We were closed tomorrow, but that didn’t mean I was going anywhere overnight. With Marco. The kiss had been a mistake. This was madness.
You’ll see. See you at six?
Yeah, no. I was not going anywhere overnight with Marco Grado. Lifting my finger to tell him that, Alanna’s words from last night came back to me.
“So what? You kissed him. And it was incredible. You’re not marrying the guy. Have a little fun. Stop overthinking.”
Telling me to stop overthinking was like telling leaves to stop falling in autumn. With the weather just beginning to turn cooler at night, my favorite season was on the brain. But not as much as Marco. That kiss...
Yes?
He wanted to know if I was coming. Agreeing to whatever crazy plan he’d cooked up.
“He makes me smile, Alanna,” I’d said. “He’s so outrageous that it’s actually funny.”
“By ‘outrageous’ you mean hot?”
“That too.”
I was already pissed at myself. Feeling guilty for having given in. I supposed if I was going to feel guilty about something, I might as well make it worth the guilt trip.
* * *
“You don’t have to open the door for me,” I said as Marco jumped out of the driver’s side to do just that.
He stopped. “You don’t want me to?’
Impossibly handsome, his hair tousled more than usual, Marco waited for me to respond. I wasn’t sure. Clearly, I didn’t need a man to open my car door. As a liberated woman, I shouldn’t want him to. And yet...I liked it.
Liberated meant I could do what I liked, not what society told me to like. “You could,” I said. “But don’t feel like you have to.”
He opened the passenger door. “Duly noted.”
Taking my small duffle bag, he headed around the front of the truck, got inside and put my bag in the cab. It wasn’t until we’d left Sunset property that I finally asked.
“What’s going on?” His quick glance and subsequent sly smile did not put me at ease. “Marco?”
“We’re going camping.”
“We’re...what?” A vision of a small tent, the two of us inside together... “Marco, we can’t go camping.”
“Why not?”
I stared at him. “I have no words for you.”
“Good,” he said. “Sorry about today. Rochester is having supply problems, so I ended up having to hike over to the brewer.”
“You went to Rochester?”
“Unfortunately. It’s not good, either. We’ll either have to supplement to meet demand with another brewer or get our own operation up and running sooner than we projected. By November, we’ll be shit out of luck unless we do something drastic.”
“That’s awful. What are you gonna do?”
He sighed. “I contacted Black Moon Brewery on the south tip of Seneca—they’d be my first choice—but they’re having the same problems. Hudson and I spent the afternoon making calls.”
“And?”
“And we’re going to go full-bore to get our own brews out by the end of October. That’s almost two full months ahead of schedule, but in the end, it’ll be worth it.”