Drunk on Love(37)

At least Luke didn’t know how much she was drawn to him, how much she thought about him. Well, she hoped he didn’t know that. And she thought about that night far too often, especially when she couldn’t sleep and she let herself remember every second of that night, starting from the kiss outside the Barrel, and then that silent, tense, anticipatory walk back to his place, and then that kiss at his front door. She especially let herself remember the way his fingers had brushed against her nipples, and then lingered; the way they’d slipped inside of her, later on the bed, followed by his tongue, and then—

Shit. No. She couldn’t think about this here, now, of all places. Not with Luke so close. Plus, she really did have that call at eleven, and she had to prep for it. Oh, and she had to print the menus for today, right. She forced herself to put thoughts of Luke to the back of her mind, and turned to her computer.



* * *





LUKE HOPED MARGOT HADN’T noticed his moment of slight—very slight—panic when she’d told him that Taylor was gone for the day and he’d be all alone in the tasting room. He’d wanted to beg Margot to stay in there with him, tell her that he wasn’t ready to do this by himself, but his pride wouldn’t let him.

It wasn’t that the general duties of working in the tasting room were beyond him. He was smart, he could follow directions, he could pour wine; he’d graduated magna cum laude from Stanford, after all. He opened the dishwasher to unload it, but the glasses in there were still dirty. Whoever had closed up the night before must have forgotten to turn it on. He powered it on and went to check the appointments for the day.

This job, for the most part, was a lot of fun. But it was the questions all of these people asked! That’s what had made him bite his lip to keep himself from swearing when Margot had told him he was in charge of the tasting room for today. He’d have to find a way to answer things like how many different kinds of grapes were in each bottle of wine; and where all of those grapes were grown, and if they’d had any issues with smoke taint (a horrifying phrase if he’d ever heard it) because of the fires from the past few years; and how many acres, exactly, of vineyards did the Nobles own; and were their grapes grown elsewhere; and wasn’t this Cab Franc a lot more like a Cab Sauv and really, what was the difference between them; and so many other things. And of course, since he was Black, and a man, and many people who came to the winery knew that the winemaker was Black, and a man, they often assumed he was Elliot, and asked him lots of detailed winemaking questions that didn’t stop even when he’d made it clear that he was neither a winemaker nor a member of the Noble family.

Up until now, Taylor or Daisy had always been there to jump in when he’d gotten questions he couldn’t answer—occasionally Margot was around to pitch in—but today he’d just do what he could to answer and call in Margot only for anything extra tricky.

He knew that was another part of it, of course. He didn’t want to have to call in Margot for anything tricky. He didn’t want Margot to have to rescue him from questions he didn’t know enough to answer. He wanted to impress her. But then, would Margot, being Margot, be far more impressed with him if he admitted to what he didn’t know?

He wasn’t used to being in an environment like this. He had no idea how to handle it.

He sighed and looked back down at the appointment list.

“Oh no!” Margot stood at the door, a stack of menus in her hands and a panicked look on her face. He turned around to see what she was looking at. Water, leaking out from the dishwasher. He jumped to turn it off, but Margot had gotten there before him.

“It’s broken,” she said. “Damn it. I’ll call the plumber, I guess.” She sighed. “This would happen on a day Taylor wasn’t here.”

He rolled up his sleeves.

“Want me to take a look at it first?”

Margot stared at him.

“What do you know about dishwashers?”

Luke knelt down in front of the dishwasher.

“My mom owns an inn—I had to figure out pretty quickly how to fix most household appliances.”

Margot let out that low laugh of hers. Thank God his back was to her.

“I honestly don’t know why none of us have ever figured out dishwashers, we certainly wash enough wineglasses every day to need to know this. Between me, Elliot, and Taylor, we know how to fix almost everything else around here, including all of the cars. I think it’s just because the dishwasher hasn’t broken yet.”

He turned around at that.

“You can fix cars?”

She put her hands on her hips, a look of mock outrage on her face.

“Don’t look so surprised at that. Don’t I look like the kind of woman who can fix a car?”

He had no idea how to answer that, but she just laughed again.

“Well, I am—at least, for the easy stuff.” The expression on her face softened. “Uncle Stan taught both me and Elliot about cars, starting with that old truck of his that’s still out there.”

He’d wondered about that old truck. It looked well-preserved, but it had been in the same place since he’d started here.

He turned back to the dishwasher. He opened it and looked around.

“I’ll get the tool kit,” Margot said from behind him. He heard her heels clicking on the wood floor as she went into the back and then quickly came back out.