One of David’s duties as Aspire’s wine director was educating the team—everyone from dishwashers to chefs to front of house. Every day, someone picked a bottle from the cellar, which he tasted blind to help him practice for his upcoming master sommelier test. After they tried (and failed) to stump him, everyone tasted a small pour of the wine, while David talked about it: who made it, what grapes were used, where they were grown, what foods it might pair nicely with.
He studied Kyra’s face as she puckered her lips. “It’s got a lot of tannins,” she said.
“Juicy,” David agreed.
“I could see this with a roasted duck,” Brayan, their chef, said. He had cool beige skin, curly brown hair, intense dark brown eyes, and the sort of dimples that let straight guys get away with anything. Not that David could picture Brayan actually doing anything rotten—the guy was soft-spoken and kind. He kept trying to get David to hang out after work, but David had precious little time for socializing with his test looming.
It was set for December: just under three months away. David hadspent pretty much every day studying for it ever since he passed his advanced somm last year. Well, every day that hadn’t been given over to moving from Chicago back home to Kansas City when Jeri, Aspire’s owner, had asked him to come on board as wine director.
It didn’t hurt that it meant he’d be closer to his mom and dad. And he wasn’t going to miss the Chicago winters, though the snowstorm that had blown through in late February, right as he was packing, had felt fucking vindictive. He wasn’t sure if it was a “please don’t leave” storm or a “good riddance” storm, but either way, he was happy to be gone.
It wasn’t like he had many friends left in Chicago, either. Sure, he had people he sometimes hung out with, people it would be fun to grab a drink with after work, but ever since he started studying for his sommelier certifications, he hadn’t had that much time for hanging out. There were only a couple people he’d legitimately miss, but that’s what FaceTime was for.
And he certainly wasn’t going to miss any guys back in Chicago. The Grindr pool had been feeling shallower and shallower the last few years as he inched closer to forty and had less and less time and patience for bullshit.
Granted, guys might’ve been just as bad at home, but David hadn’t actually logged in since he moved back. He’d been too busy helping get Aspire off the ground, or studying, or spending time with his mom to make up for fifteen years of only being home at Christmas.
“All right, team,” he said, as everyone finished their tastes. “Any final questions?”
Kyra raised her hand. David pressed his lips together.
“Kyra?”
“You sure you’re not part mass spectrometer?”
David rolled his eyes. “All right. Back to work. Doors in one hour.”
While the rest of the team finished their final checks before opening, David gave the wineglasses dangling above the bar one last polish. This was his favorite time: the calm before the storm.
Nah, that was bullshit. His favorite was being in the thick of things, on a Saturday rush, having to pick five wines for three different tables and seven different mains. He loved the magic of wine. He loved the challenge.
That part of him hadn’t changed, at least, since switching careers. He hadn’t gotten his bachelor’s in econ in three years—or his master’s in business analytics in eighteen months—by shying away from a challenge. Nor would he be putting himself through the grueling master somm test if he didn’t think he was up to it.
“How we doing?” Kyra asked, sidling up to him and grabbing another polishing cloth.
“Good,” David said. “Same old, same old.”
Kyra laughed, a high, tinkly sound. “You got anything going on tonight? There’s a new bar that opened in the West Bottoms. A couple of us were thinking of checking it out.”
“I’m good,” David said as politely as he could. Kyra asked him to go out with the crew nearly every night—it was sweet of her, if a little exhausting—but he had a stack of note cards waiting for him at home. “Thanks, though.”
Kyra pursed her lips. “Okay, fine. What about this weekend? There’s this guy at my gym…”
David held up a hand. “Kyra. I’m not—”
“Just hear me out.” David suppressed an eye roll. He’d learned over the last five months that there was no stopping Kyra. This was attempted set-up number eight, and it was going to go just like all the others (with a firm “no thank you”), but he had to let her get it out of her system.
“His name’s Anthony. He’s only a few years younger than you, he’s gay, he’s handsome, and he’s got a better ass than me.”
David narrowed his eyes. “How old is ‘a few years younger’?”
“Twenty-eight.”
David sighed. That was nine years younger. Just because he’d started getting some salt in his stubbly goatee, that didn’t mean he was ready to be an “older man.”
“I’m good—”
“And don’t worry, he’s Black too.”
