“Sometimes. What have you been up to anyway? You and Chester too busy to hang with the likes of us?”
“Chess and I are too busy having sex,” he deadpanned.
“Good for you.”
“I’m kidding,” he said with a laugh and then added, “Sort of.”
“Typical.”
Peter worked for Sinclair Cellars when he was in between his other gigs. He was a freelance writer. He did whatever work he could, but he always enjoyed working on comic books. He’d designed his own when he was ten and never broken the habit. His collection of comics was utterly impressive. But sometimes, the writing jobs were outstanding, and sometimes, everything dried up. He had to be in a bit of a desert if he was here with me today.
“No writing jobs?” I guessed.
He shrugged. “It’s a volatile market. I’ll get more work soon. But…I’m thinking of asking Chess to move in.”
“Doesn’t he already live there all the time?”
“Well, yeah, but officially.”
“That’s great. You never got there with Jeremy,” I said of his last boyfriend.
“Definitely not. We would have killed each other. And Chess is brilliant and stable and out to his parents. So, it’s going good.”
“I like to hear that.”
“And you?” he asked. “I heard about Bradley. And I got no phone call.”
I laughed as I offered wine to a couple. After they were gone, I turned back to him. “Sorry. Old news. He was going to propose.”
“Peyton said that.”
“Yeah. Big clusterfuck there. I wasn’t going to marry him.”
“Dating anyone now?” he asked.
And when I looked up, Hollin Abbey was striding toward the Sinclair Cellars booth. My stomach dropped. He looked so fucking good. Like a tatted cowboy. And never in a million years would I have thought that would be my type, but here I was, salivating over Hollin in Wranglers, a fitted white T-shirt that showed off the length of his sleeve, brown cowboy boots, and a Stetson.
“Medina,” he said as he stepped up to our booth.
“Hi.”
Peter shot me a twin look and held his hand out to Hollin. “Hey, man.”
“How’s it going, Peter?”
Peter gestured to the wine before him. “So-so. You want to try the wine?”
Hollin’s blue eyes met mine. “I’ll take a red. Not quite a Wright vintage, is it?”
I rolled my eyes as I poured him the merlot. “You’re right. It’s better.”
“Heard y’all entered the same competition,” Peter said.
“We did,” Hollin said. “We’re rivals.”
“How nice of you to say. Last time, you called me the enemy.”
Peter chuckled. “Sounds right.”
“He wouldn’t even let me try the wine he submitted for the contest.”
Hollin grinned. “All in good fun. If you want to come by sometime, I could let you sample it.”
Our eyes met, and my stomach flipped. Why did I feel like we’d suddenly stopped talking about wine?
“Amazing,” Peter said. “You two can be civilized with each other.”
“We can. Can’t we, Piper?” Hollin asked.
I forced a fake smile on my face. “Were you going to buy wine or commandeer the table?”
“I’ll take a bottle of the merlot.”
Peter nodded, glancing at me. “I’ll get that together.”
Peter disappeared into the trailer we had set up behind our booth, where we kept the majority of the wine. We only kept a bottle or two in front of us at any given time after a catastrophe last year when a car had literally crashed through the market and we’d lost the entire stock.
With Peter safely away for a minute, I could drop my fake smile. “Come to make small talk?”
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“I hadn’t planned to come. One of our employees had to go to Amarillo. So, here I am.”
He nodded. “And with that cheery disposition, I bet you’re selling so much wine.”
“Luckily, my resting bitch face doesn’t sell the wine,” I said flatly. “The wine sells itself.”
Hollin chuckled and leaned against the table. “Are you coming to my birthday party tonight?”
His birthday party? Fuck, someone had mentioned that to me, but that was today?
“Today is your birthday?” I asked, my unease dissipating.
He held his arms out. “Yep. Big 3-0.”
“Happy birthday,” I said automatically.
“So, party?”
“I’d forgotten that was tonight.”
“I want you there,” he told me.
“Why?”
“Because I want you to be there.”
I frowned and glanced down at the cooling bottles of white sitting in an ice bath and back up at him. “I’d planned to go.”
“Good.” His smile turned dirty, and he pitched his voice low. “Are you going to wear a skirt for me?”
I gulped just as Peter came back, carrying the wine in a gift bag. “Here you go. Cash or card?”
I pulled back without answering Hollin’s dirty question. My mind filled with all the things we could do with me in a skirt again. Which was exactly what he’d wanted.
“Card,” he said and handed it over to Peter.
After he paid, Hollin tipped his hat at us. “Thanks for this.”
Then, he returned to his dad, who stood with Nora and August. They were eating burritos and drinking out of cold Coke cans. August held all of Nora’s plastic bags of all the wares she’d acquired at the market. Nora waved when she saw me, and I waved back.
Peter leaned his hip into the booth and crossed his arms. “So, what’s going on with you and Hollin?”
“Nothing,” I said automatically.
“Uh-huh.”
I tipped my head back and blew out a breath. “Is it that obvious?”
“Dude, yes.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Are you fucking?”
“I mean…”
Peter’s eyes widened. “You and Hollin Abbey are sleeping together?”
“Shh,” I gasped, putting my hand over his mouth.
“I’m so jealous.”
My eyes bugged out. “Oh my God, Peter!”
“What? He’s hot in that tall, muscular, cocky sort of way. He’s not bi, is he?”
I covered my eyes and turned away from my brother. “We’re not having this conversation.”
“You could do a lot worse.”
“That’s reassuring,” I said sarcastically.
Peter laughed. “Well, it’s not that I was eavesdropping, but you’d better wear a skirt tonight for his party.”
I smacked his arm. “Peter!”
“What? It was too delicious not to listen in!”
I shook my head at him. Even though he was being ridiculous, it made me happy that he seemed to…approve. He’d never gotten along with Bradley. It was like fitting a square piece in a round hole. It had been years since he’d encouraged me into any kind of relationship. And maybe I’d take his advice and actually wear that skirt.