Page 16 of Drunk on Love

He and Marisol both laughed out loud. Margot and Elliot grinned, but she clearly hadn’t been joking.

“I actually love giving the tours, even though they take a ton of time that I can’t afford anymore. People are usually in great moods and super excited about wine. Some people are interested, some people are nosy, some are nice—sometimes there’s the guy who’s trying to trip you up, but that’s easy to defuse. We won’t send you out there alone for a while—you guys will shadow me or other experienced staff until you get the swing of things.”

He would shadow her? He tried not to look at her when she said that, but failed. But she’d turned and was looking out the front window.

“Let’s take them outside,” she said to her brother.

The next hour was like this, with Margot talking the whole time, Elliot occasionally saying something about wine Luke only half understood, Marisol asking smart questions, Luke asking whatever questions he could think of to get Margot to look at him, Margot answering him brightly and never meeting his eyes. She hadn’t, at all, since that first shocked look.

Finally, they ended the tour back in the tasting room, just as a woman with light skin and lots of dark curly hair walked through the door.

“Taylor, hi,” Margot said. “Our two new members of the Noble team, Marisol and Luke. And we’re thrilled to have them here.”

It didn’t sound like there was sarcasm in her voice, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

“Taylor’s an expert,” Margot said to both of them. “Learning from her will be learning from the best.” Margot turned to Taylor. “It should be a pretty quiet day—we only have four appointments, I think. A good way to ease them in.”

Taylor laughed.

“I don’t know why you even bother to say ‘I think’ when you and I both know you always memorize that appointment book.” She smiled at Luke and Marisol. “Welcome to Noble.”

They all shook hands, while Margot slipped behind the bar.

“I say ‘I think’ just in case a VIP calls me and I have to secretly add an appointment to the book. And then I can say, ‘Oh, there were five today, I forgot!’ ”

She and Taylor both laughed.

Elliot said something in a low voice to Margot and she nodded.

“I’ll see you later, Luke and Marisol,” he said, and slipped out the front door.

Margot turned back to Taylor.

“Can you start off the training for them? I have a call in a few minutes—sorry about that, I couldn’t reschedule it—but I’ll join you guys out here after.”

Taylor nodded.

“You can count on me, boss,” she said, and Margot just laughed.

“Luke, Marisol—I’ll have all sorts of fun paperwork for both of you to fill out in a little while. Welcome to Noble, both of you.”

And then, before he could say anything, she disappeared through the door labeledstaff only.

Taylor walked behind the bar.

“Like the boss says, welcome. Noble is a great place to work. Good to have you both here—we’ve been short-staffed for a while.”

“Good to be here,” Luke said in unison with Marisol. They looked at each other and laughed, though he was pretty sure she wasn’t laughing for the same reason he was. This seemed like a good place to work, if he could judge from the way Margot and Taylor and Elliot all joked around with one another. They seemed relaxed around each other, not tense, or that fake kind of jovial that he was used to in the boss-employee relationship.

He looked at the door that Margot had disappeared behind. He wanted to follow her, with every bone in his body.

He sighed, and turned back to Taylor.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask her a question, the front doors opened.

“Hi,” one of the four women in the group said. “We have a reservation at eleven? Cagan?”

Taylor came out from behind the bar and smiled at them.

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