Flirting Lessons

Chapter One

One

Taylor Cameron was hot. She picked up an ice cube, slipped it down the back of her tank top, and sighed with relief as it slid down her back. Why had she worn jeans today when she knew she had to be outside all day in the middle of the summer, serving hundreds of glasses of wine to guests at the Noble Family Vineyards anniversary party? Sure, this pair of jeans was comfortable, and one of her favorites, but still.

She laughed at herself as she greeted the next person in line. She knew why she’d worn these jeans. They made her ass look fantastic, and she knew she’d see a whole lot of people today, that’s why. She was single again, after all.

“Welcome to Noble Family Vineyards,” she said, picking up the bottle in front of her. “Would you like some rosé?”

As she poured wine, smiled, chatted with guests, and checked them off the list, she looked around the party to see how it was going. A lot of people were already there, though none of her friends had arrived yet. That didn’t surprise her; her friends weren’t the arriving-early type. But despite her boss Margot’s anxiety about the party, Taylor wasn’t worried. Noble had recently been on a bunch of lists of up-and-coming wineries in Napa Valley, and she was pretty sure there would be a fun crowd.

Luke walked by and waved at her. She grinned and waved back. Up until about a month ago, Luke worked here at the winery with her; Taylor assumed he was at the party today because he still had an enormous crush on Margot. She wondered if anything would ever happen with that. He was here with Avery Jensen, one of his best friends and a local event planner whom Taylor had met a few times at other jobs. Taylor gave herself a moment to—respectfully!—ogle Avery. She was always so immaculate, so perfectly dressed from head to toe; the kind of woman who could wear a white dress at a garden winery party and go home spotless. And that dress looked great on her; her golden brown skin stood out against the stark whiteness of the dress that clung to her long legs as she walked, and her hair was caught up in a knot at the nape of her neck that Taylor ached to unravel. Granted, if Taylor had her way, that dress wouldn’t be buttoned up quite so high, but hey, you couldn’t win them all.

Luke always talked about Avery, but he never mentioned how gorgeous she was. Taylor shook her head. Men. No matter how great they were, if they weren’t interested in sleeping with a woman, they didn’t even register how attractive she was. Taylor was…not like that.

“There you are!” a very familiar voice said. Taylor looked away from Avery and threw her arms around her best friend Erica.

“What are you guys doing here so early?” she said to Erica and her wife, Sam. “I didn’t expect you until at least an hour from now.”

Erica glared at her, but her eyes betrayed her amusement.

“Are you trying to say that I’m always late to things? Because if so, I resent that!”

Taylor laughed as she poured glasses of wine for each of them.

“Erica. Please. We would have been late to your own wedding if your mom hadn’t forcibly removed us from the kitchen that morning. And yes, I know what you’re going to say, I am the exact same way. The difference is I don’t deny it.”

Erica’s attempt to keep a straight face failed.

“Okay, you have a good point. And it was Sam who got us here early, of course. She’s got work to do this afternoon, so we can’t stay long.”

Sam was a partner at a law firm in San Francisco and worked constantly. Despite that, Taylor liked her a lot and was glad Erica had found someone who cared about her so much. It still felt weird to her, though, that Erica was so…settled now. They’d met and become friends in their early twenties, when they were both pretty wild and carefree. Now Erica was married, to a corporate lawyer, of all things. And a few months ago, Erica and Sam had moved out of the apartment complex that the three of them had all lived in and bought a house a few miles away. A whole house! Taylor didn’t think she’d ever own a house, especially not in Napa Valley.

“Sucks that you have to leave early, but don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you before you go,” she said, and handed full wineglasses to Erica and Sam. Erica, though, immediately handed her glass to Sam, with a significant look.

“No wine for me today,” Erica said to Taylor. And then a wide grin spread across her face. “Because I’m pregnant!”

Taylor yelled, immediately attracting the attention of everyone in line, and threw her arms around Erica again. She turned to her boss, whose concerned expression softened into a smile.

“Margot, can I have a second? You’ve met my friend Erica; I’ve got to go freak out with her and her wife about their news.”

Margot waved her away, and Taylor pulled Erica and Sam over into the corner and then into a three-person hug.

“Ahhh, I’m so happy for you both! How are you feeling? When are you due? And all those other questions that people who know stuff about babies would ask!”

Taylor was very much not a baby person, but she knew Erica was, and she also knew how much Erica had wanted this.

“I’m due in November, I’m twenty-one weeks along now and feeling good!” She took a step back and put her hand on her stomach, which Taylor could now tell was more rounded than usual. “I’ve done a pretty good job of hiding it, since it’s not like my belly is small at normal times, and I’ve been wearing lots of oversized stuff, but I’m relieved I can stop that now that it’s so hot out. I was sure you already knew, though, after I canceled with you a few times when I was pretty sick in the early stages.”

Taylor shook her head.

“I had no idea. Wait, you’ve been pregnant for twenty-one weeks and you didn’t tell me?”

Erica’s smile faded.

“I know, I’m sorry. But after the last time, we thought…we didn’t…”

Taylor nodded and pulled Erica back into a hug.

“Right, it’s okay, I get it.” Erica had gotten pregnant last fall and lost the baby. That time, they’d told everyone about it in the very early stages. Taylor had assumed she would still be in the inner circle of those who found out about something like this early, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up.

“We wanted to wait until we got the all clear from the doctor,” Sam said.

Erica squeezed Taylor hard before she stepped back.

“Which, full disclosure, we got last week, but I wanted to tell you in person, and you’ve been so busy lately that this was the first opportunity, so we had to take it.” Erica waggled her eyebrows at Taylor. “I assume you’ve been making the most of your newly single state?”

Taylor shrugged.

“I guess so.” Taylor had broken up with her most recent ex-girlfriend just a few weeks ago. “I mean, sort of. Not that I regret the breakup,” she said quickly, after seeing the hopeful look on Erica’s face. Erica had always liked Gemma. Taylor had, too, just…not enough. “But I don’t know, I’m just tired of the drama. While I like the idea of dating someone new, actually dating doesn’t sound fun anymore. Maybe I just need a break.”

Erica shook her head.

“I can’t believe Taylor Cameron, the hottest catch in Northern California, is already bored of being single. Here’s something to make it fun: Pick a hot girl at this party. Any one of them. I bet you that you can get her into bed.”

Taylor thought about Avery, just for a second, but shook her head.

“Okay, I could do that, but I’m not going to bet against myself like that. Plus, I said I wanted less drama, not more. But also, that’s kind of mean to do to someone—I don’t want her to find out that I slept with her because of a bet!”

“She has a point there, you know,” Sam said.

Erica sighed. She and Taylor constantly bet each other about random stuff, mostly ridiculous things like this.

“Good point. Okay, then, here’s a bet that’s mean only to you. If you’re bored with being single already, let’s make it a little more challenging: I bet you that you can’t make it through the summer without sleeping with someone.”

Taylor’s eyes widened involuntarily.

“The whole summer?”

Erica nodded with a very smug look on her face.

“Until Labor Day. You said you wanted less drama; that’s a good way to accomplish it.”

Taylor had never turned down a bet from Erica and vice versa (which had caused the two of them to spend one very memorable overnight in an IKEA after they’d bet each other to do it), and unfortunately her pride wouldn’t let her turn down this bet. She held out a hand to Erica.

“Done,” she said as she and Erica shook hands. “Margot is swamped, so I need to run back to the bar, but you’d better come up with a good prize for me for when I win this bet.”

She heard Erica’s laughter behind her as she raced back to the bar.

Avery took a sip of wine as she looked around the winery from her slightly out-of-the-way corner. It was nice to not have to work this party like she usually did—when you were an event planner, most parties that you went to were work. Instead, she could just relax and observe. People watching at parties was so much fun: she got to see who was checking each other out, who was flirting with whom, the couples who had clearly had a fight right before they’d gotten out of the car but were pretending they were so happy together, the person everyone was trying to go home with, that person who just really needed to break up with her boyfriend.

She let out a long, relieved sigh. She had been that last person, just a few months ago. Thank God, she’d finally done it. Everything would be different today if they were still together, if he were here with her. It had always been so stressful to be at parties with him. If it was a party with her friends, he always wanted to leave early; if it was a party with his friends, he never introduced her to anyone, and she was bored the whole time. But most of all, he never seemed particularly happy to be with her, no matter what she did. Until she’d broken up with him, she hadn’t realized how much happier she’d be without him.

Even though it seemed like everyone else in her life had.

She shook those thoughts off. Today, she was going to just enjoy this party. Free wine, good snacks, beautiful weather, and a day off. And not only free wine, free good wine; free wine was easy to come by when you lived and worked in Napa Valley, but free good wine was a different story.

She glanced over at the makeshift bar, where the Noble staff was pouring wine for the growing crowd. Speaking of the person everyone at the party wanted to go home with, there she was: Taylor Cameron, pouring wine, laughing, gently flirting with the guest in front of her. Everyone walked away from her with a smile on their face, and most of them looked back at her to see if she was still looking at them. Avery had met Taylor a few times but mostly knew her by reputation. Her best friend Luke had talked about her, of course, when he’d worked with her here at the winery, but that wasn’t just it. Taylor had dated at least half of the eligible women in Napa Valley—okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit of one. People were always falling for Taylor, and most of them got their hearts broken—that, she did know.

Avery watched her, trying not to be obvious about it. She was short, in a black tank top that showed off the tattoos on her upper arm as well as her significant curves, and jeans that clung to her wide hips and round butt. She had short curly hair and light brown skin. Avery hoped she was wearing sunscreen; too many people thought just because you were Black you didn’t have to. That was a good reminder; she should reapply some soon.

Taylor grinned at the person she was talking to, and Avery smiled at her. Oh my God, what was she doing, Taylor wasn’t even looking at her! Was Taylor just so magnetic that Avery was smiling at her from across the party? Apparently, yes! No wonder she had that reputation, goodness. Avery turned away.

“Avery! It’s so lovely to see you!”

Avery hoped her face didn’t show her surprise at being accosted by her old English teacher.

“Hi, Ms. Cunningham, it’s so nice to see you,” she said.

Her teacher laughed.

“You can call me Liza now, you’re an adult, you know!”

Why did old teachers always say this? She would never be grown-up enough to call Ms. Cunningham by her first name.

“How are you?” her teacher asked. And then she laughed again. “Though I don’t even have to ask, your mom tells me all about how you’re doing.” Her mom was a teacher at her former high school. “She always talks about you; you’re the same as you’ve been since you were a teenager. You were always so well-behaved and reliable, and now you’re such an upstanding member of our community. We’re so proud of you, Avery.”

Avery smiled automatically.

“Thank you so much, Ms. Cunningham. I try.”

“Liza! And how’s that boyfriend of yours? Things going well there?”

Yes, right, her mom still didn’t know about her breakup, because she’d been too stressed out at the time to have that conversation, and just…kept procrastinating it.

“Um, oh, he’s—”

“Oh, there’s my husband waving at me. We have to head to a wedding, but we wanted to stop in to Noble before we left, and I keep running into people I know, he’s going to kill me if I delay us any more. Great to see you, Avery!”

“Great to see you, too,” Avery said.

As soon as Ms. Cunningham walked away, Avery fled to the taco stand. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Ms. Cunningham, she did, she always had. But “well behaved”? “Reliable”? Yes, fine, it was true, it was all true, but Ms. Cunningham may as well have said, Avery, you were always such a boring teenager, and now you’re a boring adult! Congratulations!

And that was true, too. She was steady, focused, dependable, and boring as hell. What a fucking legacy. She’d stayed in a bad relationship for far too long because she was so reliable that she’d assumed that by sheer force of will, she could make it become a good one. That, or because she was so boring that she’d assumed no one else would ever want to date her—one or the other.

Wasn’t she too young to be this boring? No, probably not, boring had no age level, and that made it even worse. It wasn’t that she wanted her life to just be organizing her new apartment and working and very little in between, but everything else that she could do—everything else that she wanted to do—felt uncertain, risky, scary.

She grabbed a plate of tacos and wandered over to the wine table. Her glass had been empty from the moment Ms. Cunningham had called her an upstanding member of the community.

Taylor was still there, still pouring wine. And, right at that second, she was opening another bottle. She bit her bottom lip as she concentrated on it, and Avery couldn’t stop herself from staring at that lip. Good Lord, why was she so focused on Taylor today?

“It’s Avery, right?”

Avery looked up to find Taylor looking straight at her. Great, on top of everything else, Taylor would think she was a creep. Oh wait, thank goodness, she had sunglasses on; maybe Taylor hadn’t realized she’d been staring at her.

“Yeah, I’m Avery. Hi.” She was glad her voice seemed normal. “And you’re Taylor? Luke forgot to introduce us earlier. I think we’ve met at other events, but he’s also told me a lot about you.”

Taylor grinned, and her eyes lingered on Avery.

That was why people fell for her. It was the way she looked at you, like the two of you had a little secret from everyone else.

“He’s told me a lot about you, too.” Taylor held up a bottle of rosé. “Need more of this?”

Avery held out her glass.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“How are the tacos?” she asked, with a glance at Avery’s plate. “I haven’t gotten a chance to try them yet. I’ve been glued to this table since they started serving.”

“And no one has brought you one?” Avery asked. “That seems cruel. They’re great.”

Taylor grinned at her again.

“I agree, that is cruel.”

The crowd around the wine table had thinned, so Avery didn’t feel bad monopolizing Taylor’s time.

“Well, we can’t have that.” Avery held out her plate. “Here, have this one.”

What in the world was she doing? Why was she giving this woman—whom she barely knew—her last taco?

Whatever, it was fine, Taylor would know she was just being polite and wouldn’t take it.

“Thanks, you’re a treasure.” Taylor picked up the taco with her fingers.

Oh. Okay. But, well, if Taylor was going to call her a treasure like that, it was worth her last taco.

She downed it in two bites, and then let out a deep sigh.

“Wow,” she said. “That was really good.” She licked her fingers slowly, and Avery couldn’t stop staring. Until Taylor looked up at her and slowly licked her lips.

At least, that’s what she did in Avery’s imagination.

Did she have heatstroke? She needed to get hold of herself. She took a gulp of her wine.

“I, um…Do you need some help?”

Taylor raised an eyebrow at her abrupt question. Oh, she could do that eyebrow move, too. Of course.

“Help pouring wine? I know you’re an event planner, but today you’re the guest! This party is for you to have fun and drink wine and relax.”

“Yeah, I know.” Avery sighed. “The thing is…I’m not great at relaxing. I was trying, just now, and instead I counted the number of people here and looked at the food lines to see if there was something I could do to make them more efficient, and if that sounds insulting, I’m sorry. I thought I could turn off the event planner in me, but apparently, I can’t. So, if I can pour wine or unpack wineglasses or direct people to the bathrooms or something, it might make me feel better.” Oh God, why was she still talking? The wine had obviously already gone to her head.

Taylor laughed at her.

“Not great at relaxing? I wish I had that problem. You should work on that, you know.”

Avery took another sip of wine.

“Yes, so I’ve been told. Repeatedly. Especially by my mother.”

Taylor flinched dramatically.

“I am so sorry to echo a criticism of your mother’s,” Taylor said. “But yeah, sure, come over here. But you have to promise that if my boss gets mad at me for this, you’ll tell her that you begged to help me and gave me no choice.”

Avery stepped around to the other side of the table to stand next to Taylor.

“Will do.”

“Here, let me at least fill up that glass of yours again.”

While Taylor greeted the next group of guests, Avery straightened the glasses on the table into neat rows and turned them all so that the Noble Family Vineyards logo was facing out.

“Wow.” Taylor looked down at the glasses after the guests had all walked into the party. “I don’t understand at all why your mom said you needed to work on relaxing.”

Avery looked into Taylor’s amused eyes and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Okay fine, my mom may have had a tiny point.” She looked back down at the wineglasses. “But doesn’t that look nice?”

Taylor poured more rosé into Avery’s glass.

“It looks very nice,” she said, in the same tone of voice you’d use to compliment a toddler on their Lego creation. From most people, Avery would have bristled at that tone, but when Taylor grinned at her, Avery had to laugh.

“If it helps, I hate that I’m like this, too,” Avery said.

Taylor tapped her gently on the hand.

“Hey, no negative self-talk. I don’t hate that you’re like this, and you shouldn’t, either. It’s always good to have orderly people in a world full of chaotic people like me. Plus, I’ve worked events that you’ve planned. They go off without a hitch, every time.”

Avery smiled back at her. It was kind of amazing that Taylor had noticed that.

“Thanks, I appreciate that.” She sighed. “No, you’re right, I don’t hate that I’m like this, it’s just…I wish this wasn’t all that I was.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow again.

“What do you mean?”

Avery opened her mouth to answer her but took another sip of wine instead.

“Forget I said anything, you’re busy, you’re working, it’s nothing.”

Taylor gestured to the empty space in front of them.

“We’re in a lull, we might as well make use of it. There’s going to be another rush soon; this is the universe giving you an opportunity to tell me what you mean.” When Avery hesitated, Taylor smiled at her. “Also, you don’t have to tell me anything. Just call me a nosy bitch who you barely even know, and you can take your wine and leave. Or you can stay here, and you can tell me all about being an event planner. I bet you have the best stories.”

Avery smiled at her. Something in Taylor’s eyes made the tension drain from her body.

“I do have some good stories, yeah,” she said. She took another sip of wine. Oh, the hell with it. “It’s just that I ran into one of my old high school teachers—that’s the problem with living in the town where you grew up. And she’s great, I like her a lot, but she kept talking about how reliable I am, how I was such a well-behaved teenager, and grew up into such a dependable and upstanding adult, and I’m so sick of being well behaved and dependable and boring .”

The passion in her own voice surprised her, and she almost stopped. But then she saw Taylor’s eyes light up with interest. She went on.

“I broke up with my terrible boyfriend a few months ago, which was the best thing I’ve done for myself in years, and also the most out-of-character thing, and I’ve been so happy about it, really, I have been. I have so much space in my life now to have fun, be wild, get some hobbies, make new friends, flirt with, like, dozens of people at parties like this, all those things that people are supposed to do in their twenties, but I never did. I’m going to turn thirty at the end of the year. Does that mean that I’m stuck being the same boring person I’ve been forever?”

Avery took another sip of wine, or at least tried to, but somehow her glass was already empty. Oh no. It had taken only three glasses of wine before she’d shouted a diatribe about her life to Taylor Cameron. Now Taylor would do one of two things: call Luke over so he could take his drunk and uncharacteristically chatty friend home, or call over some of her coworkers to gently escort Avery to get some more food to help sober her up.

“Of course you’re not stuck being the same person you’ve been forever, and you’re not boring.” Taylor paused. “What’s stopping you from doing all those things? The hobbies, the friends, the flirting, all of that?”

Avery looked up, surprised again.

“Oh, I thought you would…I’m sorry for saying all of that, you don’t have to—”

Taylor waved that away.

“Answer the question: What’s stopping you?”

Avery sighed.

“I don’t know how to do any of that, that’s what’s stopping me! As you’ve seen, I’m not good at relaxing! I’m also not good at hobbies! I had hobbies in high school, but they were all things to put on my college applications and then I stopped when I got to college. And I don’t know how to flirt with people, I’ve never known how to do that! Plus, I don’t know how a person who works for herself and isn’t in school goes about doing things like making new friends. All the friends I’ve ever made I either worked with or went to school with. I don’t have time to go around doing needlepoint or making pottery or whatever, I’m trying to run a business, the one thing I seem to sort of know how to do!”

Taylor reached over and took the wineglass out of her hand. Avery felt outraged for a moment, and then she realized she’d been gesturing wildly while holding the glass. Good thing it was empty.

“You don’t know how to flirt?” Taylor asked. “We can work on that. Some of those other things, too, actually—I’m an expert at relaxation, I’m sure I can teach you a few things there as well. Relationships, now, if what you wanted to learn was how to be good at relationships, that I couldn’t help you with, but flirting? That I can do. Do you want to be able to flirt with men or women?”

Oh. Avery should have expected that question.

“Um. Either? Both?” she answered. “But, I guess, especially the latter?”

“Have you dated women before?” Taylor asked casually.

Avery shook her head without exactly meeting Taylor’s eyes.

“If I knew how to flirt with women, I might have dated one by now, but I don’t, so…”

Taylor tossed an arm around her shoulders.

“Avery, my friend, you came to the right place. I’m going to teach you how to flirt.”