Rock the Chardonnay (Wine & Rock -n- Roll)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

D eclan—twelve years ago

If my eyeballs actually burst into flames, will that excuse me from the organic chemistry midterm?

I glare at my laptop screen while playing with my plastic ball-and-stick model of the chemical compound for banana ester. Seven carbons, fourteen hydrogens, and one—no, damn it—two oxygens. I pick up another of the large blue balls that I’m using to simulate oxygen and attach it to my model.

A girlish laugh filters down the stairs of my family’s otherwise silent house. Blue balls. That’s not something my brother, Ciaran, ever has to worry about. Not that he worries about grades, either. Or anything, really, apart from girls and hockey.

My stomach curdles. Too much hydrochloric acid, brought on by too many sleepless nights cramming for midterms and too many glasses of my family vineyard’s red blend. I know I shouldn’t combine the two. I’m supposed to be smarter than that.

Footsteps sound in the upstairs hallway, and despite my every effort to the contrary, my gaze strays upward.

I’m supposed to be smarter than that, too. Smart enough not to want my little brother’s girlfriend.

Would it have killed him to pick anyone other than Daughtry Sutcliffe? Not that she notices me. Or that I have the courage to ask her out.

I’d tutored her a few times in the fall, during the grape harvest. We held a traditional crush as a promotional event, and she’d been the first to dive into the vat. She was new in town, but fearless. Captivating. The dark purple juice had splattered her dark blonde hair and run down her pale arms in rivulets. I still remembered the shirt she had worn that day, a nearly threadbare Fleetwood Mac concert tee. I was mesmerized by her. For weeks she was all I thought about after I’d gone back to school. I almost hadn’t turned in my grad school applications on time, because I’d been so wrapped up in her.

When she asked me to tutor her in chemistry, I thought that was my shot. The few rare hours with her had been perfect. Symphonic. The two of us huddled over notebooks and texts, the sounds of our laughter drowning out the scratching of our pencils. I wanted to ask her out. There was this moment…I thought she had given me an in.

But she hadn’t.

Turned out it was all an excuse for her to meet my younger brother. Story of my life.

My cock stirs, dazed and confused after the weeklong slog of studying for midterms here at my parents’ house. The weeklong slog of avoiding my brother and Daughtry.

I grit my back teeth .

This is wrong. She’s eighteen, a senior in high school, and I’m four years older than her. She is my brother’s girlfriend.

My. Fucking. Brother’s. Girlfriend.

Abandoning my banana ester compound, I stand from the kitchen table and beeline for the fridge. I need to eat something to settle my stomach. I yank on the fridge door, bathing in its warm glow and its soft hum. Nothing looks appealing. There’s a bottle of blueberry hard cider beside the orange juice, but if I drink that, I’ll never sleep properly.

Only two more days. Two more days of this torture and then I will head back to college. I’ll pass my classes, attend parties where I know less than ten people, and graduate. I will put miles and miles and miles between me and my brother and his luscious girlfriend.

I never would have come home if I’d known my parents would be out of town, leaving me and my brother alone with Daughtry. And I would have left early, really I would have, except my dorm is full of people who will make it even more impossible to study.

I’m fucked, in all except the literal way.

“Oops!” A female voice says behind me, followed by a tinkling laugh.

I slam the fridge door closed, revealing Daughtry.

My mouth waters, and it has nothing to do with anything I’ve seen in the fridge. Daughtry’s blond hair is up in a high, messy ponytail, her pale cheeks are flushed, and her golden hazel eyes flash with amusement. She holds a fraying black leather handbag covered in metal studs in one hand and a pair of worn Converse sneakers in the other. They have little hand-made stars on them in glittery puffy paint. “Hi, Declan. Sorry, I didn’t know you were still awake.”

“Mmhm,” I say, but it sounds more like “Mvensnup.” Wonderful. Way to sell college, Smart Guy. I used to be able to speak actual words. “Hi, Daughtry.” I stick my hands in my back pockets before remembering that, unfortunately, I’m wearing sweatpants and there are no back pockets. Having smacked my own ass unintentionally, I ignore it like a pro and lean against the fridge. “I’m just studying.”

“Midterms. Right.” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as she glances over at my mountain of study materials, including empty bags of chips and cookies and soda cans. I have an intense urge to one-arm sweep everything into a trash bag and then throw myself in, too. What was I thinking, leaving such a mess when I knew she was upstairs? “College. So close and yet so far away.”

She’s talking to me. Daughtry Sutcliffe, who has haunted my dreams more than once, is having an actual conversation with me. I have to think of something to say. Anything. Anything besides the truth, because it would be one thousand percent inappropriate to tell my brother’s girlfriend that I think I’m in love with her.

“Are you thinking about college?” Yes! Finally, for the first time in my life, I say something that fits the situation.

“Yes.” Her eyes twinkle and she moves across the kitchen like she owns it. I would happily have given it to her, if it were mine to give. She has gorgeous feet, petite and capable. They’re how I picture a dancer’s feet. Except one time sophomore year I had dated a dancer, and she did not have cute feet.

That is completely beside the point.

“I’m NYC bound, baby!” She punches the air like a prize fighter and it is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

“That’s awesome.” She will be thousands of miles away from my brother, which seems like a mark in the plus column. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Declan.” She paws through the bags of snacks on the table, but she isn’t going to find anything. I’m a scarfer when I study. No junk food is safe. “I’m pretty excited. I’ve been researching affordable voice coaches and everything. My mom doesn’t want me to major in music, but I have a scholarship, so she doesn’t get a say. Like I don’t get a say in her life.” Leaving the table, she moves across to the cupboards. She’s like a restless little hamster. No, something cuter than a hamster. A quokka?

I’m hopeless.

“Are you hungry?” I ask. Damn Ciaran. Had he even offered her water after hooking up with her? Of course he wouldn’t have thought of that. I mentally schedule a Very Serious Chat with my brother for tomorrow on the proper care of women. I move to the fridge and take out a can of soda and a bottle of water. “Want a drink? I can make pancakes.”

“Ooh.” Daughtry plucks the soda can from my hand and pops it with one nail covered in chipped teal polish. “You’re only confirming that you’re the sensitive brother.”

That stings. Sensitive brothers don’t get the girl. “Pancakes sound good. I always study better with a full stomach.” I busy myself with getting the pancake mix and filling a measuring cup with water from the tap. I’m not avoiding looking at her. No. Of course not.

I turn to put the measuring cup in the sink and Daughtry sits in one of the bar stools at the kitchen island, her legs in her skintight jeans swinging in the air. Her elbows rest on the island, cradling her heart-shaped face in her hands.

She has a line of piercings in her left ear, little hearts and moons and gems running along the curve. I memorize each one. They almost look like a chemical compound winding along her cartilage.

I am most definitely staring. I pay attention to the stove instead and turn on the electric cooktop, sliding my mom’s ancient cast iron pan into place on the burner.

“No one’s ever made me pancakes before,” Daughtry says quietly, her tone holding a hint of amusement. Daughtry always looks like that, like she’s about to burst into laughter, or a joyful Broadway number, complete with sparkly costume. “I guess, technically, restaurants make pancakes for you. No one’s ever made them in their house for me.”

The skin along my hands heats, which has nothing to do with the stove or the butter melting into the pan. I don’t know much about Daughtry’s mom, but I’ve inferred a lot. She spends a lot of time at the Broken Lighthouse, and she is neither bartender nor waitress there.

“I don’t think Ciaran knows how to turn on the stove, but I can teach him. He should make you breakfast.” Though that brings up all the reasons why my little brother would be making her breakfast, which only makes me see her in the vat, her thin T-shirt soaked with grape juice and clinging to her curves. I grip the spatula so tightly that the metal wand falls out of the plastic handle. I rush to reassemble it.

“Pfft.” Daughtry picks up the napkins and starts folding them into different shapes, origami boats and fans. “He brought me pretzels once. Is it weird? Talking about your brother’s sex life?”

Yes. “No. Of course not.” I ladle some of the pancake batter into the cast iron, but instead of the sun I wanted to make, it spreads into an amoeba. Amoebas are easier to contemplate than what Daughtry and my brother do up in his room while our parents are out of town.

“What about you?” she asks.

I spoon another scoop of batter into the foaming butter. This one spreads into a shape like a used condom. Great. That sends all the right messages. “What about me?” I use the edge of the spatula to nudge it out of the used condom shape and into more of a trapezoidal bubble.

“I bet you pull all kinds of women at college.”

All the hairs on the back of my neck stand erect. My hand stumbles and I slice the trapezoidal bubble into two irregular triangles. Her gaze is a laser. Why would she ask me that? I shouldn’t think about it. “Despite what pop culture wants you to believe, the nerdy guy doesn’t get the girl.” Mostly because nerdy guys have to study in order to keep their scholarships and get into graduate programs, because a plain old Bachelor of Science degree is worth about as much as a steaming pile of B.S.

“I can’t believe that. You’re smart, hot, and you know how to make pancakes. I’ll bet you have all the ladies lined up outside your dorm room.”

I sneak a look at her when I reach up into the cupboard to get a plate. Her hazel gaze is on me, watching my every move. It’s enough to clear all the organic chemistry from my brain.

I’m not a monk, of course not. But do I have the kind of pull my younger brother has? Hell no. Certainly not anyone of Daughtry’s caliber.

I focus on transferring the cooked pancakes to a plate, and remember all the reasons why this isn’t actually happening. She isn’t flirting with me. She is just hungry. She is too young. She is out of my league.

She is my brother’s girlfriend.

I hand the plate to her across the island and then take the bottle of syrup out of the fridge. “Yum,” she says, licking her lips. With the prongs of her fork, she traces the outline of the amoeba-like one. “This one looks like an amoeba. Or maybe a raincloud.”

My cock swells, and I hide my growing erection with the stove. Pancakes. I can make fucking pancakes and not get hard thinking about her. It’s wrong. Very wrong, and I am a very, very bad man for even remotely contemplating it.

Very bad.

Pancake batter splashes into the sizzling hot pan in a sequence of irregular blobs, not dissimilar to my banana ester model.

“These pancakes are delicious,” Daughtry says. I hear her eating behind me. She has an incredible mouth, especially when she sings. Lips that curve around a microphone like she—

No. Pancakes. I am focusing on pancakes.

“I’ll drive you home. It’s too late to ride your bike.” I lean against the counter, mostly so I don’t fall into the hot butter and burn myself. “Unless Ciaran is going to drive you.”

She snorts and leaps off her stool, holding her plate and soda can. “If my mom could save more than ten dollars at a time, I’d buy a car and save everyone the trouble.” She puts her dishes in the sink and the can in the recycling. She turns to me, leaning her elbows back on the counter. The posture pushes her excellent breasts into a more prominent position, and I studiously keep my gaze on the pancakes.

Two of which sit in little circles right next to each other, looking remarkably like breasts.

I tug at the collar of my St. Olaf High Mathletes tee. “It’s no trouble to drive you.” My pancakes are burning. I flip them and settle them onto a plate. “I’d rather do that than worry about you.”

I turn to get a fork from the drawer beside her, and this is a colossal mistake. Her gaze is on me, her eyes soft, her lips pulling into a gentle smile. The utensil drawer is a minefield. I don’t need a fork. I can eat pancakes with my hands.

Before I can save myself, Daughtry circles one of her petite hands around my wrist. The bracelet of her touch burns and nearly makes me collapse like a skeleton-less sack. My gaze, tortured traitor that it is, trails from her hand up to her face and arrests there. She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen .

“You’re a really nice guy, aren’t you, Declan?” Her voice is a sultry promise.

My breath stutters in my chest. “That sounds like a kiss of death.”

She leans a centimeter closer to me. She smells like maple syrup and my brother’s soap and it’s all very confusing. My cock doesn’t know how to make heads or tails of it, but it follows thousands of years of genetic code and rises to the occasion. “You could look at it as a kiss of hope. Some girls do want nice guys, Declan.” I love the way she says my name, like it’s music.

Still. I know the truth. She is Ciaran’s girlfriend.

I step away from her and set the pancakes on the island by the stove. Distance would be helpful in this situation. “What does Ciaran think about you moving to New York?”

Daughtry scoffs. “You and I both know he won’t give a shit. He’s great, really. But it won’t last, and I’m cool with that.”

My only two girlfriends so far have both been of the long-term monogamous variety. I’m not built for the casual hook up. But how could Ciaran ever let Daughtry get away? If she were mine…but she isn’t.

“You are?” I ask. “Cool with that?”

She shrugs. “If I’m going to be a songwriter, I need a lot of different experiences to pull from. I need to write about life, and there’s no way to do that unless I live it. These feet are not designed to stay put. And besides, no one wants songs about the person they settled for in high school.” Her gaze flicks up and down my body, and not for the first time, I wish I were wearing something other than study sweats. “Don’t you think?”

The whole kitchen feels charged, filled with crackling energy, protons and electrons flittering around at warp speeds. The air is sweet with the scent of pancakes and rich fried butter and sugary maple syrup. Through it all, there is Daughtry, pulling me to her like she always does.

What if this once I took a chance? Not to kiss her or have sex or anything, but to share time with her? Get to know her? The instant slips through my fingers like water through a sieve.

But I want it to last. I step toward her. “Daughtry—”

“Hey, are those pancakes?” My asshole brother stomps into the room, sweeps up the plate of pancakes I had made, then bends and kisses Daughtry full on the lips. He is shirtless and wearing a pair of boxer shorts that my mom should have made him throw away, since they are at least two sizes too small. I imagine he didn’t because he likes how tight they are. “Ooh, these ones look like boobs. Don’t they, babe?” He tilts his plate for Daughtry to look. She glances down briefly then back up toward me.

“Yeah. Sure, Ciaran,” she says.

Kicking myself, I turn off the stove and take a bottle of water back to my study table. That’s all over. I had one chance to tell her how I felt, and I blew it.

“I’ll drive you home in two minutes, babe,” Ciaran says. I hear him kiss Daughtry again, sloppy and loud. Like a douche.

I bend my head back to my banana ester model.

I blew my one chance and I will never get another one.