Especially when he was this close and there was no one around. Their gazes caught and held, and her mind flitted back to that first kiss. She thought about it a lot more than she should.

She’d had a few kisses since then, but Reece had lied when he said that kisses got better after the first one.

Nothing had even come close to that day in her bedroom.

“We good for today?” he asked, breaking the moment. If it even was a moment.

She laughed. “Well, let’s see, I learned the difference between the gas pedal and the brake, and…well, that’s about it.”

“And turn signal,” he said, holding up a finger. “I’m a very good teacher, Luce.”

“Uh-huh. I really owe you for the ten minutes you took out of your busy schedule of football and feeling up Abby Mancuso.”

He gave a startled laugh. “Craig’s been ratting me out.”

She forced a smile. “He doesn’t have to. I have eyes, and you guys are all over each other between classes.”

“Careful there,” he said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through his missed calls. “You almost sound jealous.”

She looked away and said nothing so he wouldn’t know how right he was.

Reece pushed open the door of the family’s station wagon and stepped out. “Switch. I’ll drive you home.”

Lucy reluctantly went back to the passenger side, knowing that it meant the end of their time together. It seemed that the older they got, the busier they got, and she hardly saw him anymore.

Except at school, and she’d meant it when she said his mouth was always fused to the head of the debate team. A brainy, pretty blonde named Abby who made Lucy feel like a ditzy cheerleader in comparison.

Probably because she was a ditzy cheerleader. And student body president, and theater darling, and track captain, and just about every other activity she thought would look good on her college application given that her grades were good but not great.

On the way back to her house, Lucy forced herself to keep things light as they bickered and bantered back and forth in the way that had become their thing in recent months.

They were still friends, but there was an almost frenemy edge to their conversations now. Almost as though that kiss a year earlier had made them realize they weren’t actually brother and sister, and now they put up walls however they could.

A few minutes later, Reece pulled Horny into the Hawkinses’ garage before pulling the keys to his dad’s truck out of his pocket and heading down the drive. “Tell your parents hey,” he said, attention still locked on his phone.

“Sure,” she said, lifting her hand in a lame wave he didn’t even see.

She was just heading back into the garage when he called her name.

Lucy turned.

“Same time tomorrow?” he asked with a grin, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

Lucy grinned back and nodded, hoping like hell that he’d never find out just how much seeing him had become the highlight of her week.

The highlight of her everything.

Chapter 8

Lucy

It feels like approximately eleven hours of stifling, awkward silence before I register that we haven’t even made it to the freeway yet.

I glance at the dashboard clock, a little surprised to realize that Reece got it working again.

It’s been three minutes since we pulled out of my driveway.

Three minutes since I left my old life behind to embark on my new one with…him.

I may hate the guy next to me with the sort of blistering loathing that only a scorned woman is capable of, but I hate awkward silences nearly as much, and my fat mouth opens before I can stop it.

“So. How have you been?”

Reece snorts and doesn’t even glance over as he turns on his blinker and pulls into the turn lane for the on-ramp. “Really? We’re doing this?”

“Well, what exactly was your plan? To not speak to each other for two weeks?”

“No, actually.” His thumbs drum against the steering wheel. “My plan was to make this trip alone in about five days, settle into my new job in Sonoma, and remain blissfully unaware that you were headed that same direction.”

I glance over at that, a little disbelieving. “Oh come on. You know that California wine country has always been my dream. It didn’t occur to you that I might be there?”

He shrugs and looks out the window. “It’s a big enough place. Pretty sure we could have managed to go an awful long time without seeing each other. You on one side of the business, me on the other.”

I bristle a little. I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s tension between the winemakers and the people who sell the wine, but it’s not unusual for winemakers to get up on their high horses because they’re the ones actually handling the grapes.

And it’s not that I don’t admire them. Growing up in a wine country, albeit a new, up-and-coming one, I understand just how important the entire process of winemaking is, from the soil to the vines to the crush to the casks. I get all that. I was raised on it.

But I resent the subtle implication that just because my passion is educating other people about that—showing them just how magical wine can be, with the right cheese or the right setting—that I’m somehow an insignificant talking head.

Once upon a time, Reece understood this. Back when we sat up late into the night, my head on his shoulder, his fingers tangled in my hair, he’d listen as I talked about starting my own winery. Virginia, California, Argentina, Australia, it didn’t matter. And though he’d never said a word about his own dreams, I’d secretly always thought we were going to do it together—a small, boutique vineyard with wine that was both award-winning and affordable/approachable.