“Here he comes,” Jen whispered.
I resisted the urge to turn around. As he neared our table, he came into view with more wine bottles than I could ever possibly carry, then began to put them on the table. With a name like Cosimo, and by the way he looked, the guy was definitely Italian. And so damn attractive, good lord.
“We’ll start with this one,” he said, picking up a bottle. “I think the three of you have selected the pinot gris.” He began to pour. “A perfect summer wine.”
I didn’t choose the pinot gris, so I just hung back and watched. He was charming, and obviously knowledgeable, but kind of robotic. Like he’d done this so many times he wasn’t even thinking about it. Which he probably had, but the least he could do was pretend to be enjoying himself.
Super hot, yes. But not my type at all. I liked guys like me. Fun-loving. Ones who loved life and made me smile. This one was way too serious, and not just because of the dark-rimmed glasses, which did make him look like Clark Kent a bit. Just his general vibe.
“Okay, this next one is our Silver Chardonnay. It’s typically served in thirty-one, but we moved it over here for the summer.”
“Thirty-one?” Amy asked. “What’s that?”
He gave my friend his full attention, which I did like. Eye contact was an underrated skill. “Sorry. The 1931 Wine Barn. We have two wineries on-site. You’re in the 1942 Wine Cellar building now. Or in back of it, at least. You saw the other one before you came in, on your left in the courtyard. Locals refer to them as thirty-one and forty-two or sometimes just the Barn and the Cellar.”
He began to pour the chardonnay in each of our glasses.
“What do the numbers mean?” Leeta swirled the glass in her wine like she knew what she was doing. We were all total amateurs when it came to wine tastings. We liked wine, but we were definitely not pros. But yesterday one of the wine attendees told us that swirling the wine caused some evaporation to take place, apparently a good thing, so now all of us did it as if we were total connoisseurs.
“They’re the years the owner’s parents came to the States from Italy, nineteen thirty-one and nineteen forty-two.”
I was about to ask about the owner, but as our guy told everyone to drink, I realized he forgot me. “I selected this one too,” I said.
He looked at me from across the table.
His eyes were brown. A deep, dark, molten brown that reminded me of the chocolate that oozed from a lava cake. Maybe just because I really liked chocolate lava cake.
Breaking eye contact, he looked down at my sheet. “So you did.”
Was it me, or did his tone change? As if he didn’t like me much. Which was odd. My coworkers told me all the time I was way too nice to be working in the city. I tried really hard to have an edge, and sometimes succeeded, but I knew how to turn that off outside the office. And I usually made a good first impression.
“Can you slide your glass to me?”
Despite the tone, it still sounded dirty. I resisted the urge to say,I can slide whatever you want to you, and did as he asked.
My glass now filled, I pulled it back.
“So this is a full-flavored wine with notes of caramel, vanilla, and peach. Fermentation was stopped before dryness, giving it a sweetness balanced by a rich, creamy texture. See what you think.”
I took a sip, detecting only the vanilla and caramel but not the note of peach, and I told him so.
“Do you drink a lot of wine?” he asked.
“I do. But usually just pinot grigio. I don’t branch out much.”
“Same,” Amy added. “But I like this. I can taste the peach, I think.”
“I definitely can,” Jen said. “It’s yummy.”
He was yummy.
Too bad the guy was a snoozefest. Otherwise, I might have made a move after Amy gave me the go-ahead. But I thought they were wrong about him being interested in me. The guy didn’t look my way again, not even when I had the wines he was pouring on my list.
Whatever.
It was too soon for me to date anyway. I had sworn off all men for the summer. If not longer. And we were only here a few more days.
I looked up, trying hard to actively ignore Clark Kent, and I saw a little girl racing away from a group of couples. They didn’t seem to notice her, but there was a log right in her path. The girl, upset, didn’t seem to see it either. She was going to take a big ol’ tumble.