Crush

by Wood, Mae

  I found the back hall inside the restaurant by the restrooms and paced a bit, trying to work the energy from my body. Back and forth, up and down. Shaking out my arms as my fingers dusted my thighs. It was this crawling feeling, this urge to go back to her, to pull her somewhere quiet—somewhere like this.

  “Hey.”

  I pivoted on my heel and there she was, like I’d summoned her. I stood there, dumbstruck for a moment before my brain kicked into gear. “Hey,” I said.

  Smooth, Ryan. Real smooth.

  She stepped toward me and I moved to get out of her way. My left step to her right one, and her right step matched my left. We were impossibly close. The tension I’d tried to shake off roared back, louder and stronger than before. Sexual, and that other something that made her irresistible to me.

  I could kiss her here, I thought. I could just kiss her and no one would see, no one would know. I leaned toward her, seeing how she would react, desperate to read every clue she would give me. Should I? Should we? My eyes bounced between her lips and her eyes, searching for her answer to the question I was asking without words.

  Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and my eyes shot to hers. Her gaze was intense as the darkened hallway faded away. Yes. She was here with me. Our faces were scant inches apart, and I canted toward her.

  Her eyes blinked rapidly then widened in surprise, as she stepped back sharply. “I was … I was—I was just going to the—the bathroom,” she said.

  I stepped back as well, my arm swinging wide to invite her to step past me. Without another word, she scooted into the restroom and closed the door. I heard the lock click into place and I sagged against the hallway in relief. That was a close call. I’d almost ruined everything.

  I didn’t wait for her, knowing that it was only going to be awkward when I saw her next, so I settled back in at the table and joined the others in talking about San Francisco restaurants. When McKenzie returned, I didn’t even glance in her direction for the rest of the meal.

  “You’re being quiet,” Marlena remarked as she drove us back to the city. I’d pretty much chugged a glass of wine after that whole hallway incident, so she insisted on driving. It was a good call. The wine was only one of the reasons that my head wasn’t on straight.

  “I really want this deal,” I said, trying to focus on what was important rather than thinking about McKenzie, but I was totally failing. I swore I knew her. At least I knew I hadn’t slept with her before because I’d definitely remember that. And that almost-kiss in the hallway—closest call of my life. I’d been less than a second away from disaster. That relief mingled with the realization that we probably weren’t going to get the business and I stewed in my bad mood. That almost-kiss was probably ninety-eight percent as effective at ending a business relationship as an actual kiss. I’d have to convince Marlena to peel me off another deal, and I just hoped that was sooner rather than later.

  “I do too,” she said. We lapsed back in to silence until Marlena’s cell rang. “Can you get that? It may be my dad.”

  I answered and Shelly Balfour gave us the green light.

  “We got it,” I said with a smile after getting off the phone with Shelly. “That was a quick decision.”

  “You did a really good job.” She held a palm out to me and we slapped a high five.

  “Thanks,” I said, truly appreciative. Praise from Marlena didn’t come easily. “And thanks for the opportunity.”

  “You deserve it. Now you can show your stuff.”

  We drove in silence for a bit, and I was thankful for the space to digest what had happened with McKenzie at the restaurant.

  “Talking with Shelly reminded me of the people I used to work with during that deal for von Eck. It was my first job out of college. I was the junior analyst. It was a really good team. We did good work. We were profitable. It was a really sweet spot and then it all went to shit.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, the bank didn’t make it past 2008. Bankruptcy. But the team was broken up before then. Our managing director, Jim, was diddling—for lack of a better word—the North American head’s wife.”

  “Ohh,” I said. You had to be a special kind of stupid to do that.

  “Yeah. It was really awful. Jim left not long after the gossip started. I didn’t ask about the details because I didn’t want any of that radioactive blowback on me, so I wasn’t sure if he was asked to leave or he saw the writing on the wall. Anyway, fast times in Manhattan before the Great Recession. Feels like a lifetime ago. I’m very excited about working with von Eck again. I know you’re going to do a great job with this deal.”

  It was a vote of confidence and a warning at the same time, but I couldn’t tell whether the warning went to things other than my work. Things like that almost-kiss that I’d been thinking about nonstop.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  Chapter Four

  Kenzie

  “Mom,” I called, knocking on the doorframe of her office.

  She spun around in her chair, facing me, and held an index finger in the air. “One minute,” she mouthed.

  I nodded and sat in a chair across from her paper-strewn desk, knowing that “one minute” could mean literally one minute or more like thirty. My eyes wandered around her cluttered office and settled on the view outside the picture window, and my thoughts went there as well—to the neat rows of trellises and vines that stretched out along the winding land toward the distant hills, the view softened by the evening light—and back to Ryan and whatever had almost happened in that hallway.

  “Kenz,” Mom said, hanging up the phone and snapping me from my daydream. “Just told the team from Tolles that we’re going forward with them and their plan.”

  “Good,” I said, trying to sound confident. I’d spent the last few hours replaying that hallway thing with Ryan. We’d almost kissed. I was certain of it, and what the fuck was that about? I had no explanation for it.

  “I thought we all agreed. Are you having second thoughts?”

  “Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head and trying to come up with a cover for why I was a little off-balance. “No second thoughts. It’s just a lot of money.”

  “God’s not making any more land,” she said.

  Wine ran through our veins. I’d grown up on the estate and so had she. Most people—at least in movies and on TV—don’t want to come home after college, but I couldn’t wait to finish classes and start work for real. I’d helped out with production since I’d started college, but this year would be the first time I’d see grape go from bud break to bottle under my watch.

  “Ready to jump in after graduation?”

  “Both feet. Headfirst. Yes,” I said, pushing Ryan out of my mind.

  “Good. Because it’s as much your future as it is mine or Theresa’s or Drennan’s. It’s a big responsibility.”

  “I really like the land we’re buying,” I said, steering her back to the land and away from any talk about responsibility and how I needed to buckle down. I was buckled down, even if no one believed it. My mom and her sister Theresa owned the winery that had been started by my great-grandfather, long before Napa was Napa. And one day, far, far in the future, it would belong to me and my cousin Drennan. I was ready for all of it, despite what my family might think.

  Mom smiled at me, tugging down her falling ponytail and scraping it back into a new one. “For a half million an acre, you’d better love it. How’s studying for exams going? Going to be able to get that C up—”

  “Hey,” called Aunt Theresa from the doorway. And I’d never been happier to see her. One of the reasons I was looking forward to graduation was that my parents would never ask about grades again. “Drennan says you guys are leaving soon.”

  “Yeah,” I said, checking my watch. “In about an hour.”

  “You talked with Nate?”

  I looked back and forth between them. Nate was our estate manager, who worked growing the grapes with my aunt Theresa. “Abou
t what?” I asked.

  “He’s moving on.”

  “You’re kidding me,” I said. He’d been with us for years.

  “Nope,” said Theresa. “He got snapped up by someone in Oregon. So, my hands are going to be extra full while we look for someone to replace him.”

  “When’s he leaving?”

  “He’s going to help us through the first crush—thank goodness—and then he’s headed north.”

  Before I could remind them that this was what I was here for, my aunt spoke. “Tell Kenzie the other part.”

  My mom shook her head, smiling at me in the way she did when one of the wines won an award, all proud yet stoic. Her reserve was something I’d never come close to mastering.

  “You’re working with your mom, kid!” crowed Theresa.

  I paused and looked back at my mom for confirmation. Surely this was a mistake. My aunt made the wine. I was going to make wine. My mom sold it.

  “Um, what? I grow grapes and make wine,” I said. I was here for the grapes and the wine and the dirt. Someone else could get messy with the business side of things.

  “And no wine without grapes. And no grapes without land. And no land without money,” said my mom, the smile fading from her lips, but not from her eyes. “Theresa’s going to be slammed, so you’re working with me and we’re going to buy that land.”

  I literally did not know what to say. This wasn’t my dream. This wasn’t why I was coming home. I wasn’t made to be in an office or behind a computer or even in the tasting room. I was made to be in the vineyard. I was made to make wine. My classes were on water usage and soil amendments and yield ratios. I knew grapes, not finance. A little bit of anger raced through me. It wasn’t like I could go work somewhere else. This was it for me. “I don’t know anything about the business world.”

  “Chill out, Kenz,” my mom cautioned. “The vines will be yours. But you need to learn this side too and we think you’re ready. The Tolles team will do the heavy lifting and I’ll be there. Plus, with the timing”—her hand circled in the air, gesturing to indicate the overwhelming amount of work to be done this summer to get the grapes grown, harvested, crushed, and on their way to becoming wine—“we need to be in a position to close on the land as soon as this season’s grapes are harvested from it, so September. It’s the busy season already, normal summer tourist stuff in the tasting room, and now we’ve got to find a new estate manager, so we’re all stepping up.”

  A challenge was implied and I didn’t back down from those, especially when it came to the family and our legacy. I nodded in acceptance and she continued.

  “I know you love the soil profiles and the rootstock, but you need to know where the money comes from too. It’s a lot of debt that all of us are going to have to manage. You’re our right hand on this. You ready?” my mom asked.

  I blew out a breath and straightened my spine. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” This was my time to show them McKenzie Balfour the grown-up, not McKenzie Balfour who almost failed out of college and then went off the grid for a few months in Argentina’s wine country. “But what am I going to do? Like, what’s my role with this?” I asked.

  “Well, after graduation, working with me and Nate,” said my aunt. “And, helping us buy this land.”

  I’d read over his short email a million times and I could recite his words by heart.

  McKenzie,

  Looking forward to working with you.

  I’ve attached some information to get you up to speed, but if I can be of help, let me know.

  My contact info, including my cell, is in my signature line below.

  Thanks,

  Ryan

  Oh, how we could work together. Yes, Ryan Royer, you can certainly be of help, I thought as I dreamed up replies that ranged from completely professional to downright dirty.

  For the past week, I’d looked him up on the internet and checked out his social media, which was disappointingly limited. Like the creepy stalker I was turning out to be, I’d bookmarked his professional bio in my browser. He was handsome, but it wasn’t his looks alone that had me clicking on the page every couple of hours while I studied. He had charisma. He was looking straight at the camera. And his eyes were coming through, sparkling with an eager hello, with an intelligence, with a knowledge that I was looking back at him and that he liked what he saw in return. Dark hair with some wave, and those hazel-green eyes that pierced mine, a short, neat beard that said man, and a smile that was slightly crooked—a little bit naughty and one hundred percent right. I wanted one of those smiles for myself.

  And I was determined to get one before he left our next meeting.

  I was less struck by him when we shook hands hello again, but even more taken, if that was possible. The man whose face had been on my computer probably a hundred times and whose name had been constantly swirling through my thoughts for a week was in our conference room again. He was saying words and I was nodding and scribbling on my notepad, but I wasn’t hearing any words he was saying. Did he have a wife? A girlfriend? A fiancée? Hell, he probably had a fan club somewhere. I wondered if I could join up.

  Was he turning this Friday afternoon meeting into a weekend of wine tasting? Was he headed home to a gaggle of adorable children and a supermodel wife? If he had one kid, he had a dozen. I’d make all the babies with him.

  This time, he’d come up by himself because Marlena had a family issue, but she had joined in through a speakerphone. I’d studied the deal information he’d sent me and talked through my questions with my mom. My brain was full of M. Ryan Royer, this deal, and my upcoming exams. My roommate Sarah had given up asking me why I worked so hard in school when I had a job waiting for me after graduation. She was the first in her family to go to college, so the degree with good grades—that would, fingers crossed, turn into a job which would allow her to pay back her student loans—was always at the front of her mind.

  Me? I was studying what I loved, even if it didn’t love me back in the same way. I wasn’t a star student. Some people struggled in life to find their passion and then to find a paying job where they could maybe, one day, if they were lucky enough, make a living off that passion. But while I had a legacy to preserve, that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to leave my own mark. And this new land was going to give me the tool to do that.

  “McKenzie?” Theresa asked. “You got anything for Ryan?”

  “No. Not right now,” I said with a smile at him. Do I have anything for you? Well, just my naked body spread out in any way you’d like it.

  “Okay,” said my mom, looking like she didn’t quite believe me.

  “McKenzie,” said Ryan, “you’ve got my contact info. Even my cell. When you start to dive in—anything I can do or help you with, just let me know.”

  Well, you said anything, Mr. M. Ryan Royer, and I am wondering if you can help me reach a certain spot. No, not a back rub, exactly, although we could start there. An image of a naked Ryan rubbing warm oil all over my naked body flashed in my mind. Yes. Absolutely, I’d take his help anytime it was offered.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

  We said our goodbyes to Marlena and ended the call.

  “Again,” said Ryan, gathering his notes from the table, “we’re really sorry that Marlena couldn’t come out today. Her father—”

  “Everyone has family.” My mom cut off his apology with a dismissive wave. “She’s doing all of her jobs and no apologies are needed. Kenzie, why don’t you give Ryan a tour? Take him to the tasting room. Feed him. I’m going to—”

  “Sounds great,” said Ryan before my mom could even finish her sentence. He was looking at me with those hungry eyes again.

  “Have fun, kids,” she said with a wink before leaving us alone.

  Chapter Five

  Ryan

  “Have you toured a winery before?” she asked, putting her chair between us. It was mutual, then, this whatever it was between us because both of us were fighting for sp
ace.

  My right hand fisted and flexed, trying to disperse some of the energy between us. It didn’t work. The pull didn’t go away. She was uncannily familiar. I looked her up and down once again. Her unpolished fingernails gripped the chair back, making soft depressions in the gray leather. I wanted those nails biting the skin of my back. I wanted those arms wrapped around me. I wanted those legs hooked around my waist.

  “Yeah. Weekend trips up here and to Sonoma,” I answered, needing to keep this professional. I stepped around the table while forcing my eyes off the long legs which disappeared under the skirt of her blue dress. I balled up my fist again, trying to distract myself, trying to keep the heat I felt building between us at bay. “Even visited your tasting room once.”

  “That’s awesome,” she said with a nod, her eyes growing larger. “I work in the tasting room sometimes. I wonder if our paths have crossed before.”

  I could have told her no. Told her that I knew, unequivocally, that our paths hadn’t crossed at von Eck or anywhere else. Because I would remember her. Because she was unforgettable. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that we had met before. Somewhere. At some time. And it was that indelible yet misplaced memory that was gnawing on the edges of my brain. “I don’t think so, but have we met before?”

  “Did you go to Davis?” she asked, her eyes steady on my face. The quiet shyness I’d read on her during the meeting evaporated in the simmering heat between us.

  “Stanford.”

  She responded with pursed lips and a low, disappointed hum, continuing to examine me. “You seem really familiar.”

  “Yeah, you do too,” I said, still scouring the recesses of my mind.