Chapter 20
DRIVE: SERIES OF PLAYS BY OFFENSE AIMING TO SCORE.
Something has fundamentally shifted between Troy and me that has nothing to do with our kiss.
By the time we reach the villa as the sun hangs low in the sky, I feel it brushing against my skin, sliding into my blood, wrapping around my heart.
It’s almost as if we’ve been dusted with a cocoon of gold stardust—a blessing of what’s brewing between us.
I’m uncertain whether to be enraptured or terrified by it.
As I set my camera aside, Troy pours two glasses of water before leaning over the counter to hand me mine. His fingers brush against mine, causing a rush to flow through me as if I’d just drunk a full glass of wine. “You’ve been quiet,” he says after a moment.
“Just thinking.” I lift the glass to my lips as Troy massages his thigh muscle. I dip my chin in concern. “Is your leg hurting?”
“Nothing a good soak tonight won’t cure,” he assures me.
Immediately, my mind imagines Troy naked in a whirlpool tub and my cheeks flush the color of the grapes that were plucked from the vines earlier. To gain some semblance of order, I steer our conversation to something more mundane. “You put in a lot of hard labor here.”
“I’ve never been afraid of putting in the work for something I want.
” He stretches his arms skyward. The movement untucks his shirt from his jeans, showing off his washboard abs and perfect “V” that’s dusted by a happy trail.
The saliva in my mouth dries up as I imagine following it with my lips. My tongue.
I snag my glass to chug the rest of my water, whereupon I immediately choke on it.
Troy rounds the counter and smacks me between the shoulder blades to ease some of my wheezing. Finally, after coughing for a few minutes, I gasp, “Thanks.”
“Try not to throw it back like its pickle juice after completing a set of hill sprints,” he suggests.
“Hardy, har, har.” Then I can’t help but ask, “Do you still do those?”
“Sprints?”
“Yes.”
He bends his knee to show me the range of motion he has in it. “I’m mostly healed. I can walk up the hills to the vineyard with little difficulty.”
“Except for days like today?”
“Today was an exception. That was the squatting.”
I think about the number of times he helped the harvesters. My admiration for his dedication shoots up another million degrees. “Yet, you didn’t complain once.”
“I might have a few times.”
“Ah. In Italian?”
He grins ruefully. “You heard the laughter.”
I don’t let him dismiss it. “I saw them. Your people respect you.”
“They do. It took a while.”
“Why?”
“Oh, a few reasons. And that's a story for another day. But to answer your original question, no sprints. Not anymore.” He looks down at my drink and raises his eyebrows.
I hand it over. “Under any circumstances?”
“Let’s just say something would have to be chasing me,” he admits ruefully, taking my glass from me.
I tilt my head to the side and ask him something I’ve never had the confidence to broach with him. “Do you ever miss it? Football?”
“Want the genuine answer or the one I tell to everyone?”
“You mean there’s more than one?”
He refills my water before handing it back to me. “Oh yeah. If a reporter asked the same question, I might answer by saying that I miss the training, the team, and especially the fans.”
“And the real one?” I take a cautious sip.
His candor surprises me. His chin drops into his hands. “I enjoyed the parts where I could give back to the people who came to cheer us on.”
“You mean things like the charity work?”
“Exactly. I mean, the game gave me the drive to do more. Be more.”
“That’s—”
“What?”
“Sweet.” Clearing my throat, I ask, “Is there anything else?”
He gives it some consideration. “Definitely mentoring the new players into becoming excellent role models. I liked that part of it.”
My voice is sardonic when I mock, “Bryce excluded.”
“Bryce is always the exclusion.” His voice is wry in return.
“And your injury?”
“Well, I certainly wish it hadn’t happened.”
“Troy,” my voice is exasperated.
“It aches sometimes. I’m certain it would if I ran the vineyard, worked as a coach, or sat around on a yacht.”
I lift a hand and tease him. “You never mentioned yachts were an option.”
He reaches out and bops me on the nose. “You’d be bored in about a day.”
“You know me pretty well,” I concede.
“I’d like to get to know you better,” he counters.
His words hang between us, amping up emotions that are swirling so fast from friends to more. It’s all blurring together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Sensing my discomfort, Troy steers the topic back to something safer for me—the aftereffects of his injury. “Reminds me that I survived, I guess. But the hardest part wasn’t the pain. It was the silence afterward.”
“No cheering fans?” I tease.
“Very few people remember what happened to me unless it’s with some special or I appear on camera.”
I frown. “Sounds like you had the wrong friends.”
“You’re not wrong about that.”
“What does the vineyard satisfy in you?“
His answer is immediate. “Family. Teamwork and camaraderie. I’ve learned the rhythms and—much like in the plays of a game—can predict what happens next. The only difference is I’m playing on one team—Mother Nature’s.”
“Plus, your stakes are higher,” I remark.
“What makes you say so?” Troy challenges, lifting his drink up and taking a swallow.
I take a small sip of my own, organizing my thoughts. “You have people whose livelihoods you’re directly responsible for. Yes, there’s the competitive side to producing the next great vintage, but in so much as I know you, that’s secondary to just being…well, a good person.”
His penetrating stare holds wonder and heat. He leans forward until the stubble of his five o’clock shadow brushes against my cheek. Chills from the light touch of his cheek against mine cause my nipples to harden behind my shirt. “Be careful with your compliments, uvetta mia.”
His words hang between us. The silence between us is charged. Then he murmurs, “Recently, the vineyard gave me something else. Something I didn’t think would ever just appear.”
Breathlessly, I pull back so our lips are hardly a few millimeters apart. “What’s that?”
His eyes bore into mine. “Hope. I went outside on a regular harvest day and it was given to me.” His hand reaches up and tucks a curl behind my ear.
“Hope,” I echo, even as my mind whirls to the image he paints about my arrival. I feel I need to explain some of my confusion. “How come I—we—never felt this way before?”
“You mean when you and Bryce were together?” His matter-of-factness settles some of the anxiety in my stomach.
I nod, unable to tear my eyes away from his.
He’s so handsome, more so here at home in an environment he’s clearly comfortable in.
Looking at him stirs something in me I swore I would guard myself against. Yet, there’s no artifice in Troy.
Still, “It’s only been a few days and we’ve gone from being friends to… ”
“More.” He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.
“Yes.”
His eyes hold mine before he admits, “You weren’t supposed to see it.”
“This? Us?” I point back and forth between us.
He gently takes hold of my hand and stills it, finger still extended in his. “No, just this. Me.”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s staying my hand for a reason. I inhale sharply. “You? Wait. Really? Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“Because I’d rather have been in your life as a friend, watching you bloom as a bride, Maya. Even if it meant your being with someone else. What I couldn’t—no, wouldn’t—stand for is your being with someone who blatantly disrespected you.”
He drags his fingers along my cheek and, for several heartbeats, I swear he’s going to kiss me. Then he stuns me when he murmurs, “Because I value who you are as my friend, as a woman, I’m going to tell you to go get ready for dinner before I make a move you’re not ready for.”
“Troy…” My voice is barely more than a breath. “You make it hard to remember why I don’t want you to.”
He brushes his lips against my cheek, oh so close to my lips. “I’ll remind you of that sometime soon.”
Right now, I wish soon was now.