by Ali Parker
We emerged into the open-concept factory floor. Above was a metal platform and railing for employees only, and there were doors off the walkway into offices. On the ground floor were the actual moonshine distillery systems. Off to the left was the customer-friendly space. Through a set of doors was a seating area for guests to test and sample the product made in-house. It was a simple space with minimalist decor, and it smelled like pine from the furniture.
On the back wall of this room were rows upon rows of different kinds of moonshine and flavors. I had Vanny take a seat and then I poured her a flight of samples. She watched me and leaned back in her seat when I joined her.
“Are you trying to liquor me up?” she asked.
“You can never just enjoy something, can you?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Uh huh. Sure.” I slid the flight to the middle of the table, turned my chair around, and sat on it backward so I could rest one arm on the backrest. Then I pointed with my free hand at the four small glasses. “This one here is the in-house classic and the one I had the most success with. The original Daniels Moonshine. It’s a sipping liquor. You don’t shoot it.”
Vanny pulled the glass free. “I know that.” She lifted the glass to her perfect lips and took a sip. Her nose crinkled in the most adorable way, and she sputtered a bit but got herself under control quickly. “That’s… intense.”
Grinning, I pointed at the next glass. “Then we move onto the lighter version. Something I think you might actually like. You could sit and sip this after a long day at the shop.”
She tried the second one and nodded favorably. “That’s better. It doesn’t feel like it’s setting my throat on fire.” She reached for the third before I could point to it and held it up to the light. “Is this one green?”
“A little. It’s flavored.”
She sniffed it. “Apple pie?”
“Close. Apple cider. It’s not as sweet as an apple-pie liquor. It’s hard to market an apple-pie moonshine liquor. About seventy-five percent of our customers are male. Women don’t really reach for something like moonshine when they’re looking for a sipping drink.”
Vanny tilted her head back and took a sip. Then she held the glass up and licked her lips before rubbing them together. She had no clue how intoxicating she was to watch, three times more intoxicating than the liquor lingering on her tongue. I caught myself daydreaming about how good her kiss would taste right about now as she spoke. “I like this one. You’re right. It’s not too sweet. I’d buy it.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded before picking up the fourth and final glass. “Definitely. Now tell me about this bad boy.”
“This one is new. Nobody has tried it yet.”
Her dark brown eyes flicked from the glass in her hand to me. “Really?”
“Really. Aside from me, of course.”
She smelled it. “It’s familiar. But I can’t place it.”
“It’s one I’m hoping to put on the market pretty soon. Another month or two and we’ll be good to go with all the branding and labeling. Right before the Christmas season.”
She smelled it again. “Is it… cinnamon? No.” She shook her head and her brows drew together as she considered the familiarity of the scent. “It’s spicy. But a sweet spicy.”
“Uh huh.” I could have watched her all damn night.
A smile curled her lips. “Hang on. I know what this is. Is this chai?”
“You have a good nose.”
“Interesting. I’ve never heard of chai moonshine.”
“Neither had I. My grandmother adores chai tea. I swear she drinks four a day. And this is kind of my tribute to her. Tell me what you think. Be honest.”
Vanny took a sip. She held it in her mouth, letting it linger on her tongue, and I couldn’t read the neutral expression on her face. This moonshine had a special place in my heart. I was eager to reveal it to my grandmother, who’d never shied away from joining me for a stiff drink after a long day.
Vanny swallowed and took another mouthful.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
She ran her tongue along her lip once more. “Rhys, I’m not trying to be a kiss ass here. But this is really good.”
“Yeah?” The eagerness in my own voice might have been embarrassing if I was with anyone but her.
She nodded eagerly. “Yeah. I’d buy this for people as a gift. I’d keep it in my fridge at home. It’s delicious. Like a sweet, spicy, little treat. I like how it lingers in your mouth. I know a lot of people who would drink this.” She pushed the half-full glass away. “I can also see how it could get dangerous really quickly.”
I flashed her a smile. “What do you say we take a bottle back to my place and play twenty-one questions?”
She let out a sharp laugh. “How old are you?”
“Old enough to know you’d have said no if you weren’t interested.”
She gave me a sly smile. “You’re paying to put me in a cab when the night is over.”
“Deal.”
Chapter 22
Vanessa
Rhys carried the unlabeled mason jar of chai moonshine under his arm as we rode up the elevator. He was texting someone, and I didn’t have the nerve to ask him who it was, even though I was dangerously curious.
Was it another woman?
It wouldn’t have been a surprise. But it sure as hell would have made my blood boil. And that, in itself, was a sobering realization.
Did I like this man? As in like like him?
Rhys was so not my type. He was sexy and rough and masculine whereas most guys I’d come close to being intimate with—as in making out and a little under the bra action while I gave him a hand job sort of intimate—were more soft spoken and sweet. Sweet was safe. Sweet was my comfort zone. Sweet was them asking me four times while they fondled my right breast if I was okay and if I liked what they were doing.
No, I hadn’t liked it. It had been awkward as hell having their bony fingers squishing my tit like they were trying to perform a very affordable mammogram. I’d also been terribly aware of how there was too much boob for just one hand. Men said they liked tits, the bigger the better, but I found that hard to believe when my breast was being treated like a lab specimen rather than an apparently worshipped female body part.
I pinched my bottom lip between my teeth and cast a look at Rhys out of the corner of my eye while he wrote another text message.
The man dripped sex. He was hot as hell. Hotter than it actually. What temperature did steel melt at? That was how hot he was. Yes, definitely. He had that cut upper body, and my eyes were drawn compulsively to the tendons in his forearms as his thumbs punched at the touch screen of his phone.
Keep it together, Vanessa. It’s the moonshine. It’s making you doe-eyed and stupid.
I forced my gaze away and fixated on the elevator ceiling, pretending it was the most fascinating thing to look at until the doors opened and we stepped into Rhys’s loft. He slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and brushed past me. Instinctively, my eyes followed his hand.
He had a great ass, too. I bet it’s really firm.
He turned to me. If he caught me staring, he didn’t say anything. He tossed the mason jar of moonshine from one hand to the other and waggled his eyebrows. “Shall we taste test this shit for real?”
I shrugged out of my green sweater and pulled my scarf off. I draped them over the back of his sofa and followed him into the kitchen, where he grabbed two cocktail glasses. He filled them three-quarters of the way and slid mine to me across the island like a seasoned bartender. Impressed, I scooped it up and lifted it to my lips.
“Ah, hold it.” He held up a finger, stopping me with my glass an inch from my mouth. He shook his finger at me, scolding. “Not yet. We have to make a toast first.”
“By all means, go ahead.” This should be good.
I felt the smile playing on my lips as he spoke.
“Cheers to new friendships and faux l
overs.”
I giggled. “Faux lovers?”
“Woman, you’d better believe your high school pals will envy us for our lovemaking.”
“Fictional lovemaking,” I corrected.
“Nuance.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Is it though?”
His smile flashed white as he tapped the rim of his glass to mine. “And cheers to tonight.”
“To tonight.” I wondered what was on his mind as I tipped my head back and drank the delicious chai moonshine. It tingled across my tongue and down my throat and left my mouth tasting like clove and cinnamon. I savored it before moving into the living room, where I perused his selection of liquors—all very expensive and top-shelf quality, of course—as well as a bookcase full of old collector’s edition copies of books like The Three Musketeers and collections by Edgar Allen Poe.
“Are you an avid reader?” I asked.
Rhys shrugged. “I used to be. Books were a good escape for me when I was younger. You?”
“Yes. I love to read. But I doubt we’d be into the same sort of things.”
“What are you into?”
“Have you heard of W. Parker?”
“The romance novelist?” There was no judgment in his voice. It was an innocent question.
I nodded. “Yep. I love every book he writes.”
“He? How do you know it’s a man? Isn’t the author ambiguous?”
“Yes. But I can tell.”
Rhys laughed. “Cocky little thing, aren’t you?” His dark eyes glittered as they followed me while I moved around the room. “How do you know?”
“It’s just a feeling, I guess. The way he chooses his words. How he describes the more… intimate moments shared between the characters. The cadence of it.”
“Cadence?”
“Men and women speak with different rhythms. If you pay attention, you can hear it. And I can hear it in the words on the page. Like reading sheet music.”
“You can read sheet music?” He sounded impressed.
I laughed at myself. “No, I can’t.”
He laughed too. It was a wondrous sound. A powerful sound. I loved the way his whole body shook with mirth, especially his shoulders. Then he dropped his head and shook it at me. “Your honesty is refreshing, Vanny.”
“Careful. We don’t want my brother knowing you’re complimenting me. He’ll strangle you with your own tie.”
Rhys followed me through the living room as I continued to explore. He had odd assortments of things, empty liquor bottles as decor, old frames with no photos in them but short poems instead, old relics of miniature Terracotta warriors and Buddhas.
“Your brother invited me to Sandi’s birthday this weekend,” he said.
I paused, a finger lingering on the edge of a shelf holding old copies of Time magazine. “Did he?”
“Yes. Will it bother you if I’m there?”
“Would you still come if it did?”
“Yes.”
“Then why bother asking?” I faced him. He was smiling sheepishly. It was hard not to smile back.
“I suppose I’m not asking. I’m just giving you a heads-up.”
“How thoughtful.”
“Thoughtful is my middle name.”
“Hmm, and here I was thinking it was something else.”
“Something dignified?”
“Sure,” I lied.
He sipped his moonshine. I watched his Adam’s apple slide up and down his throat and willed my knees to do their job and not buckle on me. A five o’clock shadow had formed all along his sharp, square jaw, and I had the sudden urge to run my fingertips over it and hear that soft, sandpaper-like whisper.
“Need a refill?”
“Pardon?”
Rhys nodded at my drink. It was nearly gone. “Can I pour you more?”
“We shouldn’t.”
“Says who?”
Me. Says me.
If I kept going like this, the night might get away from me. I needed to pace myself. “I’m all right for now,” I said. “But we should probably start taking this whole reunion thing a little more seriously. I still feel like we’d have a hard time convincing people we’re engaged.”
Or having sex.
Rhys held his arms open wide. His drink sloshed in his glass. “Ask me anything you want. I’m an open book.”
Several questions popped up in my brain.
Are you only indulging me because you’re bored?
Or is it because this is helping you get over your ex?
How hard is it being Rhys Daniels?
Instead, I asked, “If you weren’t a modern-day moonshiner, what would you be?”
He nodded appreciatively at the question. “Interesting. Nobody has ever asked me that before. I’m not sure.”
“We’ll circle back to it.”
He stroked his chin. I intentionally moved closer to see if I could hear that whisper I was itching for. I did. It made my insides squirm with something I’d never felt before. It turned into heat, and it settled deep inside me below my belly, where it pulsed and flickered like embers.
I opted for a lighter question. “How did you propose to me?”
His eyes lit up. “Oh. Now that’s fun. And easy. I took you out on my yacht—”
“You have a yacht?”
“Sweetheart, we have a yacht. Come on. Play your part. What’s mine is yours.”
I laughed. “Okay. Okay. You took me out on our yacht. And then?”
“I had a private harpist playing while we had dinner on the top deck. Your favorite instrument in my fantasy, for the record.” He tapped the side of his nose, and I giggled. “Then, when the sun was setting, I pretended to drop my fork. I got down on one knee, and when I came up, I held up the ring box and popped the question, using your full name, of course. Which reminds me. I’m going to need your middle name.”
“Anne Marie.”
“Pretty.”
“Thank you. Anne is my mom’s middle name and Marie is my Nannie’s.”
“And your first name?”
I frowned. This was uncharted territory. I couldn’t very well tell him my whole name was Vanessa. What if he put two and two together that I was Nessa Night? I preferred to keep it this way. This way was safe. “It’s just Vanny.”
“Vanny Anne Marie Hampton.” My name on his lips made the embers below my belly burn hotter. He glanced at my left hand. “I guess we’re going to have to get you a ring to really sell this thing, huh?”
“Probably a good idea. I can wear my mom’s for the night. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Where else do you expect me to get my hands on an engagement ring?”
“I’ll supply it.”
“Rhys, don’t be silly.”
He gestured around at his loft. “I can afford it. You’re the one being silly. Don’t worry. I won’t drop over a thousand dollars.”
My mouth fell open. “A thousand dollars? I don’t want you to spend anything!”
He leaned forward. I could smell the moonshine on his breath and count his dark, thick lashes. “I feel the need to remind you, Vanny, we aren’t actually engaged. You don’t get to tell me what to do. Now tell me something.”
My voice quivered. “What?”
“What’s your ring size?”
Chapter 23
Rhys
Vanny put one hand on her hip and popped it out like the sassy little vixen she was. “I am not giving you my ring size.”
“Aww, come on fiancée. Don’t do me like that.”
“I’m not doing you like anything.”
“Not yet.” I winked.
Vanny rolled her eyes. “We should drop this stupid idea. There isn’t a single person at my reunion who will believe for a second that I’m engaged to someone like you.”
“Stop saying that.” I didn’t like how she kept putting me on this pedestal. I wasn’t sure why she continued circling back to things like this
, like she needed to make sure I knew how separate we were. I wasn’t buying it. The only person she was trying to convince was herself and the whole charade was getting a little old.
Maybe I should rein it in and take it easy on her.
Vanny polished off the rest of her drink. Then she shook her head to clear away the fuzziness of the moonshine. “I should go. This was a bad idea. Can we just drop everything?”
“No.”
“Rhys, I mean it. This was a silly idea in the first place. Nobody will believe us. And I don’t want to waste all this time indulging you in your banter, all for everything to go back to normal after the reunion.”
I arched an eyebrow.
She expected everything to go back to normal after this? Did that mean she was figuring when all was said and done, she and I would have nothing to do with each other?
I hardly saw things playing out that way.
“I like you, Vanny,” I said.
Her eyes widened a little.
I stepped forward, and she stepped back, so I stayed where I was. “Vanny, listen. This isn’t some game I’m playing. I don’t know where you got it in your head that I have other intentions. I just… I don’t know. I think you’re an impressive person and I think it will do you some good to walk into your reunion with your chin up. It’s much easier to do that when you have an ally at your side. A friend. Let me be that person.”
She looked at her feet.
I smiled. “I’m also an absolute delight in any crowd. You won’t have to micromanage me while we’re there.”
She licked her lips.
I knew I was getting through to her. “So let’s stop this bickering. Please? Either put a pin in it or let’s just go for it. I, for one, am all in.” I paused. She looked up at me. “What do you say, Vanny?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek and then lifted her glass. “Okay. Fine. You win.”
“It isn’t about winning.”
“Everything seems like it’s about winning when you’re involved.”
I sighed.
She giggled. “I’m sorry. I’m just giving you a hard time. You make it so easy.” She tapped her fingernail against her glass. “Shall we have another and continue our game of twenty-one questions?”