Chapter 6
Ariana
YOU DON’T ORGASM
“Ican’t believe he called you to come in,” Layla says, shaking her head.
After the tasting room closed for the evening, I felt too fidgety to go home and instead decided to get a head start on prepping some baked goods for the week.
I didn’t expect Layla to join me, but she saw my car parked out front when she was driving by after her shift.
She’s dressed in scrubs, her long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, and of course still looks perfect even though she’d been working for twelve hours.
I shrug. “It’s really not a big deal.”
“It’s literally your only day off.”
“And I don’t mind. At least not very much.”
Unsatisfied with my answer, she starts vigorously texting.
“Don’t text Ethan, please. I’m not in the mood for a whole argument.”
“So instead you’re just going to let him walk all over you?”
She’s the second person this week to tell me I let people walk all over me. And I’m not sure what that says about me. Nothing good, that’s for sure.
“Look, I’m having a not-so-great day. Can you just let it go? Please?”
Layla sits up straighter, her smile dropping. “You’re hiding something. Spill.”
Sometimes I hate being a twin. With most people, I can hold myself back, hide the parts of me I’d rather keep hidden. But Layla sees everything. She feels everything. It’s like we share a soul.
“It’s not a big deal. Just some guy I had a thing for isn’t interested in me, so I got a little sad about it. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
Her face twists, a painful expression marring her features. “Oh, Ariana.”
I close my eyes, wincing. I hate that tone, the sadness between syllables. She feels sorry for me. Poor Ariana, who never quite gets it right.
“I’m really fine, I promise,” I say, trying to sound brighter, trying to move on from the subject.
“Who is it? Because I’ll kick his stupid ass if you want me to.”
I laugh despite myself. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”
“Can I say something and you promise not to get mad?”
My shoulders tense. “What?”
“I think your heart outruns your head,” she says gently. “And you’ve got to protect it. Slow down. Actually—maybe don’t lead with it at all for once. Have some fun. You don’t let yourself do that. You don’t put yourself out there unless you already see wedding colors and a shared last name.”
My mouth pops open to argue, but she keeps going.
“You get those dreamy, cartoon heart-eyes over men who haven’t earned a single one of them. Not every guy deserves access to the softest parts of you. You need to learn how to turn that off. Or at least not hand it over so quickly.”
I raise a brow. “You mean like you?”
“Kind of.” She shrugs. “Until a guy proves to me he isn’t trash, I keep one foot out the door. I’m always ready to walk and forget he ever existed.”
I wish I had her mindset. I really do. But I can’t help myself. I don’t do casual, halfway feelings. I go from zero to a hundred in the span of a single meaningful glance. There is no in-between with me. No cool, detached middle ground where I can just enjoy something for what it is.
The second a guy is kind to me—like, genuinely kind—my brain betrays me. I’m already imagining Sunday mornings and shared grocery lists. I’m mentally trying on his last name, seeing how it fits with mine. I’m naming children who don’t exist and picturing where we’d spend the holidays.
It’s embarrassing.
I don’t mean to do it. I don’t sit there plotting out a wedding board on Pinterest. It just happens.
I’m a hopeless romantic to my core. And it may be my biggest flaw.
“Can we talk about your problems instead of mine? Yours are always more fun.”
A little giggle bubbles out of her, and I just know she has something juicy to tell me.
“Well,” she starts, “speaking of guys, I know I have that rule against dating anyone from work, but there’s this new doctor, and I might have a little flirty thing going on with him. Nothing’s happened, but it could.”
Her skin is flushed, her cheeks red. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we’d been transported back to middle school.
Layla was always a little more boy-crazy than me—or maybe just more confident—but either way, growing up she always seemed to be crushing on some new guy, and it was only a matter of time before he became her boyfriend.
She gets bored fast, though, so they never lasted very long.
I smile as I roll a ball of cookie dough between my palms. “Tell me everything.”
She lets out a breathy sigh and slumps against my office chair she’s rolled out into the kitchen. “His name is Owen, and he’s from Montana, so he has this whole cowboy accent I can’t get enough of. Picture a rugged cowboy doctor, and that’s Owen.”
“I didn’t realize cowboy doctors were your type.” I laugh.
“I didn’t either, but it’s really working for me. The other day he moved just right in his scrubs, and I swear I got a very clear idea of what he’s working with. And let’s just say…it’s impressive.”
She laughs to herself, and all I can think about is how painful it would probably be to have sex with someone who’s bigger than average.
Marcus was well below average, and I thought I was being split in half.
It’s the one thing I’ve never related to in romance novels.
Probably why I prefer historical romances to contemporary.
At least in historical ones, they disguise the description with beautiful language.
Meanwhile, in contemporary, when I read something like “giant cock,” all it makes me want to do is crawl in a hole.
I must be making a face, or she can read my mind, because she rolls her eyes at me. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but you’re just going to have to trust me that it can be good. But it can also be not good. It’s really more about whether he knows how to use it.”
Layla loves talking about sex. I, on the other hand, find the entire subject deeply uncomfortable, mostly because I don’t have much to contribute to the conversation.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Did you ever use that vibrator I bought you for Christmas last year?”
“Lay!” I screech, glancing around like someone might have heard her.
“What?” she giggles. “It’s just you and me. You don’t have to get all prudish because I said the word vibrator.”
“I’m not being prudish.” My voice is a touch more defensive than I’d prefer. “I just don’t like talking about that stuff.”
“Masturbation is healthy. It’s perfectly normal to explore your body and give yourself pleasure.”
Embarrassment courses through my veins, boiling beneath my skin. I swear she does this on purpose.
“Can we not talk about this?”
“You need to masturbate,” she says loud enough to make me jump. “How are you living your life without orgasms? I just don’t get it. Sometimes it’s like we’re not even related.”
“I’m fine. You’re making this a bigger deal than it is.”
“You don’t date. You don’t have sex. You don’t orgasm. Yet you read nothing but romance novels? I would lose my mind.”
I giggle, dusting flour across my workbench. “You do it enough for the both of us. That’s a twin thing, right?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “One of these days you’ll finally orgasm, and I’ll know because you’ll be skipping like you’re on the goddamn yellow brick road. You’ll see.”
“I won’t even need to tell you.” I laugh. “I’ll probably be so loud, the entire town will hear me.”
Layla throws her head back, giggling.
As I’m about to open my mouth to say something else, a loud crashing sound from next door has us turning our heads in unison.
Layla yelps. I nearly drop my mixing bowl.
“What the hell was that?” she asks.
Before I can answer, there’s a muffled curse, and I immediately recognize the voice.
It’s Cole.
We both stare at each other for half a beat before I wipe my hands on my apron. “Stay here.”
“Like I’m going to let you go check it out by yourself. Could be a psychopath,” Layla says, already hopping out of the chair and following me.
“Cole is not a psychopath.”
I knock on the front door of the tasting room—three firm raps that rattle the glass. There’s a clatter inside, followed by the scrape of something heavy being pushed across the floor. A second later the door swings open.
Cole fills the doorway, one hand braced casually against the frame.
His dark hair is slightly mussed, like he’s run his hands through it a few times, and there’s a faint smear of something deep red across the front of his T-shirt—wine, I assume.
A jagged shard of green glass is wedged into the tread of his boot.
“I take it you heard that?” he says. His voice is easy, but his mouth quirks like he knows exactly how loud it must have sounded. “Dropped an entire case of half-empty bottles.” He jerks his thumb vaguely over his shoulder toward the tasting room. “Fucking mess.”
Layla leans around me to peer inside. “Sounded worse than that.”
Cole glances down at the glass stuck to his boot and nudges it against the doorframe until it clinks loose onto the floor. “Yeah, pretty sure my eardrums shattered along with the bottles.”
Layla snorts.
I shift my weight as an awkward pause settles between us. For a moment, none of us says anything.
It’s strange. Cole—who always has something clever or mildly inappropriate ready to go—seems unnervingly quiet. Almost like he’s choosing his words carefully.
“Do you need help cleaning up?” I ask finally, mostly to break the awkward silence that’s settled between us.
His gaze flicks back to me. For a split second, something unreadable passes across his expression before he shakes his head. “Nah.” He swipes a hand lazily through the air, dismissing the offer. “I’ve got it.”
“All right, then.” I step back. “Have fun with that.”
Layla is already tugging on my arm, ready to drag me back next door.
Cole lifts his hand in a loose wave as we start to turn away.
“Sorry for the interruption, ladies.” His voice is light, almost teasing.
But when I glance back over my shoulder, I find him looking directly at me.
There’s a spark in his eyes now. Something amused.
“It’s amazing how thin these walls are. All the things you hear.
Loud things.” He tosses a wink at me before closing the door.
A prickly sensation scatters up my spine.
If Layla wasn’t already tugging on my arm, I’m not too sure I’d be able to move at all, frozen from the chilling realization that Cole overheard Layla and me.
But then again, maybe he didn’t. He’s always saying and doing ridiculous things to get a rise out of me.
He probably didn’t hear.
I’m almost positive.
Almost.
Once we’re back in the shop, Layla immediately rounds on me. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That.” She flourishes dramatically toward the door. “He was practically eating you with his eyes. I think he likes you.”
I snort. “He absolutely does not.”
She doesn’t realize that Cole might’ve heard us, and on the off chance that he didn’t, I don’t need her confronting him about it and dragging something out that might just be in my head.
“I don’t know,” she sing-songs, her tone dripping with doubt.
I move back to my workstation, pretending to be very invested in rolling cookie dough. My hands feel strangely unsteady.
“Mmm.” She hops back onto the chair. “You should hook up with him.”
The ball of dough squishes between my palms. “Very funny, ha-ha.”
“I’m serious.”
“With Cole?” I breathe a laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”
Layla even suggesting something like that tells me she’s not thinking clearly.
I know she’s trying to push me to stop holding myself back, but the person to do that with is definitely not the face of our family’s biggest competition.
Just imagining what would happen if it ever got out makes my stomach twist. The fallout would be a disaster.
“Why? It’s not as if you like him. This is what I’ve been telling you.”
“I’m not going to hook up with someone I don’t like. And Cole does not see me like that. Like, at all.”
“He’s perfect,” she says brightly. “Low emotional risk.”
I stare at her. “You are unhinged. And terrible at giving advice.”
She ignores me. “Who better to practice with?”
“Practice,” I repeat, horrified.
I’m not going to practice sex with someone like it’s some kind of sporting event. The thought alone is mortifying.
“Yes. Practice.” She points at me like this is obvious. “You don’t have feelings for him. He’s experienced. And rumor is”—she lowers her voice dramatically—”he’s very skilled in the bedroom.”
I nearly choke on my own spit. “You’re losing it. I’m not going to practice with anyone, let alone someone like him.”