“You’re a language that I’m learning, Zoe.” A stripe of bright moonlight falls over her face, so serious and intent. “Maybe I can’t speak you fully yet, but I will. I want todreamin you.” Her hands slide down to braid her fingers with mine. “But until then, please believe me when I say there’s nothing you need to worry about. These are just the twists and turns, boss, but I promise there’s more road for us up ahead.”
I blink, my eyes welling from the magnitude of how much I want to get to that straight line of road with Laine.
“I believe you,” I finally say. Or I want to, at least.
I lie down on top of her then, letting someone, for once, bear the full weight of me.
After that, the days move by in a blur, filled to bursting with preparing for harvest and the showcase. It’s the nights that slow down long enough for me to savor them. Nights spent in Laine’s arms, sleeping besideher, reading beside her. It’s unbearably endearing to find Laine with her thick-rimmed glasses on, propped up in bed poring over grape history.Did you know that the Norton variety was almost lost during Prohibition?she’d asked last night, and I smiled and shook my head.Fascinating, she murmured, then lit up once again with the next interesting fact.Did you know, did you know, did you know?
DidIknow?
How easy this would feel? Falling into step with Laine as though our strides were perfectly matched to carry us from our shared past to some future destination?
No. I didn’t know feeling this way was something I could expect from life. Other people fall in love; I just fall.
When I wake, Laine’s already up and gone. She’s next-level busy right now, and while it’s amazing to watch her in her full glorious vintner element—guiding the slow, steady fermentation of the white wines, monitoring the fast and furious fermentation of the reds, pressing, filtering, racking over and over again—I have a to-do list a mile long, too. The showcase is in two weeks, and despite my careful planning, there’s no avoiding the crush of work that always comes right before a big event. By the time I get to my office, Matthew, aka Mr. Logistics, has called twice and left seven text messages. It’s like having a very concerned second head looking over all my planning and coordination efforts andtsking nonstop. The man thinks ofeverythingthat could go wrong.When was the last time your septic system was serviced? Have you changed the batteries in your fire detectors? Who’s your linen rental provider? Have you purchased special event insurance, or is your general policy sufficient? Are you making time for self-care? Can’t burn out now!The questions go on and on, and after every call, I have a new set of tasks to add to the ones still waiting from the day before.
I sigh into my coffee cup and set about destroying my to-do list. Around eleven a.m., a knock on my office door interrupts my hundredth email of the day.
“Yeah?”
The door opens, and Josiah sticks his head in.
I frown and fully disengage from the keyboard. Josiah’s one of our longtime vineyard hands, but I can count the number of times he’s entered my office during the workday on one hand.
“Hey, Zoe, you got a minute?”
“Sure, what’s going on?”
He wrings his faded orange ball cap in his hands so tightly his knuckles blanch. “Laine pulled down some white samples today. There’s something—off about ’em.”
This statement looks like it’s costing Josiah years off his life. Usually, he’s all smiles, tipping that ball cap for every woman, elder, and that one time, the TV as it flashed an image of Queen Elizabeth II. He and Laine immediately took to each other, so I know this isn’t mean-spirited. It must be extra hard for him to bring it to me.
“Did you share your thoughts with her?”
“I tried to.” He shakes his head forlornly. “She says it’s on purpose, but that ain’t what Georgia Girls is supposed to taste like. I been helping Cosimo make that wine for the last ten years, and it ain’t never tasted like … that.” His usual smile twists into a disgusted wrinkle across his face, andfearshoots through my veins.
I squash it down. Laine’s committed to a more organic style of winemaking, meaning less sulfur dioxide treatments throughout, giving an earthier quality to our wines. Maybe that’s all it is—a slight change to a well-known wine can feel momentous to a trained palate. I’m hoping it’s just Josiah’s long familiarity with Georgia Girls that makes any deviationfrom the standard product feel distasteful, and simultaneously terrified that Laine’s iteration of our best-selling crowd-pleaser will turn off our longtime customers, too.
“Thanks for telling me. I’ll check on it.” I give him a weak smile, letting him leave first. The way he looks both ways down the hall tells me he’s as nervous as I am to challenge Laine on her winemaking. God, how’sthisgoing to go?
I wander into the vats area, the smell of fermenting yeast overwhelming even with the exhaust system on full blast. “Laine?” I call for her again, then feel her arms slip around me.
“Hey, boss!”
I force myself to face her. “Can we talk?”
She leads me by the hand with a wry smile to the quieter end of the winery, where the samples are conveniently still laid out. It’s a testament to her confidence that she doesn’t look fazed at all. If the roles were reversed, andmygirlfriend askedcan we talk?I’d have already dissociated from my body.
“What’s up?” She brings my hand to her mouth, sliding a finger between her lips. “I don’t have time for a quickie, but if you try to convince me … I might.”
“Are these the samples?” I ask, though I already know they are. “Can I try?”
Laine’s playful expression shifts a little, and thensheappears, Beave, my chief vintner, shoulders thrown back, exuding a competence that turns me on more than her sucking my finger, and that’s saying something. “Sure. In fact, I was just about to try the new red blend.” Her eyes spark with the energy of expectation, that feeling the moment before your test scores load when you don’t know how you did, but yoususpectyou aced it. “I haven’t tasted it since I made all those changes to it inspired by yourmother’s journals—it’s been killing me to give it enough time to get over the bottle-shock period. Wanna start there?”
She looks so excited, I can’t help but feel it, too.Please, let Josiah be wrong.“Absolutely.” I force myself to smile as she grabs the sample bottle and uncorks it, pouring us a glass of each. Already, the color is mesmerizing. This is a young red, fresh and fruit-forward, the color a pale ruby filtered by sunlight. If nothing else, Laine’s blended our bases into a beautiful wine.
The wine slides against the glass, leaving a wake the color of sunsets that promises a healthy alcoholic content. I bring the glass to my nose, sniffing lightly, then deeply in.
