There were two blurry pics, one of their almost kiss, her hands in his hair, and the other of Sofia fleeing. The story was about how the “pornographic” princess had forced the “teetering-on-alcoholism” rock star to get drunk, teased him throughout the night, and then pushed him away just as they were about to mount each other in public.
“We all know about the revolving door on Princesa Sofia’s bedroom—maybe it’s time for our poor boy to get off that ride.”
“What the fuck?” The tapas crawl had been a closed-door event. Only someone on the inside, someone supposedly loyal to Sofia, if only for a month, could have taken those pictures.
Devonte pointed at his phone. “Don’t break that. Give it back.”
Aish released his white-knuckle grip. “Why do they keep going at her?” Whoever was talking and lying to the media consistently made Sofia looked bad and Aish looked pitiable.
He cursed under his breath, focused on the sunrise, and fought off the self-pity that had become as comfortable over the last year as an old cardigan.
Last night, his newborn effort at restraint had been overwhelmed by...everything: her earthy eyes looking into his and her wide, soft mouth talking to him and her cinnamon-sweet smell and her questions—fuck, she’d been curious about him—and her skin and the velvet purple dress that begged for his touch.
He wanted to blame her for the inch. But he was the asshole who took a mile. They’d come together instantly and intensely as kids, but he had to be better than that twenty-one-year-old walking hard-on.
She was going to be so pissed today.
“It’s time to send the stylists home,” Aish said. His dependence on others to see to his basic hygiene and maintenance collided with her do better directive.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Devonte protested. “Probably want to look your best this morning.”
“I gotta stop playing the movie version of me,” Aish said. “The stylists are doing their jobs, but why would they think leather pants are a good idea when I’m going to be in a field for four hours? I had to cut those motherfuckers off.”
Devonte snorted into his coffee.
“I’ll have them pick up some stuff for me before they go,” Aish said. “But I look better, don’t I?”
He put his chin up, mugging for Devonte, but it was a serious question. He was doing better, wasn’t he? He wasn’t that ghost who’d haunted his own house for the last year. He wasn’t that man Devonte had barged in on a few times when Aish hadn’t opened his door, when Devonte’s face had showed what he was terrified of finding.
His manager huffed and smiled at him now. “Yeah, man, a little sun and work, you’re getting those GQ looks back.” He rose as a ringtone on his phone let him know the stylists were outside the door. “You sure?”
Aish nodded. “Sofia’s been putting in the work, every day, to show them how much this means to her.” He clenched the neck of his guitar. “I gotta show them how much it means to me, too.”
Today’s work, Aish realized exhaustedly as he watched Sofia in the winery courtyard, was going to involve lobbing fireballs at Sofia’s icy wall. Again.
She’d mortared up the light and charm she’d begun showing the group, showing him, and she was monotone and academic as she explained the purpose of the mammoth crusher-destemmer set up in the open bay of the processing facility.
When he thought of her last night—velvet-dressed, grinning, softly content in the arms of her people and village and music and legends—Aish wanted to sit on the cobblestones and cry.
The interns had been surprisingly welcoming when he and Devonte had appeared on time for that morning’s workshop, showing none of the snickering from that fucked-up article. He got handshakes and good mornings, maybe a smile or two that was a bit more teasing, and even a nod of approval from the wine blogger.
“I like you better without eyeliner,” Amelia Hill said. Her no-nonsense manner was ruined by a mild grin. “I think she’ll like you better without it, too.”
In ungelled hair, a worn long-sleeve Cowboy Surf Shop T-shirt, jeans, and old Blundstones, clothes he’d thrown into an overnight bag when he left LA, Aish had felt like the goth dude who’d shown up in an oxford to ask out the prom queen. The whole senior class was rooting for him.
All of his fantasy about the situation faded, however, the moment Sofia opened her mouth. As she robotically recited the manual about the huge machine that was so much cooler to see in action, Aish raised his hand.
She aimed scorching hate in his direction. She flicked her head away, showing him a sliver of tender, sensitive neck. She’d once been sensitive all over to his touch, like a bare nerve.
He kept his hand up. Devonte nudged him. “Dumbass. Put your hand down.”
But it was an easy hop for him to touch a basketball rim. He was a hard man to ignore.
“What?” Sofia shot out, startling them all. “What do you want, Aish?”
“Are you worried about the heat?” His question sounded like a demand. He needed to pull back. But dammit... “It’s hot so close to harvest.”
A hair’s breadth from harvest was an anxious time for growers and winemakers, when the fruit was days away from full ripeness and vulnerable on the vine. Wind gusts, rainstorms, unexpected cold, or heat spikes could ruin a crop. Laguna Ridge Winery once lost 75 percent of a year’s fruit thanks to a thunderstorm and the subsequent mildew.
The increasing heat in the Monte could burn Sofia’s not-quite-ripe fruit before it was picked.
When Sofia glanced at Carmen Louisa, he knew the answer was yes. She was worried.
Aish had spent night after night in his uncle’s truck, nodding off as they drove from vineyard to vineyard, his uncle nudging him awake as they obsessively checked the grapes.
