“I don’t know when she’ll go back to work. She needs a break. Can you blame her?”

Tabitha could hear her sister talking in the hallway, and her footsteps in the hall matched her conversation. “Yes, I realize it’s noon.

I do not enable her.” Pace.

“I said I will… Mom, she already knows that.”

A long pause. “Yes, she knows that, too. I’m not sure this conversation is helpful. Maybe you can give her some time, and then, I don’t know. Take her out for lunch or something. You can get the whole story from her.

“I said I don’t want to wake her. No. Mom, no, I’m not going to— Okay, fine. I’ll check.”

Tabitha heard her bedroom door open but didn’t open her eyes. She pulled the covers more tightly over her head.

“Nope, she’s dead to the world. Yes, all right. I’ll tell her you called. What’s that? You’re breaking up. Mom? Mom? I think we’ve lost the connection.”

Gabrielle had left the door open, and Tabitha saw her end the call and toss the phone on the couch next to her. She looked around the living room.

“Micah!”

Tabitha opened one eye and looked down at Micah, who had snuck in through the open door and burrowed under the covers of Tabitha’s bed. Micah smiled up at her, and she grinned back at him and put her finger to her lips.

Gabrielle poked her head into the room and looked around.

“Micah,” she whispered. “I know you’re in here.”

He squirmed beneath the tangled sheets, burrowing further into Tabitha’s chest with a muffled giggle. She opened her eyes to see Gabrielle coming toward her bed, and she pulled her body into a long stretch, yanking the covers over Micah’s head as she did so.

“I’m sorry,” Gabrielle said. “I told him not to come in here.”

“Who?”

“Micah.”

“Micah? I haven’t seen him.”

Gabrielle stopped, puzzled. Her eyes darted down to the covers, where the form of Micah’s tiny body could be clearly seen under the sheets.

“Haven’t seen him in days.” A muffled squeal came from beneath the covers, and Tabitha stretched again and draped her leg over his belly. “I’ve never heard of him, actually. Never heard of a kid named Micah in my whole entire life.” She rolled again, draping both of her arms over his wiggling shape. “Gabrielle, this is the most uncomfortable bed on the planet. Full of lumps and bumps. It’s exactly like sleeping on boulders.” She pushed and prodded, tickling Micah’s sides through the sheets. He screamed and squirmed out of her reach, then scrambled out from under the sheet panting and laughing. Tabitha pulled him into her again, smoothing down his flyaway hair and kissing his warm cheeks.

“I’m sorry. He’s a little hyped up. Doug made pancakes, and I think Micah drowned his in Nutella.”

“Nuuu-tedda!” Micah screamed, and he tore off the bed and ran down the hallway to the kitchen. “Nutedda, nutedda, want nutedda.”

Leaning against the doorway, Gabrielle watched him go, a strange mixture of amusement and worry in her eyes.

“Let’s just be honest, we may as well have fed him birthday cake for breakfast.”

Tabitha stretched again, pulled the tangled sheets up around her, and collapsed back into her pillow. “Cake is not a breakfast food. Nutella is. Everyone knows that.”

“You always make me feel like an excellent mother.”

“Good. You are an excellent mother.”

The sisters smiled at each other, then Gabrielle climbed onto the bed next to Tabitha, laying her head on the same pillow and looking up at the ceiling.

“Are you ever going to turn your phone on?”

“Nope.”

“They might have stopped calling.” When Tabitha didn’t reply, she continued, “Maybe all the messages are just from people you love. And your clients. And that Italian guy.”

“I guarantee the Italian guy is not calling.”

“Maybe he’s calling to say he’s fallen in love with you.”

Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Please, G. The only messages on my phone are fallout from Mark’s article. Cori bugging me to get back to work. Royal saying God only knows what. Employees from El Zop wanting to know what’s going to happen to the winery. I can’t deal with it.”

“You have to deal with it. That’s how life works.”

Tabitha rolled over and took her phone from the drawer in the nightstand next to her.

“Here.” She handed it to her sister. “You deal with it. I don’t even care what’s there.”

“I’m not your secretary!” Gabrielle hollered at her retreating back as Tabitha walked into the bathroom. But she glanced back before she shut the door and saw that Gabrielle was already scrolling through messages.

She washed her face and studied her reflection in the mirror. She looked so tired, even though she’d just woken up. She’d done almost nothing but sleep in the days since the competition, and she thought maybe she could never get enough. She wondered if she’d be able to nap today. She ran her wet hands through her hair, slicking it off her face. The pink was fading, and the bleached blonde underneath had a grey, ashy look. Maybe that was what was making her look so washed out. Time to re-dye it. Maybe a new color. Blue this time? Fire-engine red? How about a rainbow? She could do a unicorn tail, or mermaid hair, or whatever it was that all the young girls were doing nowadays. Anything new sounded good to her. She just wanted change.

She dried her hands and face and walked back into her bedroom. Gabrielle sat up on the bed now, a small notebook and pen beside her.

“You sure do look like my secretary.”

Gabrielle ignored her, pushed a button on the phone, and held it to her ear again. Her brow creased in concentration as she wrote.

“Okay, here’s the deal. You got about a million texts, mostly from your friends and the staff at El Zop. All very nice and encouraging. Three phone calls from Mark. In the third one, he said he’s not going to call again, but he’s publishing a follow-up story next Wednesday, and his editors want your input. One text and one phone call from Royal.”

“What did he say?”

“Didn’t say. Just that he needed to talk to you about a business matter, and you should call him.”

“He’s calling to threaten me not to talk.”

“That’s what I figured. So, I texted back and told him not to call you again, or tonight you would send an assassin out to take care of him for good.”

“Really?”

“No. I deleted his text and his message. It’s obviously not a winery matter, or he would have said something to me at work. If it’s urgent, he can contact you through an attorney.”

“Perfect.”

“One last thing. There was one text and one call from someone named Giovanni. I could barely understand what he said, but it sounded super dirty. I figured it was a troll, so I reported him to the police and deleted the messages.”

“What?” Tabitha sputtered, trying to grab the phone. “But that was—”

“The Italian? But I don’t understand. You said you didn’t care.” Gabrielle affected an innocent expression, holding the phone tightly to her chest. “I don’t want you to feel harassed or worried about anyone meddling in your life. You’re right; you don’t need another one-night stand. I did you a favor.”

Tabitha lunged for her sister, who laughed and jumped from the bed. Gabrielle turned back and tossed the phone back to Tabitha, and went down the hall, calling for Micah.

Tabitha scrunched under the covers again, pulling the sheet up over her head, and put the phone next to her ear to listen to Giovanni’s voice.