Page 1 of Rock the Chardonnay

CHAPTER 1

Declan—twelve years ago

If my eyeballs actually burst into flames, will that excuse me from the organic chemistry midterm?

I glare at my laptop screen while playing with my plastic ball-and-stick model of the chemical compound for banana ester. Seven carbons, fourteen hydrogens, and one—no, damn it—two oxygens. I pick up another of the large blue balls that I’m using to simulate oxygen and attach it to my model.

A girlish laugh filters down the stairs of my family’s otherwise silent house. Blue balls. That’s not something my brother, Ciaran, ever has to worry about. Not that he worries about grades, either. Or anything, really, apart from girls and hockey.

My stomach curdles. Too much hydrochloric acid, brought on by too many sleepless nights cramming for midterms and too many glasses of my family vineyard’s red blend. I know I shouldn’t combine the two. I’m supposed to be smarter than that.

Footsteps sound in the upstairs hallway, and despite my every effort to the contrary, my gaze strays upward.

I’m supposed to be smarter than that, too. Smart enough not to want my little brother’s girlfriend.

Would it have killed him to pick anyone other than Daughtry Sutcliffe? Not that she notices me. Or that I have the courage to ask her out.

I’d tutored her a few times in the fall, during the grape harvest. We held a traditional crush as a promotional event, and she’d been the first to dive into the vat. She was new in town, but fearless. Captivating. The dark purple juice had splattered her dark blonde hair and run down her pale arms in rivulets. I still remembered the shirt she had worn that day, a nearly threadbare Fleetwood Mac concert tee. I was mesmerized by her. For weeks she was all I thought about after I’d gone back to school. I almost hadn’t turned in my grad school applications on time, because I’d been so wrapped up in her.

When she asked me to tutor her in chemistry, I thought that was my shot. The few rare hours with her had been perfect. Symphonic. The two of us huddled over notebooks and texts, the sounds of our laughter drowning out the scratching of our pencils. I wanted to ask her out. There was this moment…I thought she had given me an in.

But she hadn’t.

Turned out it was all an excuse for her to meet my younger brother. Story of my life.

My cock stirs, dazed and confused after the weeklong slog of studying for midterms here at my parents’ house. The weeklong slog of avoiding my brother and Daughtry.

I grit my back teeth.

This is wrong. She’s eighteen, a senior in high school, and I’m four years older than her. She is my brother’s girlfriend.

My. Fucking. Brother’s. Girlfriend.

Abandoning my banana ester compound, I stand from the kitchen table and beeline for the fridge. I need to eat something to settle my stomach. I yank on the fridge door, bathing in its warm glow and its soft hum. Nothing looks appealing. There’s a bottle of blueberry hard cider beside the orange juice, but if I drink that, I’ll never sleep properly.

Only two more days. Two more days of this torture and then I will head back to college. I’ll pass my classes, attend parties where I know less than ten people, and graduate. I will put miles and miles and miles between me and my brother and his luscious girlfriend.

I never would have come home if I’d known my parents would be out of town, leaving me and my brother alone with Daughtry. And I would have left early, really I would have, except my dorm is full of people who will make it even more impossible to study.

I’m fucked, in all except the literal way.

“Oops!” A female voice says behind me, followed by a tinkling laugh.

I slam the fridge door closed, revealing Daughtry.

My mouth waters, and it has nothing to do with anything I’ve seen in the fridge. Daughtry’s blond hair is up in a high, messy ponytail, her pale cheeks are flushed, and her golden hazel eyes flash with amusement. She holds a fraying black leather handbag covered in metal studs in one hand and a pair of worn Converse sneakers in the other. They have little hand-made stars on them in glittery puffy paint. “Hi, Declan. Sorry, I didn’t know you were still awake.”

“Mmhm,” I say, but it sounds more like “Mvensnup.” Wonderful. Way to sell college, Smart Guy. I used to be able to speak actual words. “Hi, Daughtry.” I stick my hands in my back pockets before remembering that, unfortunately, I’m wearing sweatpants and there are no back pockets. Having smacked my own ass unintentionally, I ignore it like a pro and lean against the fridge. “I’m just studying.”

“Midterms. Right.” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as she glances over at my mountain of study materials, including empty bags of chips and cookies and soda cans. I have an intense urge to one-arm sweep everything into a trash bag and then throw myself in, too. What was I thinking, leaving such a mess when I knew she was upstairs? “College. So close and yet so far away.”

She’s talking to me. Daughtry Sutcliffe, who has haunted my dreams more than once, is having an actual conversation with me. I have to think of something to say. Anything. Anything besides the truth, because it would be one thousand percent inappropriate to tell my brother’s girlfriend that I think I’m in love with her.

“Are you thinking about college?” Yes! Finally, for the first time in my life, I say something that fits the situation.

“Yes.” Her eyes twinkle and she moves across the kitchen like she owns it. I would happily have given it to her, if it were mine to give. She has gorgeous feet, petite and capable. They’re how I picture a dancer’s feet. Except one time sophomore year I had dated a dancer, and she did not have cute feet.

That is completely beside the point.

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