Chapter 31
Thirty-one
Elise
The dorm is quiet when I wake. Pale light skims the beams. The old wood creaks on the stairs as the early birds begin moving around.
Kingston sleeps on his stomach, one arm flung toward my side of the bed.
His hand is open. I want to slide my fingers into his palm and stay, but the day is already moving.
Suitcases wait by the wardrobe. Tape, cardboard, and a neat stack of lists sit on the chair.
Today is my last day at Chateau, and last night, Sebastian told me I didn’t have to work today because of all the weekends I’ve worked while I was here.
I lie still and think of the things I’ll miss. Cool stone under my feet. Dew threading the vines so they glitter for a moment. Claire’s brisk voice that can cut and mend in a breath.
I slip from bed and cross to the window.
The fields are a green quilt with seams I’ve finally learned to read.
I came here wanting to prove something. I’m leaving with a different want.
Not to impress, but to be useful. To taste before I fix.
I press my palm to the cold glass and imagine the rows at Paradise Hill in this same shy light.
Two places rise up behind my ribs. Both feel like home in different languages.
A breeze lifts the curtain. Below, someone sets down a crate. A door clicks shut. The day is starting. I glance back at Kingston. He stirs, then settles.
I pull on a sweater and tie my hair. One last minute, and then I turn to wake him.
Kingston smiles as he opens his eyes. “How are you feeling?”
I look at him with his hair tousled. “I’m ready to go home.”
He gets up, wraps his arms around me, and kisses my neck. “Your wish is my command.”
Packing starts the way Kingston does everything—calm, clean, precise. Two suitcases open on the bed. He gathers the lists I made and adds his own check marks. I tease him, and he wrinkles his nose in that fake-offended way that makes my stomach flip.
Soon, cardboard dust hangs in the air. Tape snaps. I fold sweaters that may never lose the scent of this place. He rolls his shirts and hums under his breath. We move around each other without colliding, two magnets shifting poles whenever we get close.
I scoop the little pile from my nightstand into a shoebox—my trusty notebook, full of ideas and information and riddled with wine stains, a cork from the night Claire let me call a tasting note, three vine pebbles from the block where I finally trusted my nose.
Kingston lifts the lid and tips his head.
“You starting a rock museum?”
“It’s exclusive,” I say, nudging his hip. “Membership requires patience.”
He grins and pulls a labeler from his backpack. “Good. I brought credentials.”
“You didn’t.”
He prints a label that reads Elise’s Highly Scientific Evidence and smoothes it on like a signature. I laugh, and he looks stupidly proud.
At the desk, I pick up a heavy reference text and hesitate. Someone before me has filled the margins with notes, the private handwriting of someone who learned the hard way. Kingston sees my face and reaches for it. Sebastian gifted it to me last night since there’s a new edition.
“We can ship it,” he says.
I consider that but shake my head. “It belongs here. I’ll take photos of the parts I’d use most.”
He nods. “Photos now. PDF later. You get the words without stealing the weight.”
I photograph three chapters and tuck a sticky note with a thank you under the cover.
Kingston pauses at the wardrobe and holds up a simple black dress. “Paris?”
The word sparks something in the air. “Two days,” I say. “Museums if I want. Bed if I want. Both if I want.”
“Both,” he says, sliding the dress into my suitcase.
We argue for a breath over my battered sneakers. He wants to toss them. I hold them to my chest.
“They have vineyard soul,” I tell him.
“They have holes,” he says, kissing my cheek as he lets me keep them.
We nestle the last toiletries into a pouch. He shakes the suitcases to settle the clothes. I look over what we’ll carry and what we’ll leave and remind myself that my growth isn’t a souvenir. It lives in my hands and in the way my questions sound. It’s part of me.
Kingston loops an arm around my waist and rests his chin on my shoulder. “Ready?”
“Almost,” I say, pressing the shoebox lid in place. “I have to say goodbye to the vines. And I promised I’d give Sebastian five minutes.”
He kisses the top of my head. “Okay. I’ll keep making labels while you tell the field your secrets.”
I head downstairs and slip out the side door. Morning meets me with a cool breath. Dew threads the rows so each leaf wears a tiny mirror in the way I’ve come to love. The vines hold still, ribs guarding a heart. I step between them, and the smell rises up, green and wet, a little like tea.
I trail my hand along the wire, careful of the hooks. I remember the way mildew smells before it shows, the weight of a pump-over hose, the sound a healthy cap makes when it breaks. I thought I came here to collect tricks. I learned restraint instead. Mouth before math. Translate, don’t transplant.
A ladybug crawls over my knuckle and lifts off.
Down the slope, a tractor coughs once and goes quiet.
I close my eyes and picture home—Paradise Hill at first light, the lake a flat silver coin, our rows darker and tighter, and the soil more stubborn.
I used to think I’d bring France back like a suitcase full of answers.
Now, I think I’ll bring home better questions.
Something glints near my shoe. A clipped tendril, brown at the cut, curled like a note. I slide it into my notebook between pages that smell faintly of the cellar. One reminder is enough.
“Thank you,” I tell the row. It feels ridiculous and also perfectly right. This place never cared who I was trying to impress. It just kept asking me to show up. I did. That’s what I’ll carry.
My phone buzzes.
Sebastian: You coming?
Crap! I got distracted.
Me: Yes. On my way.
I look once more at the slope, the tidy lines, the sky patched between leaves. I press my palm to a post, rough and warm where the sun found it first. “I’ll do right by you,” I whisper, and I mean both vineyards.
Then I turn, and Chateau rises through the vines, familiar now. Sebastian is waiting in his office.
“You took your time,” he says, mouth quirking. “Good.”
“I told the field my secrets.”
He hands me a cup with a tiny pour. Not ceremony. Work. The wine is young and stubborn. I breathe and name what I can before I sip—red fruit, a little green, an edge that softens if you stop bulldozing it.
“Better,” Sebastian says, tapping the rim of my cup. “You started the summer wanting to sound smart. You’re leaving wanting to be right. Not the same thing.”
I laugh because it’s too true, and it hurts in a good way. Sebastian rests his hand on my notebook like a blessing.
“Useful mess,” he says. “That belongs to you.”
“I photographed the text,” I tell him. “And I left a note for you in the book. I can’t take it from here.”
He nods, seeming pleased. Then he pulls out a battered tasting glass. The base is chipped, so it tilts if you set it down wrong. He wipes a thumb over the rim and gives it to me.
“When you grab this, you’ll remember to taste before you fix. You’ll also remember to set it down carefully. Things aren’t as steady as you think.”
I hold the glass like an egg. “I won’t break it.”
“You probably will,” he says, smiling. “That’s fine. You’ll learn something then too.”
He gestures to the door, and we walk through the cellar. The shape of goodbye gathers, but Sebastian doesn’t go soft for long. He flicks the spigot on a nearby tank and watches the thin stream.
“Where are you on the last blending adjustment?” I ask. Small talk here is usually practical.
“Nearly done. The sauvignon will sulk a week and then pretend it decided to be brilliant on its own.” He cuts me a look. “You have enjoyed that fight.”
“I have.” I glance around at the tools and hoses. I could walk this room blind now and not hit a barrel.
Sebastian’s gaze shifts toward the door, as if looking for Kingston. “And the other fight, the one where you pretend you didn’t fall in love?”
Heat climbs my neck. “I didn’t pretend very well.”
“Good. Pretending is a waste of time.” He leans against the bench. “He travels well, your forever.”
The word steadies me. I nod. “He does.”
“You kept working when he arrived,” he says. “You kept asking questions. You didn’t let the man swallow the craft. You can have both if you keep your hands on the work.”
I turn the glass in my fingers, nodding. “I want both. I want to go home and not lose this.”
“You’re not taking France,” he says. “You’re taking your practice. Taste first. Ask better questions. Don’t copy us. Make Paradise Hill taste like Paradise.”
“Sasha said that too,” I admit. “With fewer words.”
“Of course, she did.” He snorts.
We sip again. He watches me more than the wine. It feels like the end of an exam I didn’t know I was taking.
“What will you do first when you get back?” he asks.
“Walk the rows before sunrise. Then sit in the barn and smell the tanks before I read a number.”
He looks satisfied. “Write that down,” he says, though we both know I already did. “And send me pictures when you try something new. If it blows up in your face, send those too. Especially those.”
I laugh, and then find I can’t. The ache moves from under my ribs and sits in my throat. I grip the stem of the glass and find the bench with my hip.
Sebastian notices but doesn’t pounce. He lets the moment breathe. “You were never pretending here,” he says at last. “You walked in with your shoulders at your ears and your mouth full of reasons. You’re leaving with your shoulders down. Keep them there.”
I swallow. “You did that.”
“You did that,” he says. “I nudged.”
He reaches for my notebook, slides the wax pencil from behind his ear, and tucks it under the elastic on the cover. He pushes the book toward me.