Wild Abandon (15 page)

I let out a long deep breath and thank him with a smile for easing my anxiety.

As we climb up the mountain, the ground below us is farther and farther away, but the views of rolling hills and spacious landscapes around us are more spectacular than I could have dreamed. Our car feels small as we climb higher and take in the vastness of the valley. And the sound? Silent. Just us, soaring above the world.

We get to the top and are greeted with a glass of wine. We stroll through art galleries, overlooks, and elevated walkways. Taking the wine tour, we learn the winemaking process from grape to glass. Motion-activated television screens provide detailed explanations of what we see. It’s amazing what a facility of this caliber can produce in a year.

We head outside and take a moment to appreciate the glorious architecture of the winery. With brilliant white stucco, the winery has a Mediterranean feel to it with towers that house bells that sound on the quarter hour. And the view? The Mayacamas, Vaca Mountains, and Mount Saint Helena—all of which Nate points out.

“When I was a kid, my window overlooked Superstition Mountains. My whole world was surrounded by them. No matter where I looked, there they were. I could never live somewhere I couldn’t see mountains.”

“I’ve lived near water my entire life. I could never imagine living somewhere without seeing the ocean.”

“I guess that means you’re not staying here.” Nate is leaning on the railing, his body facing mine. “No ocean.”

I sway my head from side to side. “I don’t know. I’m just taking it one day at a time. Seeing where the wine takes me.” I wink at my own joke, but he’s not laughing. “So, did you really come out here for a girl?”

“I came to San Francisco to look for my dad. I guess you can say, I came here for my dad, but I stayed for a girl.”

“She must have been pretty special,” I tease.

“She is.” He turns his body away from mine and stretches his arms out on the railing while looking down at the ground, a pensive expression on his profile.

He’s giving us both a moment to absorb that little tidbit of information. Nate still talks to the girl who stole his heart. Maybe she broke his heart, and that’s why he hates love so much.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asks.

I slowly nod my head.

“Do you enjoy playing the cello?”

Okay, that is not what I thought he was going to ask.

I take an uncertain tone. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“Last night, you said it’s something you’re just good at. It seemed like you only play because you’re good at it. Not because it’s something you love.”

I shrug my shoulder and twirl the glass in my hand. “I didn’t have much of a choice. Playing comes naturally to me. A teacher told my parents that I was gifted, so they enrolled me in a school for the performing arts, and then I went to college to pursue it as a career. It was never a question of what I’d do. When you’re that good at something, you just do it.” I turn my back to the view and cross my arms over my chest, looking over to Nate. “I don’t live and breathe it like others do. My friend Emma is a composer. She creates these incredible pieces of music, and your jaw drops at the sound. She’s
that
good. But me? I can play any song without sheet music. The harmonica took a while to learn, but that was because I wanted to learn it. The cello though is just something I do. It’s not who I am.”

“Who are you?” he asks simply.

I take a deep breath and think about the question. “I think I’m still trying to figure that out.” I lift my chin at him. “Are you doing what you love? Working in a bar?”

Nate shakes his head and looks away, pondering the question. “I don’t have a college degree, so I’m pretty limited in what I can do. Bartending pays really well, and the hours are perfect for my lifestyle. I have a full plate and need the flexibility.”

I examine the way he’s holding his glass and recall how well he’s been explaining the wine to me today. “If you could do something else though, what would it be?”

He looks back at me, almost studying my face. “This. Running a winery.”

I’m not surprised. “You’re in the right place. Why aren’t you working in a winery? I just started working at one. I’m supposed to play the cello for wine tastings even though they don’t have wine tastings yet. They’re not producing wine at the moment either, but when it reopens, I know we’ll need the help. Or my friend Jeremy can get you into Gallo. He’s an—”

“I don’t want to work for someone else. I had my own place, but I lost it.” He takes my empty glass from me and places it on a table. “The bar works for me. The guy who owns it got married and moved down to San Diego. He handed me the keys last year along with the apartment upstairs, rent-free. All I have to do is run his business and send him a check once a month.”

“Sounds good, but it’s not your own. Have you thought of opening your own bar?”

“I don’t have the equity. Money is pretty tight. I don’t know if owning a bar is what I want to do.”

“You don’t think about the future?”

Nate gives me a solemn shake of his head. “Sometimes, planning for the future only leads to disappointment. It’s what we do with the present that matters. And, right now, I’m really enjoying today.”

I smile at the compliment and then catch sight of three hot air balloons as they appear off the mountain range. I silently give him a head nod, asking him if he’d be interested in going on one.

“I said I’d be a tourist, but a hot air balloon was not on the agenda.”

“Oh, come on! It looks like fun.” I’m acting braver than I am. While I’ve always wanted to go up in a hot air balloon, I’d never step foot in one. They look dangerous.

“You were clutching on to me on the gondola. There’s no way I’m taking you up in the air.”

I stick my tongue out at him. “Jeez, Nathaniel, you’re so drab.”

We make our way down the mountain on the aerial tram. We get off and walk back toward the parking lot. As we pass the black chalkboard, I sneak a glance and look for the spot where Nate was writing his
Before I Die
response
.
If I’m looking at the right place, then Nate wrote,
Before I die I want to, have peace.

World peace? Inner peace? Did he mean get a piece?

“You hungry?” he asks, pulling my attention away from the board.

“Famished,” I answer awkwardly as we reach the car and climb in. I wonder if he’s annoyed at me for looking.

He doesn’t show it though. Instead, he turns the car on, looks at me, and smiles. “I have the perfect place.”

Back in the town of Yountville is a roadside burger joint that looks straight out of the 1950s. Gott’s Roadside isn’t the type of place you get a garden salad. This is a straight-up grease-filled, calorie-loading, cheese-sauce-dipping, eat-at-a-picnic-table-while-looking-at-the-passing-cars kind of place.

And I am so looking forward to it.

After the eight tasting glasses I’ve had this morning, I surmise I’ve drunk a pound of wine. I don’t feel more than a light buzz though. Between the long distances we’ve been driving and the copious amounts of water Nate has been feeding me, I feel relatively refreshed. Refreshed yet starving.

We get our food and take a seat at a table already occupied. We sit side by side on the end. I steal his fries, and he takes one of my onion rings.

This place makes us nostalgic even though neither of us grew up in the fifties nor did we have a place like this where we came from. We share high school stories—I, as a drama geek, who went to a high school for the performing arts, while he was a skateboarder and a loner. When you are into music and the arts, like I was, you are always surrounded by people of like interests. Nate, on the other hand, had few friends, and he said they weren’t worth keeping.

“How did you end up the world’s greatest baseball fan? I thought the skateboarder kids were too cool for sports.”

“I wasn’t goth. I was just a lonely kid. I always loved baseball. I think it’s because I didn’t have a dad. It’s something I would picture us doing together if he were around.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

He shakes his head. “I used to dream he would show up and say,
Nathaniel, you’ve been lied to. I never left you. I was on a secret mission by the US Government, sent to find a cure for cancer. Now, I’m back to rescue you from your heinous mother
.” Nate looks down at a fry in his hand, like it’s the memory he’s recalling.

I snatch the fry out of his hand and pop it into my mouth. This makes him look up at me with a confused expression that relaxes when he sees my smile.

“He was an idiot for leaving you. And you turned out pretty great, despite your mom being a vile woman. Did she really kick you out when you were eighteen?”

“Yep. She had an equally vile boyfriend who hated my guts. I traveled around for a while. Hitchhiked across the country. I guess we’re the same that way. You traveling across Europe, and me, the States. Difference is, you always had a place to go home to.”

“What is that expression? What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” I say with a sarcastic expression.

Nate chuckles into his burger. “Yeah, if that were true, I’d be an ox.”

I laugh and chew on a fry, looking at his features while I eat. “You look like her.”

“Who?”

“Your mom.”

“How do you know that?”

“Your face is very pretty for a guy. You’re not hard and pointy like some other guys.”

“Are you saying I look like a girl?”

“Yes, Nate. You look like a woman.” I take a giant bite of my burger, savoring the melted cheese and sautéed onions. I groan.

And then I look up.

“What?” I wipe the side of my face to make sure I don’t have a glob of ketchup on it.

“I thought you were one of those girls who didn’t eat in front of guys.”

“I don’t.” I take a huge suck on the straw of my chocolate shake.

“Well, there goes my manhood.” He laughs even though he looks offended. “First, you tell me I look like a girl, and then you tell me I’m not man enough to
not
eat in front of.”

I slowly put the shake cup on the table as I gauge his reaction. Does he really think I don’t think he’s manly?

“Nate,” I say, garnering his attention because what I’m about to say will only be said once—mostly because it’s a pretty big deal and because we don’t have the kind of relationship that would warrant me ever saying it again. “You are the hottest guy I have ever met. Ever. You are beyond masculine in a way that makes me uncomfortable. I might have said your face is pretty, but that’s because your face is perfect. And I might be eating in front of you, but it’s not because I don’t think you’re man enough. It’s because I know that you don’t find me remotely attractive, and there’s no way you’d let anything happen between us.”

Nate turns his head to me, his eyes wide in surprise. Our gazes lock, our mouths inches from each other. I can feel his breath on my skin.

“You don’t think I find you attractive?” His brows furrow.

My mouth opens, but there is nothing to say. Instead, I move my head from left to right ever so slightly, my eyes not leaving his.

The intensity of the moment is making me nervous. He is staring at my mouth, forcing me to run my tongue along my bottom lip.

His breath hitches, and the blacks of his eyes grow larger. He inches his body the tiniest bit closer to mine. I think he’s going to kiss me.

We still, frozen in the moment, neither wanting to make the first move.

Nate takes one more large breath, his body slacking, and then he backs away from me, causing me to pull my bottom lip in and wonder what the hell kind of awkward encounter that just was.

Are things going to be weird now?

Is he going to take me to my car and call an end to our day?

Was there even more he wanted to do?

God, I just told him I think he’s hot, and he didn’t reciprocate with a,
Yeah, I think you’re pretty cute, too
.

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I am such an idiot.

“Come on, platypus, I have a few more stops I want to check out before they close.”

Huh?

Nate is standing by the garbage can, putting our trash away.

“Platypus?”

“Yeah, you make this face when you’re deep in thought. It makes you look like a platypus.”

That’s it. I am officially becoming a nun.

chapter TEN

I haven’t seen Nate in a week. After our lunch at Gott’s, we went to a wine cave and then to a small boutique winery in Downtown Napa that also happened to be a microbrewery. We hung out and chatted for a few hours. The conversation was light yet stiff.

Nate wasn’t the problem.

I was the problem.

Knowing I would be driving home, I didn’t finish my tastings. My car was still parked at Henley’s. Nate offered for me to stay over, but I knew another bender with him would be a bad idea. If I got drunk around him again, I’d most definitely say or do something to out myself.

Yes, I have a huge crush.

On Nate.

And it’s bad.

So bad that I haven’t gone on a single date in a week.

It didn’t help that when I returned home after the wine tasting, Scarlet was standing on the porch with her hands on her hips and a foot tapping in accusation.

“Where have you been?”

“I went wine-tasting today.”

“And last night?”

“I stayed with a friend.”

“What’s this friend’s name?”

“Nate.”

“You stayed at a boy’s house overnight! When’s his birthday?”

“I don’t know.”

“Friends know each other’s birthdays. Doesn’t sound like much of a friend.”

“Scar, can I get past you?”

“Are you wearing yesterday’s clothes?”

“No.”

“Crystal, I am going to say this once. No man is going to buy the cow if he can get the milk for free.”

Naomi was no better. She asked a million questions, and I didn’t have an answer for most of them.

I’ve been preoccupying myself by working on the ranch, practically inventing projects as a distraction.