Drunk on Love(11)

“Sure, people do. Mostly tourists do, though. Some weekend people, absolutely. And some of the major Valley players, but then, I know who all of those people are. But not a lot of people who really live around here, if you know what I mean.”

She gestured to the apartment buildings around them.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.” He turned to her. “Which way?”

“Two blocks this way,” she pointed. “And then left on Washington Street.”

She was glad, as they drove the short distance, that she wasn’t walking home right now. There were a lot of people out and about in downtown Napa at this time of morning—runners, restaurant workers setting up for breakfast or coffee service, people chatting while they waited in line for coffee or pastries. She very possibly may have seen someone she knew. She was glad Luke had spared her that.

“I’m here,” she said as he pulled onto her street. “That little blue house.”

He stopped in front of her house, and smiled at her. His smile had some of that heat from the night before in it.

“Margot. It was a pleasure.” Laughter jumped into his eyes. “Actually—quite a few pleasures.”

She grinned back at him.

“Likewise.”

He leaned in to kiss her, and it felt natural for her to meet his lips with hers. At first she thought it was going to be a simple, chaste goodbye kiss, but then her tongue slid into his mouth, and his fingers tangled in her hair, and the kiss became a lot more. Finally, she pulled away.

“I should, um, go,” she said.

He kissed her softly again.

“Maybe we could . . . see each other again sometime?”

This guy was so nice he even wanted to pretend it wasn’t a one-night stand.

“Yeah, maybe,” she said.

He pulled open the console between the two front seats and grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen.

“What’s your number?” he asked.

Oh, he was serious? She hadn’t expected that. He looked at her for a second, and his smile faded.

“Why don’t I give you mine?” he said.

He scrawled a number on the paper and handed it to her, and she tucked the paper with his number on it into her wallet.

“Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for the ride home.”

She opened the car door and turned to him.

“Bye, Luke. Have a good week.”

He grinned at her.

“You, too, Margot. It started off well, at least.”

She laughed the whole way up to her door.

Once she got inside, she immediately pulled her phone out of her bag. Okay, thank goodness, there were no emergency text messages from her brother this morning. Not like that happened often—it had happened only four times since she’d started this job—but it would be just like him for the fifth to happen when she’d woken up in some stranger’s bed.

Some twentysomething stranger’s bed.

She laughed out loud, stripped her clothes off, and got in the shower.

When she got out of the shower, she pulled her Monday dress off its hanger. Because she hated both early mornings and making decisions when she was tired, she’d long ago simplified certain things about her life. Hence, her Monday dress: It was a simple black wrap dress with short sleeves, and she wore it every single Monday. She could add accessories, dress it up or down, wear a heavy cardigan over it in the winter, etc., and she was almost positive no one had ever noticed that she wore it every Monday. That was the great thing about living in a temperate climate—she could wear the same dress all year and be just fine.

She turned on her coffee maker while she put on moisturizer, attempted to make her hair look like it was in purposeful beachy waves instead of like she’d just been fucked senseless, and swiped on some mascara. She tucked her favorite red lipstick in her bag, filled up her travel thermos with coffee, and then got in the car for the drive up to the winery.

She unlocked the front door of the winery when she arrived, but she knew Elliot was already there. He was probably just in the barn out back, where all of the winemaking happened. He always got here before her, though she often left after him. Early on, she’d tried to prove herself and get to the winery before him, just so he’d know she really meant it, that this wasn’t just a lark for her, that she was really dedicated. She’d tried for a whole week, and by the time she’d arrived one morning, triumphant, at six a.m., and saw his truck already in the parking lot, she knew it was time to give up.

She walked into her office and spent time before her nine-thirty call doing some of the organizing of her desk and her emails that she’d meant to do the night before—before she’d driven off, furious, to the Barrel. She grinned to herself. For once, she was glad she’d left some work unfinished.

The whole time she worked, she could feel that hum in her body. She was sore, almost everywhere; she was pretty sure she was developing a significant hickey on her right collarbone; she was exhausted from lack of sleep. And she felt fucking fantastic.

Since she’d moved to Napa, she’d kept her head down, worked hard at the winery and at becoming a part of this community, to prove to her brother and everyone else that she was committed to this job, to this life. She had occasionally let men next to her at bars strike up conversations with her, but they’d always been either obnoxious or boring. Luke had been neither.