Raffi did not dance. Not anymore. He used to, and in fact, he’d had a bit of a knack for it. His mother had secretly put him into ballroom dancing classes, which Raffi found he loved. Mom had told him, “You can move. Everyone can learn and get better, but there’s also God-given talent and you have it. Let’s not waste it.”
The Argentine tango had been his favorite. He’d won several regional competitions, which his mother and Sevanhad attended, clapping him on the back, hugging him tight. They’d both been so supportive. But then he quit the hobby completely. His dad had never found out, so he wasn’t the reason he stopped.
Raffi had dropped his classes after Sevan died, had quit dancing altogether, and most of the time being around music and other people dancing was fine. But sometimes? It was unbearable.
Raffi took advantage of being the proprietor of this winery by topping off his glass a quarter inch from the brim.
He was holding this glass, inspecting it and calculating how stupid it had been to fill it that high while wearing tailored wool, when Ani floated in.
The music faded to a muffled throb while he took in the sight of her. She donned a short white dress and high platform heels. The soft lighting caught in her hair and shimmered against her skin, like the room had saved its glow just for her. And she was searching the room.
She had come. That was the thing.
It wasn’t just how stunning she was—and make no mistake, she was st-uh-nning—it was that her presence somehow took him from crying under a metaphorical bridge with a not-so-metaphorical bottle of wine to feeling like this night was suddenly full of possibilities. He didn’t care to analyze why; he just wanted to get high off the sensation of it for now.
Ani found him and strutted over in those heels.
“You came,” he said, and realized he sounded far too excited. No game, Raff, no game.
“I’m just checking out the lighting after dark,” she said, obviously lying.
“In your finest workwear, I see.”
Ani looked down at herself, and he detected a pinkening of her cheeks. “This old thing? I happened to have it on when it crossed my mind that it would be a good idea to see how your venue handles night lighting and sound.” Her eyes darted around. “Very well, I must say.”
Raffi fake bowed. “Thank you, Miss Wedding Planner. I live for your accolades.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and she seemed to be fighting it.
“Miss Wedding Planner would like a drink,” she said. “What’ve you got?”
Now it was Raffi’s turn to hide his blush. Hearing her use his nickname for her gave him a rush of blood in places unmentionable. Then he had to snap himself out of it because getting a visible hard-on at your own party was not cool. Nor anyone else’s party, except maybe those elite Silicon Valley orgies he kept hearing about and not getting invited to.
“We’ve got a bunch of local IPAs, Guinness, every classic cocktail you could think of, but absolutely no wine. Gross, hate the stuff.”
“Totally. Grape corpse water,” she said, again with that smile.
“So, cabernet? Or are you a chardonnay type?” he said, turning toward the counter, thanking his lucky stars that his wine was actually good and he’d have a chance to impress this incredible woman.
“Sauvignon blanc, actually,” she said. “Steel barrel aged is my preference, but I go for oak, too.”
“Maybe I should be calling you Miss Wine Spectator instead?”
Ani shrugged. “Had a period of time when I went to wineries a lot.”
Based on the way her expression dropped, Raffi suspected that period of time coincided precisely with when Ani and Kami had dated. He decided not to pursue that avenue of conversation. But also? A bit of his optimism slumped.
What the hell was he doing, when Ani was so clearly still hung up on her ex? Her ex who she had to see constantly, for whom she was basically on-call emotional support staff? His interest in Ani was all kinds of stupid, and he would not continue flirting with her. After handing her the wine, he would walk away and mingle.
“Lucky for you,” he said, “all our whites are steel aged.”
Raffi reached over the counter, giving Ted, one of the pourers, a wink like, “I got this, thank you. You can see I’m doing this to show off to a girl, right? Sorry for getting in your way.” He grabbed his nicest sauv by the neck, poured Ani a decent-sized glass, and handed it to her. Then he picked up his own monstrous red again and was only now mortified by thescreams-alcoholicsize of it.
Ani raised an eyebrow when she caught sight of his glass. But Raffi, undeterred, decided it would be rude to walk away now, so he lifted his absolute unit of a goblet and spoke his benediction in English and Armenian.
“To the woman who saved my life, cheers.”
Before they could clink, before Raffi could fully take in that pleased expression on Ani’s face and the slight flush to her cheeks, their quiet moment was toppled on its head.
