Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“I really want the tourists and locals to appreciate wines from the Old World too. They’re not all stuffy.”
“I don’t disagree,” Elton said, nodding enthusiastically. “Racy French whites, Spanish Rioja that ages forever.” He raised his glass. “A thirteen-dollar Austrian Blaufr?nkisch.”
“Not stuffy at all!” Jake of the coiffed blond hair, New England accent, and tweed, elbow-patched jacket exclaimed.
Archer muffled a snicker behind his hand.
The twenty-something som was earnest in a golden retriever kind of way, but if one opened the dictionary to the word “stuffy,” Jake’s picture would be there for illustration.
He was a good kid, one of the better up-and-coming soms in the area, but someone needed to purge the tweed and ascots from his closet.
Especially in this part of wine country that was still more farmers and locals than bougie tourists.
“Why don’t you bring us your favorite,” Elton offered, and Archer nearly choked on a sip of wine. “So long as it’s not stuffy.”
Jake’s big, blue eyes lit with barely concealed glee. “Up to?”
“Your favorite,” Elton said before Archer could set a limit. “Old World. Not stuffy. Show us what you got.”
Archer waited until the golden retriever trotted out of earshot to remind Elton of his potential miscalculation. “You saw the La Mission on the list, yes?”
“Yes,” Elton said with a sly grin. “But that’s stuffy. I bet he brings the CVNE instead.”
Elton had mentioned Spanish Rioja but La Mission, Bordeaux’s unofficial “sixth first growth,” was certainly less stuffy than its five official siblings.
And it was Archer’s favorite splurge, a fact Jake knew from the birthday party Ezra had thrown for him here last year.
When Ezra had made a playful fuss about Archer “cheating” on their Italian grapes with the French.
“I guess it depends,” Archer said, throwing a sly grin back at him. “On who Jake wants to flirt with more tonight.”
Elton stopped mid-lift of his glass, frame suddenly going stiff, his nervous gaze darting around the restaurant.
But only for a split second. If Archer hadn’t already been focused on him—and if he weren’t personally familiar with being a queer man on guard—he would have missed it.
A blink later, Elton relaxed his shoulders and made a slower survey of the restaurant, like any interested newcomer would do.
“It’s an impressive wine list for a relatively small place. ”
Archer didn’t call him on his moment of panic, following Elton’s spoken train of thought instead, giving him that dodge.
“Don’t be deceived. This counter”—a holdover from when the space was a corner store and diner—“and the private dining room upstairs are where many of the deals in Sonoma County get made. A few Napa Valley and San Francisco ones too.”
“I’d guessed as much,” Elton said. “Judging by the vertical of ’82 to ’85 Mouton empties over the cellar door.”
The door at the far end of the counter, too far away to read the labels, which meant Elton knew the chateau and vintages by label design, Mouton’s artwork changing each year. “You know more about wine than you let on.”
He shrugged. “Have to. I’m in politics. In California, the talk is wine. In DC, it’s goals, touchdowns, and home runs.”
“Could never get into hockey,” Archer said. “Prefer the tight-pant sports.”
Archer took Elton’s easy laugh as a good sign; his “You’re not wrong” as an even better one.
He couldn’t be sure of Elton’s orientation, not without asking him, but if Archer was correctly reading the signs, which he was usually pretty good at, they pointed to Elton being bisexual like him.
He’d been married to a woman before; Archer had witnessed the love and attraction between them.
That hadn’t been an act. But that same night, there’d been a spark when his and Elton’s gazes had met.
And that spark had relit last fall when Elton had shown up at the winery and again yesterday when he’d returned.
The blaze had kept Archer warm all day long as they’d worked in the vineyard together.
Add in that Elton reacted the same way as other queer folk in certain situations, had gravitated toward queer colleagues in a profession that was decidedly not queer-friendly, and if last fall were any indication, had found his extended family in those friends.
Archer opened his mouth to ask more about them, to find out how they’d made that shift from colleagues to family in Elton’s book, when Jake reappeared—with the bottle of CVNE.
Archer couldn’t blame him. Elton was gorgeous, especially dressed down in jeans and a snug Henley.
He also wouldn’t blame Elton for taking Jake up on the scribbled number on the card the som slipped him.
He was a sweet, good-looking kid, tweed notwithstanding.
Which was why Archer startled at first when Elton leaned closer and stretched an arm across the back of his stool, the direction of his interest clear. Archer didn’t give Elton another second to doubt himself, resting back into the warmth, interest reciprocated.
They shared a glass of the Rioja with Jake, trading more favorite wine stories, until the som was called by another party down the counter.
Alone again at their end, neither he nor Elton moved to create distance between them, continuing to sip their wine as the assortment of small plates they’d ordered were delivered.
“I was impressed today,” Archer said.
Elton smirked around a forkful of pork terrine. “By more than just the boots?”
“By more than just the boots. You were a quick study. Pruning, irrigation, even corralling the goats.”
“It felt good after being behind a desk for so long. It’s not the same as what we did today, but when I was a field agent, it was a lot of working problems and getting your hands dirty.”
Archer swallowed his bite of grilled halloumi wrapped in endive. “You don’t work problems in your current position?”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of problems.” The corners of his mouth dipped. “But it’s more like solving conflicting priorities, and those change every four to eight years. Dramatically.”
“Been a roller coaster?”
His laugh was edged in exhaustion. “Understatement of the decade.” He lowered his fork, propped an elbow on the table, and ran a hand over his head, his chin lowered. “I didn’t randomly come up here this week. I needed to breathe and avoid the news, especially yesterday.”
Archer didn’t know what Elton’s job entailed, couldn’t know what being a Black man in his role or under the new administration was like, but he felt the words all the same, a brick in his gut that had been lodged there since November.
He knew what it felt like to be a queer person, to love other queer people, and to fear, acutely, the days and years ahead.
He understood the instinct to run from that fear and to disconnect.
Hell, he’d done just that, uprooting his entire life to move here, then getting lost in the day-to-day to avoid all manner of reality outside it.
Until the man beside him had wandered into his distillery and the real world could no longer be ignored.
Archer cautiously laid a hand on Elton’s shoulder, nothing that would draw attention, careful not to trigger Elton’s anxiety from earlier.
When Elton leaned into the touch instead, Archer extended his arm, running his hand back and forth across his broad upper back, offering comfort and commiseration.
He didn’t startle or pull away. Instead, he laid a big, warm hand on Archer’s thigh under the countertop and squeezed it, almost desperately.
Archer lowered his hand to cover Elton’s, their fingers tangling. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll keep you busy this week.”
Elton glided his other hand over his head once more, down to his neck and leaving it there, before he angled his face toward Archer.
And stared at him.
The scrutiny wasn’t uncomfortable. Archer was used to being watched, was familiar with the intimacy of a stare and all it could give away. And he wanted to give Elton everything right then, whatever he needed in that moment when the rest of his world was spiraling.
Archer recognized the instant the mood shifted, when Elton had decided what he wanted to take, his lips parting and the dark brown of his eyes going molten.
Archer’s heart skipped, then pounded harder.
Elton’s voice was several delicious octaves lower when he spoke. “Let’s get—”
A shrill ringtone pierced through Elton’s words, through the moment Archer had been waiting fifteen fucking years for.
“Fuck,” Elton cursed, seeming to share the frustrated sentiment.
He straightened and dug his phone out of his pocket.
He clicked to decline the call, but then the screen filled with texts, and the wrinkles in Elton’s forehead deepened, the corners of his mouth dipping again, concern etching itself on his handsome face.
The phone rang again.
“I have to take this.”
“Of course,” Archer said. “Go.”
He nodded, then slipped off the stool, phone to his ear.
“Talley, one second, let me get somewhere quiet.” He hustled past the end of the counter and into the emergency exit door alcove.
His muscles tightened more with each passing second, his hand gliding at a faster clip over his head until it came to rest at the back of his neck again, his head bowed.
Combined with that slew of texts, Archer could surmise the news wasn’t good.
He signaled a server over. “Can we get this boxed up?”
As the plates were being cleared, Jake slid in beside him. “Good leave early or bad leave early?”
Archer’s gaze drifted toward where Elton was still on the phone, looking more tense by the second.
“Damn,” Jake said, coming to the same conclusion as he corked the wine. “He’s hot as fuck.”
“No shit,” Archer said. “But I don’t think that’s what’s important now.” Elton was headed back in their direction, and he looked exhausted already. “Can we get him a coffee to go?”
“You got it,” Jake said. “And you already have my number, if you ever want to use it.” He parted with a grin and shook hands cordially with Elton as they passed mid-counter.
“You have to go,” Archer said once Elton reached him.
“First EOs dropped.”
“Not pretty?”
Anguish, torture, anger, more emotions than Archer couldn’t read, all raced across Elton’s face.
But the final one that settled there—helplessness—was clearly not one Elton was comfortable with, the big man shifting on his feet and coasting his hand over his head again.
“I’ll be lucky to have a job before the week’s over. ”
Archer covered his other hand white-knuckling the counter. “Whether you do or you don’t, come back here . . .” To me. “Whenever you need to breathe.”