“I live on Starlit Road.”
“Me, too.” I grin at him. “My family owns the winery at the end of the road.”
“Oh cool.” He nods and thinks for a second. “I guess that means we’re neighbors. We moved into the house next door.”
“Awesome, we’ll have to hang out sometime.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and I fear I may have scared him off already. It’s not that I don’t have friends, buttheir parents don’t want to have to drive more than ten minutes to bring them over unless I’m having a sleepover. It would be nice to have someone to hang out with who won’t have that problem.
“I’d like that.” He smiles. “So, do I get to have one of those roses?”
“Absolutely not.” I hug them tighter to me as I laugh. “I happen to like my roses.”
Yes, I was complaining about having to carry them on the bus, but I do love them. There’s just something about fresh flowers in my room that makes the days brighter.
“That’s cool.”
The bus turns onto our road and I’m shocked I haven’t realized the other stops. Talking to Beau has made the ride more bearable than usual. The bus gets down to the end of the road and opens the doors.
“This is us.” I glance at my flower and my bag, trying to figure out how I’m going to do this without spilling water everywhere.
Beau stands and slings his backpack over his shoulder before grabbing my flowers. That was thoughtful. I bend down to get my bag and follow him off the bus.
Once we’re both off, he points to my house. “I’ll walk you home and carry these for you.”
“Thank you.”
We spend the next few minutes talking about the music we listen to and what we like to do in our free time. He’s really easy to talk to, and nothing like my brothers and sister.
“I think I have it from here.”
We’re at the end of my driveway. I’m not sure how my dad will take a boy walking me home. Especially one he’s never met.
“I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” He gives an awkward wave before turning in the direction of his house.
I pull a rose out of my vase. “Wait!”
He stops and faces me. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you a rose. Think of it as a symbol of our brand new friendship.”
I place it in his hands, careful to make sure he still has a hold on it, and isn’t getting pricked by a thorn.
“Thank you.” He lifts it up in goodbye before walking to his house. I can already tell we’re going to be best friends.
one
. . .
piper
One last check.The notecards are in a stack by my laptop. I grab the cord connected to my laptop and follow it to the projection screen. One of these days I’m going to talk Mom and Dad into getting something that can connect with bluetooth. If not, one of us will trip…and it’ll likely be me.
I take a deep breath and let it out. I’ve got this. As soon as I’m done with this presentation, everyone will see the direction we need to go with our marketing. If we want to stay ahead of the other wine brands out there, we need to up our game. Would it be nice to not have to do all this work? Yes. It’s just not going to take us where I know my brother wants the company to go, even if he won’t admit it.
We’ve always been a small winery. The local bar and some stores carry our wines, but we need to get outside of Texas and scale up to a national level. I’m hoping my ideas will pique their interest.
“You’re here early.” Pierce, my oldest brother, comes into the room and takes a seat at the table. “We usually have to call you a million times to get you here thirty minutes late.”
