"I'm counting on it, Sunshine."
Our conversation flows with an ease that no longer surprises me. He tells me about a stock show he and Mason will attend soon, and I tell him about the experimental red wine I’ve been nursing through a temperamental fermentation.
"If you could change anything about the winery," he says, refilling my glass, "what would you do first?"
"That's easy." I don't even have to think about it. "A wine cave. Carved into the hillside behind the winery, maybe sixty feet deep. Natural temperature control year round, barrel storage along both sides, a tasting space at the end with a long table." I set my glass down and gesture with both hands, sketching the shape of it in the air between us. "Just the cave and the wine, and peaceful silence."
He's quiet for a moment, and I can see him turning it over. "How long have you been sitting on that idea?"
"Three years."
"What's stopping you?"
"Capital, mostly. Isabelle and Diego are open to it, but the timing hasn't been right." I pick up my glass again. "It'll happen."
"I believe you," he says, and the simplicity of it lands somewhere unexpected.
The sun has shifted by the time the conversation finds its way to his parents. I know the broad strokes already, but I find myself wanting more.
"Tell me something about them," I say. "Something small."
He's quiet for a moment, turning his glass in his hand. "My mother grew tomatoes. She said store-bought tasted like cardboard and refused to eat them." The corner of his mouth lifts. "She had herbs outside the kitchen door too. The whole back of the house smelled like basil in the summer."
"She sounds like someone I would have liked."
"Yeah," he says quietly. "She was."
"And your father?"
"Loud." His jaw softens with the word. "He had a laugh that came from somewhere deep in his chest. You could hear it from two rooms away." He turns his glass slowly. "I still catch myself listening for it sometimes."
I don't say anything. He doesn't seem to need it.
Eventually I realize that I’ve moved from my side of the blanket to his, my shoulder pressed against his arm, his palm resting on my knee with a casualness that suggests it has been there for a while.
"I should probably head home soon," I say, though I make no move to stand.
He hums, his arm circling around my back. "Or you could stay for dinner. Gran will insist, and arguing with her is a battle I’ve never won."
"I'm starting to see where you get your stubbornness."
"I prefer to call it persistence." He turns his head, and our faces are inches apart. "Is it working?"
"You already know it is."
He presses a kiss to my temple, light and lingering, and the tenderness of it is more devastating than any deeper kiss could be. "Come on. Let's go face Gran before she sends Oscar out here."
We gather the picnic and walk back toward the house, and when his fingers find mine on the path, I thread my fingers through his and hold on. Through the kitchen window, I can seeGran and Oscar moving between counters, and the warm scent of something baking drifts across the yard.
Charlie squeezes my hand, and the gesture says everything that words would overcomplicate.
I drove out here this morning telling myself I was coming to see ducks and try horseback riding. I’m leaving with grass stains on my jeans and the taste of Charlie on my lips and the terrifying, yet exhilarating knowledge that I opened a door I’ve kept locked for a very long time.
I’m not sure what’s on the other side. But for the first time, I want to find out.
Chapter 8
Charlie
