Our food came soon enough, and we dug in, chatting about finals and graduation.
After we ate lunch, I paid, despite her protest and attempt to pay for half. “I asked you out, and this is our first date. You can take me out sometime, but this was my treat,” I said firmly.
Audrey paused for a moment to consider, then her smile hit me in the feels. “I will. Thank you.” She took my hand as we left, and it felt right. We should’ve been doing that long ago.
We stepped outside into the warm, clear afternoon. Since I wanted to catch the sunset, we needed to take our time getting up to Black Bishop. So, I had another errand to do with her.
In my truck, Audrey went to put on her seatbelt in her usual space, but she was too far away. I knew it was cheesy to have her sit right beside me in a pickup truck. Buuuttt—
Fuck it. “Scoot so you’re beside me,” I said.
She gave me a sideways glance. “Are you ordering me around?”
Yes? No? “Maybe?”
“Okay.” And easy as that, she slid over and belted herself in next to me. I wrapped an arm around her and smiled into her shoulder, then started the MLR. She smelled like strawberries.
I drove until we turned into the parking lot of Walgreens.
A suspicious expression came over Audrey’s face. “You’re not buying condoms, are you?” Then her cheeks reddened, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, god. I said that out loud. Shoot me.”
A laugh burst out of me. “No,” I stuttered. “Nothing like that. Trust me.” I climbed out of the car and pulled her with me, trying not to think of condoms.
Which I’d already bought.
Instead, we went to the photo counter, staffed by Hunter, a junior I knew from football. He gave us a halfhearted smile, clearly sick of working at this place and dealing with the public. “Can I help you?” he asked morosely.
“We need to take passport photos,” I said. “Or actually, Audrey does.”
She turned to me, her lips parting in surprise. “Passport photos? You can’t surprise me with those. Before I take photos that are going to last for ten years, I need to do my hair! And I don’t have lip gloss—“
“You look beautiful,” I assured her, giving her fingers a squeeze. “And if you don’t like them, we’ll retake them until you do.”
The smile that spread across her face made my heart soar. “God, you really are the best.” It looked like she was going to lean up and kiss me, and I held my breath. But instead, she stepped over to the wall, stood in front of the white background, and smiled for Hunter as he fumbled with the camera. He took a few pictures, and when he nodded that he got the shot, he let her review them. She approved, and he printed a set for her.
“One step closer to the Anti-Bucket List,” I murmured as I paid for them, again over her protest. “I made you an appointment to get your passport, too.”
She shook her head silently at me, a strange wistful expression on her face, and held my hand as we returned to the truck. “You’re incredible, Tate.”
Back in the MLR, we headed up the hills to the stylish concrete posts signaling the winery entrance and pulled into a gravel parking lot. I stopped and helped her out of the car, proud she was by my side.
We walked up to the glass and concrete building hand in hand, chewing on spearmint gum from Walgreens. Fresh breath mattered. Even more now that we might kiss.
Sidestepping Black Bishop’s tasting room, which had a line out the door, we walked inside the main building and stopped short. An involuntary chuckle came out of me.
In the gallery, a glass eggplant lay next to a glass peach on a Lucite pedestal, lighted as if the sculptures were Tiffany jewelry.
Audrey snorted, standing stock still. “Is this emoji art? That’s a dick and a butt, isn’t it?”
I grinned. “Yep. What do you think?”
Whirling around in a slow circle, she took in the scene before us. “I think it’s awesome.”
Black Bishop winery, run by family friends, was home to the weirdest art collection this side of San Francisco. The funky, rotating collections were the closest thing to an art museum in Merlot.
Audrey and I wandered through the exhibit, hand in hand. The artist had taken emojis and recreated them in blown glass, then arranged them so they said something. It was the viewer’s job to figure out what they meant. Some were easy, like a thumb’s up or a purple devil’s face. But others?
“A cherry and a dog?” Audrey asked.
“Oh my god.” I laughed. “Perry texts that all the time, in response to just about anything. ‘Cherry, Dawg.’” I shook my head. “He’s such a … a … Perry.” I turned to the next. “Lipstick and a horse?”
“Kiss my ass,” she read solemnly from a card to the side. We burst out laughing, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
Slow and steady, moving from hand holding to bodies touching. She bumped into me playfully with her shoulder, and I held her closer.
“Red prohibited sign, clock, bull, poop?” She squinted at the card. “No time for your bullshit.”
But as fun as the art was, what mattered was holding Audrey’s hand and bumping shoulders with her and having my arm wrapped around her and getting our bodies to touch each other and simply spending time laughing with her, with our boundaries down. With her as my date, not just my friend.
An afternoon that for the first time ever had the possibility for more.
“Do you want to go outside,” I suggested after we’d seen everything. “Check out the gardens?”
I couldn’t care less about the gardens. My thoughts were on other things.
“Sure,” she agreed easily enough.
We stepped outside into the sunlight and the green vines, and walked along the gravel path, as the light shone on the gilt edges of her auburn hair.
“It’s pretty out here,” she said, taking in the landscape, her eyes wide.
“So are you,” I said, focusing on her.
I turned so we faced each other, all of the valley below us, a patchwork of vineyards and houses and farms. The only person I saw—the only one I’d ever wanted—wasn’t even a foot away from me. I peered down at her.
God, she’s gorgeous.
My heart pounded, and I felt dizzy. I could do this. I’d planned this. It was going to be perfect.
I stepped in closer and traced her cheek with my finger. Then I dropped my hand to my pocket because my palms had become clammy, and I was barely keeping them from shaking. My dick was definitely paying attention and taking notes on the proceedings.
Audrey’s eyes caught mine, at first questioning, then widening with wonder, and then softening with a small nod.
Permission.
She wanted me, too. And unlike in her room, she was ready.
I leaned in, tilting my face towards Audrey for our first real kiss.
A female voice sounded behind me. “Tate Lemieux, is that you? And Audrey Staunton?” Audrey and I both jumped apart, startled.
I turned around to a tiny woman in Birkenstocks and brown clothes from the 1970s. She held the hand of a bigger woman, with tattoos up and down her arms.
Oh, fuck. It was our ninth grade health teacher and her wife. My entire body screamed in protest.
Figured. I finally got the nerve to tell Audrey how I felt and to kiss her for real and we ran into the woman who taught us about reproduction. Who lectured us for days and days on the parts of the male and female genitalia. A woman who projected a diagram of the male reproductive system on the wall, then hit it with the pointer stick so every guy in the room winced.