Page 30 of Pop and Pour

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CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

brooke

Finally,after a week of upheaval—learning the ropes in the tasting room, moving into the cottage, finding the grocery store and stocking up—I felt relaxed for the first time. Sitting on my deck with a glass of chardonnay, a white I never thought I liked until this week, I saw a hint of the lake peeking through the trees. Definitely better than an apartment in town above a general store.

As always these days, my thoughts drifted to the man who had arranged for me to stay in this cottage. I’d seen so little of him this week, probably by design. And though I no longer felt as if I wanted to throttle him every time he walked into a room, I couldn’t say he was my favorite person to be around anyway.

People that serious made me nervous. I had tried so hard at Avec Coeur not to have diarrhea of the mouth. Evan would tell me all the time to keep my thoughts closer to the vest. But I’d just found it impossible, like climbing an icy mountain wearing nothing but a wet suit.

Giving myself precisely sixty seconds to dwell on the fact that Evan was no longer my boyfriend, a good thing, and that I was no longer head of product development at Avec Coeur, a not so good thing, I pushed both thoughts from my mind and tried to be present. Enjoy the surroundings after a long day at the Cellar. They hadn’t been kidding about how busy it got on the weekends here. My last day shadowing, I tried to imagine doing it all solo. By now I’d tasted all the wines many times. Knew the fragrance notes, an easy enough feat. Knew the difference between “in glass” wine characteristics and “in mouth” interpretations. But still, it was a lot. Acidity, texture, body. There was so much more to it than I’d initially realized.

My phone vibrated.

Was it him?

Pretending I hadn’t been waiting on pins and needles for Cosimo to get in touch about that chat I’d asked him for had been fun while it lasted. I picked up my phone.

Talk tonight or wait for tomorrow?

Shit. Now what? Did hewantto wait until tomorrow?

up to you

After a moment, still no response. I refused to be disappointed. I hardly liked the guy, he was my boss, and in two and a half months, my time at Grado would be a distant memory. If not sooner. I already had a half dozen job offers sitting in my inbox. At first glance, none seemed to be perfect fits, but I needed to sift through each prospect a little more.

On my porch, come anytime

My heart raced despite the fact that I didn’t really care one way or another if I saw Cosimo Grado tonight. I texted back:

Be down in 5

I cared so little to see him tonight that I reapplied my lip gloss, fixed my hair, and nearly stumbled twice on the walk down to his cottage. Which really was more like a log cabin mansion.

When I rounded the corner and saw him on the massive wraparound front porch, I willed my feet to keep moving rather than standing in place to soak it all in. The contrast between his white Grado tee and black-rimmed glasses, the casualness of him in that chair...dear lord.

“Wine in hand, good girl.”

As I walked up the stairs, I resisted the urge to ask him to repeat that last part in a slightly lower bedroom voice.

“Chard,” I said. “Never thought I liked it before.”

“Malolactic fermentation gives it a nice creamy texture,” he said as I sat.

He could have said “creamy texture” five more times and that would have been fine with me. “That sounds so sexy. Malolactic fermentation.”

“You’d be surprised how sexy wine can be.”

He said it casually, as if we were talking about the view. Or the weather. So I tried to appear as unaffected as him and I climbed the steps, wondering what he had in his glass. Actually, I wondered a lot of things about him, but that was the only question I’d let my mind explore.

“I’d call wine lots of things, but sexy?” And now I was flirting.

Fantastic, Brooke. Great idea.

Cosimo looked at me out of the side of his glasses. Then he stood up and walked over to me, these Adirondack chairs making me feel all cozy, like I was still on vacation. He squatted down, his head no more than a foot from mine.

“Take a sip.”

I could have told him to knock it off with the commands. Or to keep them up. Instead, I said nothing and took a sip.


Tags: Bella Michaels Romance