Chapter 4 #2
More than once, he’d been tempted to text Rocco and ask if he’d had a similar level of interest—and if they’d detoured to Jolly Java, buying coffee and scones and muffins, to do it.
Maybe just the thought of them dating had been enough to get Rocco back into everyone’s good graces.
But then, that wouldn’t fix Taylor’s problem.
And you wouldn’t get to hang out with him, and you want to. Even if you don’t want to admit it.
He did.
He could barely think it without a blaring goat cheese accompanying the thought, but that had only turned into amusing punctuation, not even a deterrent.
By the time the wine tasting rolled around, he’d avoided actually texting Rocco, but Rocco had texted him twice.
Once to confirm they’d be meeting there, and another, just a minute ago, telling Taylor he was running slightly behind.
Taylor had read the first one—a fairly straightforward exchange—and the second, even though it had only just come in, more times than he wanted to admit to.
This is not a real date.
But it felt like a real date.
Then he heard footsteps behind him, and turned, and yeah, he’d felt this way the last time he’d been on a first date.
That sharp wave of exhilaration and terror surging through him, though then it hadn’t been nearly as strong as it was now, faced with a Rocco Moretti trying to make a good impression.
Or maybe he always cleaned up this good.
His hair was curling around his head in a dark halo, his cheekbones carved out of his face, brown eyes hot as they took in Taylor standing there, under the streetlight.
He wore a black wool peacoat, with a maroon scarf wrapped around his neck, and a pair of form-fitting black jeans and dark boots.
Goat cheese, Taylor thought dazedly. All the goat cheese.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Rocco said breathlessly.
Taylor thought, I’d wait a hell of a lot longer for you. But he didn’t say that, because nobody was here, and there was no point in saying anything sappy and romantic when they didn’t have an audience. That was the whole idea behind this charade.
“It’s fine,” Taylor said. “You ready to go in?”
“Oh yeah,” Rocco said.
Taylor gestured towards the door, and with his late mother’s voice admonishing him in his head to be a gentleman, he pressed a palm to Rocco’s firm, warm back.
Felt his muscles tense under his touch and then relax.
“So,” Rocco asked under his breath as they walked in, “how does this work?”
“You’re asking me? I’ve no idea. Never been to this event before.”
It looked fairly straightforward though. The main dining room of The White Elephant had been rearranged, the tables in a half-moon shape, with different bottles of wine scattered across the surfaces.
“Hello,” Elaine Watson said as they approached the main table. She managed The White Elephant for Kody Campbell, who’d taken over from his parents. “I didn’t know you two were coming tonight.”
That was a lie. He’d emailed her himself, making sure they were both on the list, and instead of merely emailing him back his confirmation, Elaine had called him up on his official line, asking half a dozen leading questions that she didn’t really need the answer to.
He liked Elaine, had always liked her, but he discovered he didn’t like the intense interest in what the two of them were doing here together.
Wasn’t it obvious?
He shouldn’t need to spell it out. Anyone who looked at Rocco Moretti had to understand exactly why Taylor had gone out of his way to take him out.
“Yep,” Taylor said and gazed down at Rocco with what he hoped was a lovestruck expression.
Frankly it didn’t feel that much different than it had when he’d turned a minute ago and seen Rocco walking up to him.
“Oh lovely,” Elaine said. “Let me tell you how it works. Taylor’s paid for your registration, which gets you each six tastes, which you can mark off on this card here—along with your impression and a score of each wine.”
“Makes sense,” Rocco said, picking up their two glasses and the cards Elaine had indicated. He handed one to Taylor, and if the deliberate way their fingers brushed when he passed the glass over was any indication, he was going to be a lot better at this than Taylor was.
Not very surprising.
“You can hang your coats over there,” Elaine said, gesturing towards the rack they’d set up in the corner. “And feel free to start wherever, though the tables are arranged from light whites to medium whites to more light-bodied reds and finally, at the end there, the more full-bodied reds.”
Taylor plucked the second glass from Rocco’s hand and then set them both on the table, setting his fingers on the collar of Rocco’s coat, helping him out of it.
Underneath, he wore a silvery gray button-up, open at the throat, showcasing a wedge of olive-toned skin and a thin gold chain around his neck.
Taylor’s hand trembled as he hung up the coat and divested himself of his own.
“So polite,” Rocco said, and there was another one of those eyelash flutters of his, the one that seemed unfairly designed to make Taylor’s pulse stutter.
It would be both a lot easier and a lot harder to do this whole fake dating thing if he found Rocco less appealing.
“I . . .I’m trying,” he said, settling on the least difficult response.
“You’re doing better than that,” Rocco said, patting him on the arm and shooting him a brilliant smile. His heart rate, not quite settled back to normal from the eyelash flutter, accelerated again.
If they kept this up for months, he was either going to have to get used to the potency of Rocco Moretti or go on blood pressure medication.
“Thanks,” Taylor said.
“And for the record,” Rocco said, his gaze sweeping from Taylor’s feet to the top of his head, “you clean up real good, too.”
Taylor flushed. He’d taken extra care with his appearance tonight, justifying it with the reasoning that if he was actually taking Rocco out on a date, he’d have approached it with not only some careful planning, but optimizing all his advantages.
His knit polo was a little clingier—sluttier, Joey would have called it—than he’d normally have worn to work, calling attention to his biceps and pecs and chest, and he’d worn it with his best pair of dark jeans. Maybe he wasn’t a freaking smoke show, not like Rocco, but he wasn’t hopeless, either.
From the way Rocco was looking at him, real or fake, he was pretty damn far from hopeless.
Well, the good news was everything was going to plan. Nobody would see the two of them and think they weren’t definitely into each other.
“You good?” Rocco asked, leaning in closer. He still smelled like coffee—the best part of it, the rich deep scent of it—but like something woodsy and faintly floral too. Taylor had to remind himself that he was supposed to be doing the opposite of hands off.
He was supposed to be freaking hands on.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Taylor said.
Maybe he should be goat cheesing all over the place, but he wasn’t even tempted.
The truth was, it was easier than it should have been to put his hand on the small of Rocco’s back, feeling the warmth of his body through the thin fabric of his shirt, and guide him towards the first table.
Rocco picked up their glasses and they approached the first station.
“Oh, this looks good,” Rocco said, gesturing towards the bottles. “They’ve got a cremant, a prosecco, and a cava.”
“You’re speaking Greek,” Taylor admitted.
Rocco raised an eyebrow. “You don’t drink wine.” He stated it, rather than asked.
“Not usually, no,” Taylor said. Ironically enough, that hadn’t even occurred to him as a problem during the time between Rocco suggesting this as their first date and tonight.
He’d been too focused on doing this right, on convincing everyone he was crazy about the guy, and not painfully awkward, like he was trying too hard.
“It’s alright,” Rocco reassured him. “I do. One of my cousins, Luca, is practically a professional sommelier. I spent some time with him and his husband, during the last year, and what I didn’t already know from working at my parents’ restaurant in San Francisco, I picked up pretty quickly from him. ”
“So you’re like . . .a wine expert then?” God, this was even worse. Not only was Taylor freaking clueless, but Rocco was the opposite.
“Not an expert, necessarily, but I know my way around. And don’t worry, okay? I’ve got you.” Rocco touched him on the chest, fingers lingering there, and his gaze was knowing.
Because he was playacting for everyone who was no doubt watching them, or because he knew how much Taylor enjoyed it—and didn’t want to? It was unclear.
“If you’ll help me, that would be . . .” Taylor cleared his throat. Mona was always telling him to be a little less competent and accept some help once in awhile, and he had a feeling this was one of those times. “That would be great.”
“Oh, baby, I got you,” Rocco repeated.
“Baby, huh?”
“Seems simpler, easier, than holy hot hunk,” Rocco teased.
Taylor swallowed hard. “Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. Baby it is, then.”
Taylor let his palm, sweaty and damp, press even more firmly into Rocco’s back, sliding it a fraction lower.
From the way Rocco looked at him—from Elaine’s expression he caught out of the corner of his eye—he had a feeling they were being extremely convincing.
Excellent.
“So, what are these? Should we try them?” Taylor motioned to the bottles on the table with the hand that wasn’t occupied with touching Rocco as firmly as he dared.
Rocco leaned in, and Taylor’s hand slid lower still and sweat prickled under his arms. Rocco’s back had been firm enough under his touch, but now he was edging closer to his ass, and it felt even better than it looked.
He half-expected Rocco to hiss goat cheese under his breath, but he didn’t.
“Oh yeah, definitely this prosecco.” Rocco lifted the bottle and tipped a taste into his glass. It fizzed as he lifted it to his nose, giving it a long sniff. “That’s nice.”
“It smells good?” Taylor had never really smelled wine before.
Rocco handed him the glass.