Page 25 of Flake It Til You Make It

“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 thisright, 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 anexpert, 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, thanholy hot hunk,” Rocco teased.

Taylor swallowed hard. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.Babyit 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 beingextremelyconvincing.

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 hissgoat cheeseunder 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.

And itdidsmell good, like freshly baked bread and apple and sunshine.

“Now,” Rocco murmured, “you give it another swirl. Just a little one. And then another sniff. Then, finally, you taste.”

Taylor tried to do exactly as Rocco described and thought he got pretty close, the flavor of the wine exploding like fireworks against his tongue. “That’s . . .that’s really good, actually.”

“Yeah,” Rocco agreed, nodding after he’d plucked the glass from Taylor’s hand and taken a sip of his own.

“Did I do it right?”

Rocco shot him a look that both reassured and challenged. “You don’t have to get precious about wine. You want to taste something without doing all that? I’m not going to judge. Wine’s good, and you should drink it, however you want.”

“Huh.”

Rocco tipped the rest of the glass back and they moved on. “I’ve never been at a tasting where they didn’t pourforyou,” Rocco said under his breath as they approached the next table. “They’re clearly not worried about me taking more than six samples—or what size those samples are.”

Taylor had never been to a wine tasting before, so he had no idea what was normal. But then there was the way he’d felt his neck prickle, more than once, while they’d been sampling the prosecco.

Elaine had definitely been watching them. He’d assumed it was because of who he was with, but maybe it hadn’t entirely been because of that.

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