her son, and her voice snaps right in half. She thumbs unshed tears from her eyes and laughs a little. “Plans and life don’t always line up, you know?”

I do not.

When life doesn’t go the way I want, I adjust the plans until it does. Like me being in Fontain.

Gavin wraps one arm around his mom’s shoulders. “I ever tell you about the time I was mowing and couldn’t stop crying?” Nancy looks up at him. “I was fine, just a rough patch.”

She laughs through a sniff then lands a playful slap on his chest. “Worse than your father.”

His eyes meet mine and he winks. Gavin is a good man who tells bad jokes.

“What about these?” I gesture with a wineglass.

“What about ’em?” Gavin asks.

“What are they doing here?” I use my free hand to open another box filled with the same style. “They’re handblown. Probably expensive.” Another box, more glasses. “And you have enough to serve wine to every wine-o of Fontain. You said it was a friend of your dad’s, but what was the original plan?”

“Give them away with tastings.”