May Contain Wine

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  We piled in, and I only got slightly wet. Thankfully my funnel cake was still safe.

  I offered him the piece that I was going to give him earlier, and he took it.

  Popping it into his mouth, he licked his fingers clean, then looked out the window of the car. “Are you sure you want to do Dog Alley?”

  I grinned at his reluctance.

  The reason for reluctance was simple.

  I had no willpower to say no.

  Like, I’d go in there, and every single puppy would draw my attention. I’d have to touch them all.

  Granted, I may want to walk away with a few of them, but I’d grown at least some semblance of control over the last couple of years. I now knew that owning a dog cost way more than I was willing to shell out at this moment in time. Vet visits, grooming, and dog food added up.

  Just the same, that was why I wasn’t ready to think about kids. Which was why I was a virgin.

  Yep, you heard that right.

  A virgin.

  Sure, I wasn’t a saint. I’d done other things. But in the end, Louis had always been it for me.

  “What’s that look on your face for?” Louis asked, interrupting my thoughts about my virginity and why I was still a virgin.

  Cough, Louis breaking up with me, cough.

  “No, we don’t have to go to Dog Alley.” I sighed. “It’s raining anyway. I don’t really want to be wet for our hour drive home.”

  His eyes took me in, and I realized how that had sounded.

  I felt my face flame and looked away, reaching for another bite of my funnel cake to distract me.

  There were some ways I wouldn’t mind being wet—and the way he was currently thinking was the only one of them that I was interested in.

  “I… shit,” he said as he pulled out of the drive onto the main road. “That doesn’t look good.”

  I looked up to see a line of cars backed up all the way to the crosswalk with quite a few lights up ahead, indicating some sort of an accident.

  “If you can swing a bitch,” I said, pointing behind us as I plugged my phone into the charging port. “We can go the back way.”

  He looked over his shoulder and did just that, swinging a bitch in the middle of the highway and heading in the opposite direction.

  “Hope you know where you’re going, because I don’t,” he muttered, a grin on his lips. “Do you have an extra charger in here? Mine’s almost dead, too.”

  I dug through my center console and found a cord, then took the phone he handed me, my eyes going to his lock screen as it lit up, signaling it was charging.

  It was a photo of… me. Well, it was a photo of a group of us. Louis, me, Caro, Sammy, Booth, and Bourne. But… I was the only person in the photo that wasn’t blurry. And I was staring at Louis with a smile on my face.

  I remembered the time clearly.

  It was a couple of months ago, after Ares had started dating Hayes. On a whim, we’d decided to take the photo as we were leaving. And since Louis had the newest phone, he’d been the one to take the photo. But we’d been all laughing too much, and in the end, I hadn’t even thought that he’d kept any of the photos. But he had.

  I handed him another piece of funnel cake, my mind now racing as I analyzed the photo in my mind, but since my car was a manual and both of his hands were busy at the moment, he leaned over and took it out of my fingers.

  His lips brushed my fingertips, and I felt my heart lurch at the feel of them.

  I licked my lips, picking up another piece and feeding myself before offering him yet another piece.

  He did the same thing again, only slower, allowing his lips to linger on my fingers.

  This time, when I fed myself a piece, I made sure to lick my fingers clean of the powdered sugar.

  I could feel his eyes on me, despite the fact that we were now driving fairly fast down a winding two-lane road.

  When I reached for his piece, I used every ounce of courage I could muster and made eye contact with him.

  His eyes reluctantly returned to the road, so I was the one to bring my fingers up to his mouth.

  He leaned forward slightly, and his lips captured just the tip of one of my fingers, causing me to squirm in my seat.

  Something of which he did not miss.

  His tongue came out and licked just the tip of my finger, making my thighs clench in need.

  He groaned, and I didn’t know whether it was due to the taste of the funnel cake, or the taste of me.

  When I dropped my hand, I also dropped my eyes, and when I saw his erection tenting the front of his jeans, I felt a satisfaction like no other soar through me.

  And just as I was about to feed myself a piece of the funnel cake, the car jolted.

  At first, I thought it was due to the pothole that we’d barely missed running over, straddling it had been Louis’ only option. But then I heard the bang following the jolt, and I gasped.

  “Was…was…” I stuttered.

  The car sputtered and died seconds later, and Louis cursed and rolled the car into the first driveway he came to—a small, quaint little bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere.

  “Did we just get hit by lightning?” I gasped, staring in horror at the hood of my car.

  It was smoking.

  “Fuck,” Louis growled, his biceps bulging as he turned the car hard to the right to avoid hitting another parked car.

  Then he was pulling to a stop practically in the middle of the parking lot and breathing hard.

  His erection, I noted, was still there.

  Apparently almost being killed by lightning wasn’t something that turned him off.

  Not that my desire for him had fled, either.

  Seeing his biceps bulging as he steered the car? Yeah, that totally did it for me.

  I swallowed hard and nervously popped another piece of funnel cake into my mouth.

  The rain raged all the harder.

  I watched as it came down in thick sheets, totally blocking anything from sight past five feet from where we were parked.

  Louis reached forward to try to start the car again, but nothing happened. Not even a click.

  I blinked, cursing when I realized that my car would need some work.

  “Dammit, this is a brand-new car,” I grumbled.

  Well, fairly new. It was a couple of years old, but that was still brand new to me. It even had less than fifteen thousand miles on it. And since I’d been told that you could put fifteen thousand miles on it annually, I thought I was doing pretty good.

  Louis reached for his phone. “I’m honestly not sure what to even do. Maybe if I Google it…” He trailed off when he picked his phone up in his hand. He tapped the screen to get it to wake, but nothing happened.

  I watched as he tried to hold his finger down on the power button and still nothing happened.

  “Here, let me…” I trailed off when I realized that my phone wasn’t working, either. “Uh-oh.”

  Uh-oh was right.

  My phone didn’t turn on either.

  And it was plenty charged enough that it wouldn’t have died in the ten minutes since we’d been driving.

  “The lightning must’ve fried them,” Louis muttered as he dropped it into the cup holder in disgust. “Let me run inside and call a towing company.”

  Within seconds, he was bailing out of my car and running toward the front of the B&B.

  I watched him go, his shirt getting soaked in the process, and moaned into the silent car as I watched his shoulder muscles flex in his shirt.

  Jesus, I was a horn dog.

  I finished off the rest of the funnel cake and set the plate down on to the floorboard, my eyes on the front door.

  But as five minutes stretched into ten, then ten into fifteen, I decided I needed to go inside, too.

  Something must be wrong.

  Chapter 6

  Please cancel my subscription to your issues.


  -Calloway to Louis

  Calloway

  I made it in time for another streak of lightning to light up the sky.

  Luckily, this one didn’t come anywhere close to where I was approaching the front door of the building.

  But, it was close enough to make my heart pound, and my hair stand on end.

  Opening the front door of the quaint little bed and breakfast, I grinned when I read the door.

  Working out the Issues, B&B.

  I liked it.

  Grin firmly in place, I walked inside and allowed my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room, my eyes automatically focusing on Louis who had a phone to his ear at the side of the room.

  A woman about my mother’s age was walking up to him with a dry towel and grinned when she saw me.

  “Hello.” She smiled. “My name is Marta. You must be Calloway.”

  I smiled, unable to help myself. “I am.”

  She disappeared from sight only to reappear seconds later with another towel in hand.

  She handed it over to me with a large smile planted on her face.

  “Your man told me about your car. I’m so sorry,” she said as I wrapped the towel around myself. It smelled like fresh laundry. My favorite smell. “He’s on the phone with his fourth or fifth towing company. Apparently, there was a rather large wreck on the interstate and all of the tow trucks from around here are currently there. They’re not able to come help him for at least a couple of hours. And in a couple of hours, the rates change since it’s past normal business operating hours. They charge double the rate after six, and he’s not a happy camper.”

  I bit my lip, eyes sparkling, as I saw how rigid the muscles in Louis’ back were.

  Yeah, not a happy camper was an understatement.

  I looked to her with a smile on my face.

  “Do you have any rooms available?” I asked.

  She nodded her head, eyes soft. “I do. But only one. And it’s the honeymoon suite.”

  The honeymoon suite.

  Oh, boy.

  “Can we book it?” I asked, reaching for my wallet that was tucked into my jean’s pocket.

  She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course.”

  She walked away, going to a desk in the corner next to where Louis was standing.

  I followed her, sidling up to Louis. I didn’t quite lean into him, but I definitely could feel his body heat with how close I was standing.

  “That’s fine. Just come as soon as…” He trailed off when I touched his shoulder, causing him to look down at me.

  I hadn’t surprised him by being there, but by voluntarily reaching out and touching him.

  Hmmm, apparently, I didn’t do that all too often.

  “Just ask them to come in the morning,” I said. “She has a room we can use tonight.”

  Louis’ eyes went to the woman behind the counter, then back to me, before nodding once.

  “On second thought, just come out in the morning once normal business operating hours begin,” he said tiredly. “We’re at Working out the Issues, B&B.”

  Did I mention that I really loved that name?

  “Do you have a lot of couples coming here to stay?” I asked with a smile.

  The older woman nodded. “Originally, the name was The Sunflower B&B,” she said as Louis hung up the phone and started to listen. “But my guests started coming, mostly all couples, telling me that they thought they were staying at a different B&B with the same name. But almost always they stayed. They were always upset, though. The woman mad at the man, the man mad at the woman. Apparently, they were upset that the one or the other had chosen the wrong place. The other Sunflower B&B is apparently on the river or something. Not in the middle of nowhere, Texas. But it was really funny, because the next morning, they’d always worked out their issues. And I’ve only ever gotten five-star reviews after they’ve departed. And after reading one such review on my website of a couple who’d been on the verge of divorce coming here and their night here changing their life, I decided to change the name of my B&B to the title of their review: working out the issues.”

  I liked that. A lot.

  “That’s really cool,” I murmured softly. “Wow.”

  I inadvertently started to lean into Louis, noticing how warm he was despite being soaking wet.

  “Here’s the key,” she said as she slid an actual key across the desk to us. “You’ll pay tomorrow when you check out.”

  I didn’t bother to reach for the key.

  Instead, I allowed myself to study the room around us.

  This was my personal style. All farmhouse chic.

  I wanted my place to look like the B&B when I got done with it.

  Louis’ hand slipped to my lower back as he gently pushed me away from the desk.

  “I’ll send some extra towels up to your room. And if you want me to wash and launder your clothes, just set them in the basket outside your door. There are two robes hanging up on the bathroom door.”

  With that, Louis led us upstairs and to the honeymoon suite.

  When we got in there, I gasped at what I saw.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed, eyes taking everything in.

  The honeymoon suite was rather large and open. There was also a jacuzzi tub in the corner of the room that I was now dying to dive into.

  The middle of the room was dominated by a very large, very heavy looking cast-iron, four-post, king-sized bed.

  It had miles and miles of white sheets, white down comforter, white tulle pillows, and white everything. There had to be at least twenty pillows on the bed.

  I licked my lips and looked to Louis who’d finally let go of my lower back and pushed into the middle of the room.

  He placed his hands on his hips and looked around the room, taking it all in with a calculating eye.

  “It’s very… white,” he said at last.

  That was when I finally let myself see Louis.

  He’d done some growing up since I’d last allowed myself to really look at him. To study the differences. He also had quite a few frown lines near his mouth and eyes, making me want to slide my fingers over them and help him release his tension.

  I couldn’t stop myself. The words just tumbled out before I could so much as tell myself not to ask.

  “Louis,” I said softly. “Why did you really come with me today?”

  Why did you force me to spend the day with you? Why do you continuously try to make my life harder than it needs to be? Why is it, no matter how hard I try, I can’t hate you? Why do I still freakin’ love you?

  I didn’t say any of that aloud, though. I didn’t want him to know what he did to me.

  “Why did you ask me out on a date?” I pushed when he didn’t answer fast enough. “Why did you leave me?”

  That last question I hadn’t meant to ask.

  “You… I was still trying to figure everything out, Callie. I, fuck. I don’t know what I wanted back then. I knew that I wanted you. But I also knew that you still had a year left of high school. I wanted to go into the military, and I didn’t want to think about leaving you behind to worry about me while I did. It was fuckin’ selfish. I knew the moment that I did it that I shouldn’t have. I wanted to take it all back the moment that I saw your face and the impact my words had. And when I tried to, you wouldn’t even give me the time of day. I thought… ‘give her some time. She’ll cool off.’ Only you never fucking did. And every time I came home, you wouldn’t even look at me. You were pissed, justifiably, and everyone protected you from me. I couldn’t get near you. You blocked me. Ares blocked me. Your dad wouldn’t allow me to talk to you. I tried, God, so many times.”

  I blinked at him. “You did?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “And when I finally had the time, Zelle started to have all her problems. I didn’t want to add to your stress.”

  Zelle was my baby sister. My baby sister that was a giant pain in the ass a
nd had tried to pretty much kill herself in high school.

  She was a year younger than me and had always been the baby of the family.

  Then, when that had happened, Louis was right. Zelle was where all of our attention was focused. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the ‘us.’

  Zelle had spiraled downhill very quickly. She’d gotten herself into a spot of trouble that had ended with her being admitted to the psych ward for a twenty-four-hour hold. And now, five years later, she still resented us. Hell, it was like we weren’t even alive anymore with how she avoided us like the plague.

  Honestly, all we’d been trying to do was help. And she hadn’t wanted help.

  She still didn’t want help.

  “I… that makes sense,” I said quietly. “Zelle’s a mess. Her whole thing was a mess. I’m still pissed about it all.”

  “I imagine so,” he admitted. “I wish I could’ve been here to help. But yeah, I didn’t want to make it worse. And since y’all never talk about her anymore, I’m literally terrified to talk to you about her.”

  “She’s in college now,” I said softly. “She’s a few weeks from graduating, actually.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve kept an eye on her from afar, too. All of us have.”

  I dropped my head. “Reagan won’t even talk about her.”

  “That’s understandable,” he admitted. “Reagan was the one to take her to the hospital. She sees her as the bad guy.”

  That was true.

  Zelle needed help, and Reagan being the oldest and the only one there at the time that Zelle had tried to do the unthinkable, she’d taken her to the hospital where they’d put her on a psych hold. And Zelle nor Reagan had ever gotten over their animosity toward each other.

  To the point where Zelle didn’t even know Reagan’s kids—or, at least, she pretended not to. I gave Zelle unwanted updates about Reagan and did the same to Reagan when it came to Zelle.

  As did my parents.

  My parents who were broken up that their family was still torn up all these years later.

  “Needless to say,” Louis said, “after that happened, I was reluctant to add to your problems. I didn’t want you to have to worry about me, too. So I just… stayed away. And then I really just took the coward’s way out and waited. And waited. And waited. And then Malachi told me you were dating, and I realized I needed to get my head out of my ass.”