Strawberry Wine (Strawberry Inn Book #2)

Chapter 14

CODY

“Are you sure you want your boring older brother to join you at The Pub tonight?” I ask Emory while leaning against the door to her bathroom, waiting for her to finish up with her hair. “Won’t it ruin any sort of chance to meet the man of your dreams tonight?”

She laughs, almost forgetting about the curling iron in her head, “You’re a funny guy, Cody. I already told you that I’m not going there tonight to pick up any guys. Trust me, if that was the goal you would be the last person on Earth I would ask to join me.”

“That’s good news, but then it leads me, once again, to ask why you want me to come so badly, to begin with.”

She finishes her hair with a final spray of hair spray and then turns to face me, “Fine, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise that you won’t get all weird and you won’t go back on your agreement to join me.”

“I don’t like either of those promises.”

“Then I’m not telling you.”

She pushes past me, into the bedroom where she slides on a pair of sandals and grabs her purse. “Okay, fine. You twisted my arm enough. I’ll still go with you no matter what you tell me.”

A smile spreads across her face, she knows she won this round. “Angela is the one who invited me tonight. She’s going to be there with Harrison and his buddy Dalton, you remember Dalton?”

“Yeah, he’s the one whose wife…”

“Uh-huh, you don’t have to finish that sentence because that is certainly not what we refer to him as.”

“I wasn’t going to refer to him as that tonight. I was just verifying that I knew who he was. Continue.”

“So Angela, Harrison, and Dalton are going to be there and they thought the more the merrier. Both Angela and Harrison want to get to know you better since you’re spending a lot of time in town, especially with Hayes since Harrison is basically like Hayes’s uncle or something.”

“Harrison and Angela invited me?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Emory…”

“Fine!’ She throws her hands up, “Blair is going to be there tonight too, but please don’t let that be the reason you don’t show up. The two of you are grown adults and you’re capable of being in the same room and having fun, right?”

My sister thinks I might not want to be in the same room as Blair, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I haven’t stopped thinking about her since last weekend when I was at her place for dinner. The problem is between our work schedules and helping out a little more with the business side of the vineyard, I haven’t had a chance to see her again. I was itching to just be in the same room as her and see if that spark between us was just a one-time deal.

I know that I pushed her out of her comfort zone when we were outside walking to my car, but she didn’t resist. In fact, she leaned in for that kiss just as much as I did. I could see it in her eyes that she wanted it as well. If her neighbor didn’t break the moment we were having, I know it would have ended with a kiss. The problem is, I don’t know if she would have regretted that kiss or not. I know where I stand, I wouldn’t have regretted it one bit. Ever since being back for Hayes’s graduation I’ve been feeling this pull to her that I haven’t felt since we were just starting out as a family.

The Pub was pretty packed, with the Fourth of July right around the corner, out of towners were making their way into our little town. Nothing compared to the Strawberry Festival, but we were a tourist stop during the summer months. My parents took advantage of this, offering a lot of tours of the harvest and the wine-making process as well. This is one of the reasons they were so successful.