Chapter 10
Raffi
And yet Raffi himself was not happy. Ani hadn’t come.
Maybe she forgot. Maybe she was still so hung up on Kami there was no way she even saw him as anything other than a pesky vendor.
He thought they’d had a moment, with the flowers and the EpiPen, but maybe he was wrong.
After he invited her in person, he hadn’t followed up via text or anything because he didn’t want to come off as desperate.
But maybe he should have. The invite was too casual.
He hadn’t given her enough hard details; he should have—
“Raffi!”
Before he saw them, two pairs of arms were thrown around him. Riley and Maya, the two most boisterous members of Mad, Bad, and Dangerous Book Club, squeezed hard and then unwrapped themselves from him. Lana and Kennedy were close behind, giving him quick hugs and smiles.
They were all Stanford MBAs doing impressive work just a few years after graduating.
Kennedy and Maya, who also had master’s degrees in education, cofounded a progressive elementary school; Riley had landed a job in health care, vowing to create change from the inside; and Lana had invented a way to turn landfill trash into building materials and had just gotten her patent approved. And he was…putzing around a winery.
Riley shouted over the music. “We’re so proud of what you’re doing! Iconic behavior, Raffi. Utterly iconic.”
MBD Book Club met twice a year, down from their monthly meetups while they were in school, but they still kept it up. Seeing everyone outside the walls of their book club was a treat, and he basked in the warmth of old rhythms.
Maya beamed in his direction, waxing nostalgic. “Remember when he read his first Carmen Maria Machado? How his mind was so blown? Look how far he’s come.”
Kennedy added, “Or when we read ‘Cat Person’ and he was like, ‘Wait, why didn’t she just go home?’ So sweet and innocent.”
Raffi waved them off. “Okay, okay. We don’t need to relive Raffi’s greatest hits of becoming a feminist.”
It was true, though. He owed them so much.
Riley glanced toward the counter where various vintages were being uncorked. “Seriously, though, this place is impressive. Now excuse me while I grab a glass and chat up that cute pourer.”
Lana nodded appreciatively toward Justine, who Riley made a beeline toward. “She is attractive. Not anyone you’re dating?”
“No,” Raffi said, jarred by the thought. Justine was nice-looking, but first of all, Raffi would never date or hook up with someone who worked for him, and secondly, he simply never had those kinds of thoughts about her.
There was only one person that piqued his interest. One person who was hung up on her ex and not interested in him. “Still single over here.”
Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Hopeless!”
Lana said, matter-of-factly, “No, no. There’s always hope.”
Raffi scratched the back of his head. “Fill up as much as you want, by the way. On the house.”
His friends took the invitation. He downed his third glass, surveyed his party, then decided to get another.
As he was getting his refill, the song changed to the one everyone loved, this winter’s number one hit, upbeat and celebratory.
Shouts and whoops filled the air. His friends, acquaintances, and people he didn’t know created a dance floor in the middle of the winery, swaying, shaking, and two-stepping.
Riley grabbed his hand. “C’mon, Raffi, let’s dance.”
Raffi shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. You guys go on. I have host duties.”
“If you change your mind, you know where we’ll be,” said Maya, and she pranced toward the newly minted club in the middle of ?.
Raffi watched them, as sadness so profound filled his body he thought he might vomit. He was glad for everyone, pleased they were having a good time and that the party was successful, but he felt so starkly alone in that moment.
His father refused to come tonight, saying he didn’t want to see what went on at one of Raffi’s wasteful schemes, a stupid attempt at drumming up business. His mother was in Monaco, escaping the harsh winter and likely asleep at this hour. His brother was dead.
They had always been two brothers, a whole thing that had been severed.
Sevan should have been here, not just tonight but the entire time.
Advising Raffi against med school because it was so obviously a bad fit for him.
Helping him figure out girls, women, instead of the debacle that was his love life.
Swapping clothes, playing ball, doing stupid childish things in their twenties like crushing cans on their foreheads and hiking Half Dome in the middle of the night.
Sevan should have been here for all of it.
Riley motioned yet again for Raffi to come hit the floor as she attempted a daring take on the lawn mower move and somehow pulled it off. But he felt no desire to join.
Raffi did not dance. Not anymore. He used to, and in fact, he’d had a bit of a knack for it.
His mother had secretly put him into ballroom dancing classes, which Raffi found he loved.
Mom had told him, “You can move. Everyone can learn and get better, but there’s also God-given talent and you have it. Let’s not waste it.”
The Argentine tango had been his favorite.
He’d won several regional competitions, which his mother and Sevan had attended, clapping him on the back, hugging him tight.
They’d both been so supportive. But then he quit the hobby completely.
His dad had never found out, so he wasn’t the reason he stopped.
Raffi had dropped his classes after Sevan died, had quit dancing altogether, and most of the time being around music and other people dancing was fine. But sometimes? It was unbearable.
Raffi took advantage of being the proprietor of this winery by topping off his glass a quarter inch from the brim.
He was holding this glass, inspecting it and calculating how stupid it had been to fill it that high while wearing tailored wool, when Ani floated in.
The music faded to a muffled throb while he took in the sight of her. She donned a short white dress and high platform heels. The soft lighting caught in her hair and shimmered against her skin, like the room had saved its glow just for her. And she was searching the room.
She had come. That was the thing.
It wasn’t just how stunning she was—and make no mistake, she was st-uh-nning—it was that her presence somehow took him from crying under a metaphorical bridge with a not-so-metaphorical bottle of wine to feeling like this night was suddenly full of possibilities.
He didn’t care to analyze why; he just wanted to get high off the sensation of it for now.
Ani found him and strutted over in those heels.
“You came,” he said, and realized he sounded far too excited. No game, Raff, no game.
“I’m just checking out the lighting after dark,” she said, obviously lying.
“In your finest workwear, I see.”
Ani looked down at herself, and he detected a pinkening of her cheeks. “This old thing? I happened to have it on when it crossed my mind that it would be a good idea to see how your venue handles night lighting and sound.” Her eyes darted around. “Very well, I must say.”
Raffi fake bowed. “Thank you, Miss Wedding Planner. I live for your accolades.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and she seemed to be fighting it.
“Miss Wedding Planner would like a drink,” she said. “What’ve you got?”
Now it was Raffi’s turn to hide his blush.
Hearing her use his nickname for her gave him a rush of blood in places unmentionable.
Then he had to snap himself out of it because getting a visible hard-on at your own party was not cool.
Nor anyone else’s party, except maybe those elite Silicon Valley orgies he kept hearing about and not getting invited to.
“We’ve got a bunch of local IPAs, Guinness, every classic cocktail you could think of, but absolutely no wine. Gross, hate the stuff.”
“Totally. Grape corpse water,” she said, again with that smile.
“So, cabernet? Or are you a chardonnay type?” he said, turning toward the counter, thanking his lucky stars that his wine was actually good and he’d have a chance to impress this incredible woman.
“Sauvignon blanc, actually,” she said. “Steel barrel aged is my preference, but I go for oak, too.”
“Maybe I should be calling you Miss Wine Spectator instead?”
Ani shrugged. “Had a period of time when I went to wineries a lot.”
Based on the way her expression dropped, Raffi suspected that period of time coincided precisely with when Ani and Kami had dated. He decided not to pursue that avenue of conversation. But also? A bit of his optimism slumped.
What the hell was he doing, when Ani was so clearly still hung up on her ex?
Her ex who she had to see constantly, for whom she was basically on-call emotional support staff?
His interest in Ani was all kinds of stupid, and he would not continue flirting with her.
After handing her the wine, he would walk away and mingle.
“Lucky for you,” he said, “all our whites are steel aged.”
Raffi reached over the counter, giving Ted, one of the pourers, a wink like, “I got this, thank you. You can see I’m doing this to show off to a girl, right?
Sorry for getting in your way.” He grabbed his nicest sauv by the neck, poured Ani a decent-sized glass, and handed it to her.
Then he picked up his own monstrous red again and was only now mortified by the screams-alcoholic size of it.
Ani raised an eyebrow when she caught sight of his glass. But Raffi, undeterred, decided it would be rude to walk away now, so he lifted his absolute unit of a goblet and spoke his benediction in English and Armenian.
“To the woman who saved my life, cheers.”
Before they could clink, before Raffi could fully take in that pleased expression on Ani’s face and the slight flush to her cheeks, their quiet moment was toppled on its head.