Wright Rival (Wright)

I grabbed a bottle of our wine and held it out to him. “Here we go.”

“Where should we do this?”

I toed open the door that led into the barn and flicked on the twinkle lights overhead, which made it seem like we were really under the stars. I filched a pair of glasses from the bar and set them out. I tossed him the corkscrew. He caught it one-handed and pried open the cork on my wine and then his.

“You sure you want to do this? Sure you don’t want to wait for the official tasting?” he joked.

“Pour the damn wine, Hollin,” I said with a laugh.

Once the wine was poured, we each took a glass. I started with my wine. I knew exactly what it would taste like, but I wanted a baseline. He seemed to have the same thought, going for the Abbey vintage first.

“Why’d you name it that?” I asked.

Sinclair Cellars didn’t have original, catchy names. We told you what the fuck you were drinking. And this was a beautiful, full-bodied merlot that was my go-to.

“I said that Wright could go on the sign, but Abbey was the blood of the vineyard. It was going on the wine.”

I nodded, understanding. I’d always wanted Medina on the wine. I wanted to claim it for what it was. Mine. It had always been mine. And yet it had someone else’s name on it. The Sinclairs had owned it before we did, and there was no reason to fix what wasn’t broken.

“Cheers,” I said.

I tipped back the glass and took a sip of my wine. Perfect. Exactly what I’d wanted. Hollin grinned and took another full drink of it. As if he couldn’t get enough of the Abbey.

“Next?” he suggested.

I eyed him as I took the Wright wine in my hand. He cracked a smirk as he reached for my wine. We stood there for a matter of seconds. Each waiting for the other to make the move. It wouldn’t change anything about the competition in a few weeks. But it felt momentous nonetheless.

“All right, Abbey,” I said, and I took a drink.

Hollin mirrored me. His throat bobbed around the merlot as I took in the richness of his wine. Fuck. It was good. It was really good.

We looked at each other and then spoke at the same time.

“Yours is better,” he said as I said, “Damn, that’s amazing.”

We both laughed.

“Well, fuck,” he said. “I guess that doesn’t prove anything.”

“I guess it doesn’t,” I admitted. I took another sip of his wine. “But it is good.”

“Yours is…perfection, Piper. You should be proud.”

“This is your first official year, Hollin. How are y’all making this?”

He winked at me. “Can’t tell you trade secrets.”

“Course not. Now, pour me more.” I held out my glass, and he added more Abbey vintage into the glass.

I didn’t know what was going to happen to us at the competition. We were opponents. But maybe not quite enemies anymore.

“Want to walk the fields?” I asked.

His eyes landed on my lips. “Yes.”

He slipped his arm around my shoulders, and we headed out through the vineyard. I knew the way like the back of my hand. The little circle of benches that we kept up all year even though they were only used during the fall and winter for our tours. But I breathed in the air and the darkening sky and being here, alone with Hollin.

“I’m glad we did this,” I admitted when he took a seat on the bench.

He’d finished off his glass already and set it aside. “Yeah? Me too.”

“I’m actually having a good time,” I teased, setting my glass next to his and bending down to kiss him. Our lips were tinged slightly red, and he tasted like wine. I could have drowned in that taste.

He tugged me onto his lap. “You say that like you weren’t expecting to.”

“Well, no. It’s not that.”

“You going to tell me why you really didn’t want to go on a date with me?”

I jolted slightly. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been acting like I hurt you personally for weeks.”

“You mean, besides you being a jerk to me for the entire time I’ve known you?”

He chortled. “Well, I suppose, yes. It felt like more than that. That didn’t used to get to you.”

“Ah, well…” I came to my feet. His hands slid across my ass before finally releasing me. “Do you remember two girls that you dated several years ago? Khloe and Quinn?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

I breathed out heavily. All this time, it had completely wrecked my world, and he didn’t even remember them.

“Well, they were my roommates.” His brow furrowed, and I pushed on, explaining what had happened. How he’d dated them both, led them on, and how it had decimated their relationship. The only reason I’d found a way to buy my own house was because of that horrid situation.