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Julia
He staredat me for several moments. Swaying. Blinking. Contemplating. You’d think he’d just been dealt a Sophie’s Choice… Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.
Finally, he drew in a deep breath and gave me a barely imperceptible nod as he drifted toward me. Plopping down in the same spot, he patted the sand beside him.
I took that as an invitation and walked toward him, slowly lowering myself. Without a single word, he extended the bottle toward me, midnight blue eyes watching my every move as I took it and brought it to my lips.
As I sipped, I expected my tastebuds to be assaulted with some shitty church wine, as my brother and I always called the mass-produced crap usually found on the bottom shelf of the grocery store. Or perhaps in the section labeled “Fine Wine Products”, which was even worse than the bottom shelf.
Instead, I was met with an explosion of robust flavors. Full-bodied. Complex.
Lowering the bottle and looking at the label, I practically choked on the wine.
“Not to your liking?” he remarked.
I coughed a few more times as I shook my head. “That’s not it,” I finally managed to say before clearing my throat. “I just didn’t expect to be drinking an Opus One Cab Sav out of the bottle.” I passed it back to him. “Pretty sure there’s a law against that somewhere. Maybe etched on stone and handed down from Mondavi and de Rothschild from their Napa castle in the sky.”
He swept his analytical gaze over me, unraveling me with that same intensity he seemed to do everything. Then the most miraculous thing happened.
He laughed.
And not merely a simple, polite laugh.
It was this amazing, endearing, full-bodied laugh, the sound raspy, gravelly, and so damn sexy. I couldn’t help but join in. Nervously at first, fully expecting Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding to make a reappearance.
When that didn’t happen, my laughter turned less nervous, more relieved. Then into my more natural laugh.
“And what does it say?” he asked between chuckles. “‘Thou shall not drink amazing wine straight from the bottle’?”
“You are supposed to let it aerate.”
“Allow me.” A hand around the neck of the bottle, he swooshed it in a circular motion. Then he gave it back to me. “Now it’s aerated.”
Laughter rolled through me once more, a light fluttering in my chest. This man was certainly not what I’d originally expected. I didn’t know many people in their twenties who drank wine, let alone appreciated an amazing varietal like this. He was so nonchalant, acting as if it were merely something he picked up every day. Most men I knew would make a big ordeal of it, telling me in precise detail of the technique Mondavi and de Rothschild developed in making this wine, as if I hadn’t gone to culinary school in Napa Valley and briefly studied viticulture. Men my age loved mansplaining.
Not this guy, though. He didn’t regale me with facts about the wine. Didn’t attempt to impress me by saying he’d visited the vineyard and knew the head winemaker. Didn’t share a list of all the wines he had cellared, including ones I knew for a fact were past their cellar date. He was refreshingly blasé, for lack of a better word.
I took another sip from the bottle, savoring the wine now that I was prepared for it. It truly was incredible. Rugged, bold, complicated. A little like I surmised he was. When I handed it back, he set it on the sand between us, an open invitation for me to have more if I wanted.
Several moments passed as we simply sat together, listening to the ocean waves mere yards away, watching as the water came in, then was swept back out to sea.
During our previous encounters, I couldn’t ignore the nervous tug to fill any silence with word vomit, as Imogene often called my anxious chatter. But right now, with the welcome break in tension, I didn’t feel the need to pollute the air with words.
Neither did he.
We just sat. And drank. And thought.
“It’s my fortieth birthday,” I declared after a while.
He turned his gaze to mine. Studying. Scrutinizing. Analyzing. Then he handed me the bottle. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” My lack of enthusiasm over the prospect of having completed another trip around the sun was obvious in the melancholy tone of my voice.
Why did forty sound so much older than thirty-nine? Maybe because your thirties were a decade typically marked with several big accomplishments. Most people in their thirties got married, started a family, bought their first home. Your forties were supposed to be the time you enjoyed all those things. I felt like I was starting over again. A daunting notion this late in the game.
“I’m guessing it’s a tough birthday?”
I thought a moment. “More…introspective than anything. You’ll know what I’m talking about in… What? Fifteen years or so? It makes you think. Makes you look back on your life and question everything. To be honest, I thought I’d have my shit together by this point.”
