The server returned with our wine, and I let Andrew pick which to open first.
After the server poured, I took a quick sniff—the scent of plums, strawberries, and vanilla veiled my mind—took a long sip and swallowed, feeling the burn of alcohol down my throat.
“Delicious.” I smacked my lips.I don’t know why I did that.
Andrew raised his glass, the tension line now relaxed between his brows. “May the hinges of our new-found friendship never grow rusty.”
“Very poetic,” I said before bringing my glass to my mouth.
“What would you toast to?”
“Here’s to you and here’s to me. Friends may we always be. But, if by chance we disagree. Up yours. Here’s to me.” I clicked my glass to his, suppressing my smile, and drained my entire glass. William and I have been using this toast forever. I couldn’t even recall where we first heard it.
Andrew chuckled and took a long sip.
“So.” He set his glass on the table. “You still owe me an answer.”
“You should try this bread,” I said, nodding at the basket. He shook his head. “Watching your figure?” I teased.
“Something like that.”
I gave him an assessing look and reached for the next roll but then paused. I realized that, in all the times we had eaten together, Andrew only ate fruit, vegetables, and protein. Maybe he had a gluten allergy, and here I was making fun of him. Guilt rocketed inside of me.
“I’m being rude.” I dropped my hand on my lap without taking bread. “I wasn’t trying to body-shame you.”
“I know,” he said, with an easy smile and leaned back in his chair. “Now, you were going to answer my question…”
The sun had finally retired, leaving us with just a few last pink streaks lingering in the indigo skies, and already several glimmering stars. I poured more wine into my glass and drank half of it.
An irresistible attraction to Andrew set my defense wall around my heart on fire and made me want something more beyond this trip. But it was pointless for me to want it because people like me never ended up with people like Andrew. Life wasn’t a Cinderella story. He came from a blue-blood family, bound together with posh education, nobility, and a solid household. Whereas I had no college education, was probably nth generation hillbilly, and I had a problematic relationship with the only alive—to my knowledge—parent. As painful as it was to accept my college ex was right, no matter what I’d become in my life, no matter how much money I had, I was a girl from a trailer park.
“Why is it so vital for you to know? After this trip, we’ll go our separate ways,” I said.
I was either totally taken with Andrew or too drunk because a lump developed in my throat, and I washed it down into the pit of my stomach with more wine.
“Don’t forget that you’re invited to the museum exhibition opening night when this treasure hunt is all over,” he said, his voice quiet but pulling me out of my spiral before it dragged me deeper into a dark woe. He poured more wine into my glass and added some to his.
“Oh yes, we’ll see each other again.”
“Adriana,” Andrew said, a shadow of hurt or perhaps disappointment clouding his expression. In this light, the colors in his eyes were indistinguishable. The shade of a tropical ocean at twilight. God, he was beautiful. “We’ll stay in touch. I don’t understand why you think we won’t. I’d like us to continue our friendship.”
As with everything—lovers or friends—when it came to a long distance, any relationship was doomed to die. Some sooner than others.
“Yes.” I smiled, nodding. “We can WhatsApp each other. You can send me photos when you go on a new quest, and I can send you pictures of my store—if I have one—and then eventually we’ll get busy and forget about each other.” I was turning into a Debbie Downer. Andrew’s eyebrows furrowed, and he leaned back in his chair. My chest cramped, and I blew out a long, slow breath. “I’m not negative by nature, but this is just reality. You meet someone new, have an exciting time with them, and then you go your separate ways swearing to stay in touch and be friends. At first, you text like crazy, but over time you stop. This is just business, Andrew.”
His expression was unreadable. “Is it now?”
And the edge to his voice cut me through and through. I looked away.
Mellow Latin music echoed around us, and a warm breeze caressed my shoulders. The couple at the table next to us were whispering, the guy brushing his finger down his date’s neck. She closed her eyes, obviously enjoying the moment. I envied her. I wanted that too, but with my attitude, I doubted I’d get it.
He changed the subject. “You never told me how you got into the wine business.” Andrew turned the bottle by its neck and checked its label. I sent a small prayer for the welcome interruption to my negativity.
“It was pure fluke. My college degree was in biology… well… I didn’t exactly graduate.” I peered into the depth of my glass, the warmth of wine spreading inside my chest, but embarrassment turned my feet stone cold. My scholarship could have gone to someone else, and I’d wasted that money. “At the start of my last year, I took a trip to the Biltmore, and at a wine and chocolate class, I tried to impress an instructor with my wine production familiarity. I used all the knowledge I got out of the two-semester Botany 341 class. A gentleman from the neighboring table started chatting with me. He introduced himself as Robert Parker, the owner of Salzburg Distributing Company. He called me ‘a diamond in the rough.’ A sommelier in the making. And right then and there he offered me a job. I saw an opportunity to make more money than I would have as a biology teacher, so I jumped on it.”
I peeked over the edge of the glass, catching Andrew watching me with an unreadable expression. “What?”
“Your green eyes turn a shade darker and twinkle when you talk about something you love or want.”
