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He paused at the bike rack next to the Manning Hall steps.
“I just wanted to talk to you for a second about the hometown date. Did you watch the Love Match episode last night?”
“Not yet. I’ll get to it later.” He unlocked his bike from the rack.
“Cool. No problem, but the dates were all hometowns. Victoria went to each of the guys’ family homes.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that. I’ll see it sometime this week.” He grabbed the handlebars and shook the bike loose from its station.
“I didn’t know about the hometowns either, but I already talked to my mom and she said we can go to Asheville for the weekend. I mean, if you want to.”
He swung one leg over the seat.
“Beau? Did you hear me?” I was standing right next to him.
“Yeah. I heard you. I don’t know about that, London. The whole weekend?”
“We could just go up Saturday night if that’s better? I don’t want you to do it if you’re not into it. It’s the only thing I could come up with after I watched the episode.”
He kept his eyes on the handlebar. I couldn’t even get him to look at me. “No, it’s cool. We can go, I guess. I haven’t been to Asheville in a long time, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was curious to meet your parents.” He finally looked up and smiled.
“Awesome! I mean, good. That’s good you want to do the hometown date.” Could I get more tongue-tied in front of this boy? “I can pick you up Friday. You know, whenever.”
“See you.” He peddled off in the direction of the student union.
He had actually agreed to go. I smiled. Hometown weekend was starting to look more promising by the minute.
Date Nine: Hometown Brotown
It was hard to keep my eyes on the road with Beau in the seat next to me. He kept changing the radio station halfway through the songs. The farther I drove us into the mountains, the harder it was to keep a station static-free.
“I think you need to give me the crash course in the James family before we get to your parents house. You never really talk about your family.” Beau gave up on finding music and turned the radio off.
“There isn’t much to tell. What do you want to know about them?”
“What do they do?”
“I haven’t mentioned anything to you about this already?” It seemed that in one of my tequila hazes I would have told Beau about my parents.
“No. You just said they were strict when you were growing up and you told me about the bargain they made with you about going to L.A. Is there something you’re not telling me? I’m getting nervous about the weekend now. Is your dad some kind of former spy like Jack Bauer or something?”
I laughed thinking of my dad doing anything threatening. “No, he’s not Jack Bauer—far from it. My parents own a winery.”
“A winery? That’s awesome. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I wasn’t sure what had kept me from telling Beau more about my life growing up. We did talk, but it was all about the present. Nothing else seemed to matter when I was wrapped in his arms. I definitely wasn’t thinking about my family or my childhood.
“It just didn’t come up.” I looked over at him. His forehead was scrunched up and I could tell I had annoyed him. “But that’s all about to change. You get to meet the James family in about five minutes.”
We drove past the town sign declaring we had entered the city limits of Asheville. Now, all we had to do was navigate the rows of coffee shops and wine bars and we would be close to the turn off to the family homestead. Beau’s eyes were glued to the scenery outside his window.
“What should I expect?”
“Well, my mom is the business manager and runs the marketing and finances for the winery. So, she’s pretty much a no-nonsense kind of woman. My dad was an attorney. I was too young to remember when he practiced law, but now he manages the property, the employees, and the grape production.”
I slowed the car as we reached the double iron gates. I rolled down the window and punched in my pass code.
“Mystic Vineyards?” Beau looked over the entangled M and V welded into the gate. “Wow.”
