Shit, now I’d done it. “Um…I can’t remember. Someone must have told me.”
“Well, that’s a shame. Hopefully he had a good life. Now, are you ready to get to work? Because I’ve been here for hours and am exhausted.”
“I’m ready, Tom. I really am.”
* * *
Nat was picking me up at my apartment in an hour, but I was already ready. It wasn’t like me to be ahead of schedule, but it was so seldom I had a date, I was a nervous wreck. Not that he would ever know that. No, I was wearing a nice fitted wrap top that accentuated my shape, as well as the comfortable shoes he’d instructed me to wear—why he recommended footwear for our outing, I wasn’t sure, but I guess I’d soon find out. Anyway, I’d gotten a new MAC lipstick, curled my hair with my wand, and actually felt pretty freaking good.
While I had time to kill, Tom’s words drifted back to me—that if my only ambition was to stay at the Drive By ‘til the end of my days, then I was selling myself short. I’d always been fascinated by wine and wanted to learn more. I flipped open my laptop and Googled sommelier courses. The amount of information was insane.
There were several levels to advance through, starting with introductory courses. But damn, it was all so expensive. The beginner courses started around six hundred dollars and the advanced ones were upward of two thousand. On top of that steep price tag, to progress, there were what looked like very hard tests. You could get certified, pass to the advanced level, and if you were really ambitious, become a master. And I found that fewer than twenty-five percent of sommeliers are women. What was up with that?
I clicked my laptop closed. What was the point? With the student loans I was already trying to pay off, the cost of the sommelier courses, and the tests that looked next to impossible to pass, who was I fooling? I was no sooner going to become a master sommelier than I was a millionaire living in a mansion overlooking San Francisco Bay.
Chapter 10
Nathaniel “Nat”
I swung by Garnet’s place in the Mission to pick her up for our date. I had to admit, I’d really been looking forward to seeing her again, something that rarely happened for me.
I was still puzzled about our meeting. I mean, wasn’t it odd that she had wanted to talk about accounting matters when, from what I could see, the girl didn’t have a pot to piss in? And why had Jonesy sent me to her? But she was hot as hell, and her crooked smile slayed me. So all was not lost.
I double-parked in the street like everyone else in San Francisco did and rang her bell. Holy Christ, she took my breath away when she came to the door. She had this long, wavy-curly hair that almost didn’t look real, and her bright blue eyes glowed. Yeah, there was something about her that was magical. I couldn’t put my finger on it, it felt good.
“You look amazing,” I said, opening the passenger side door for her. Damn if I wasn’t already getting hard in my jeans. I helped myself to her hand as we drove across town. If she wiggled out of my grip, I’d know her level of interest. But good news, she took my fingers just as tightly as I held hers.
“So, where we goin’?” she asked.
“You’ll see very soon,” I teased. I stole a look and found her smiling. For the longest time I’d been avoiding getting into any sort of relationship in order to concentrate on my career, but I could surely see myself spending time with this woman.
We pulled into a parking spot in the Fisherman’s Wharf neighborhood, and I grabbed her hand again to lead her through the throngs of tourists.
“Hmmm. I don’t know if I should just be following you,” she joked. “You know, with no idea of where we’re going.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I shot back.
I led her down a dock toward a small sailboat. A captain walked out of the hull as we approached.
“No way!” she said, turning to me with wide-open eyes. “We’re going sailing? I’ve never been on a sailboat.”
I held her hand as she stepped aboard. Before I knew it, the captain had untied us from the dock and we were underway.
We settled onto the bench seat in the stern. I reached into a bucket to pull out a bottle of champagne.
“Thirsty?” I asked.
“Yes, please.” Her eyes were wide, and she stared up at the sky. “Wow, look at the full moon. It’s incredible. And so quiet.”
“I thought you might like it.”
She looked directly at me. “Thank you. This is amazing.”
It wasn’t a particularly windy night, so we sailed across the Bay at a mellow clip. It was perfect for someone who’d never been sailing before. Heck, I’d been only a few times myself.
“So how long have you worked for the accounting firm?”
“Six years. It’s a good place. I have great clients, but I work long hours. I’d like to pull back a bit, but I’m at the stage where I could make partner in the next year.”