Page 4 of Backroom Boy
I spun around and took in the room. The guy at the sink hadn’t even turned around, so I figured I’d leave him to the glasses and find my own project. The wall of floor-to-ceiling built-in wine racks seemed interesting, so I walked over there and found a clipboard. Inventory. I could do that.
An hour later and I decided that I’d sat through biochemistry lectures that were more riveting than taking inventory. A throat clearing behind me made me jump and nearly drop the clipboard.
I turned around and…well…paused.
My brain froze and my eyes widened like maybe then I could understand what was in front of me. Or should I say who.
The hot stranger from last night. The one whose leather jacket still hung in my room.
“L-Lukas?” I stuttered.
He looked at the ground and then back up at me, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there. His scruffy brown hair was disheveled, like he’d swiped a soapy hand through it more than once already this morning. He made disheveled look hot with the ropey muscles straining his plain black T-shirt and dark jeans.
“Princess,” he said in that deep grovel of a voice that had intrigued me last night even if he’d scared me when I first saw him in the vineyard.
But holy shit. I hadn’t seen those vibrant blue eyes in the dark last night. They were practically shining at me, making me think of emeralds or sparkling Caribbean waters. I shouldn’t even be noticing because I didn’t care for the princess nickname. It wasn’t so much the name, but the volume of innuendo behind it. He thought of me as the spoiled rich girl and that irked me. Maybe because it hit too close to home. Growing up with money meant you were always trying to outrun that quick judgement.
“Oh good, you two have met.” A voice interrupted our moment, but not the staredown of each other.
A vaguely familiar mid-forties man came up to both of us, his black polo emblazoned with the company logo in gold thread. He clapped his hands together, pulling me out of my trance.
“Lukas, this is Delta. Delta, Lukas. You two will be working together this summer, so hopefully you’ll get along. If you’ll come this way, I will give you the official tour and then I’ll give you tasks to get done this week. I’m John, by the way, the winemaking director for Black Bishop Winery.”
Lukas, the ass-kisser, reached out his hand for a shake and seemed genuinely pleased to meet John. I, on the other hand, just hoped our tour lasted awhile so I could take a break from inventory. I’d heard Daddy talk about John, so I felt like I knew him already. He was married with two kids. Been working for Daddy for close to twenty years now.
John had the unique ability to walk forward, while spinning his upper body halfway around to keep talking to people trailing behind him.
“I’ll be overseeing you both for two weeks while we teach you everything that goes into winemaking. After that, you’ll be with the operations manager, and then after that, the vineyard manager. Seeing all sides of this business is imperative to running a successful winery. From there, Delta, you’ll be placed wherever your father sees fit. Lukas, we’ll have to see what side fits you most.”
John kept walking down a long line of oak wine barrels while Lukas shot me a glare. I looked up at him and shrugged. Not my fault my daddy owned this winery and would give me a job. You’d think I’d start in the tasting room, not back here in the dungeon. A spoiled princess I was not.
I could feel him next to me the entire tour, his arm brushing mine on occasion, the rough hair there an intriguing sensation. The last few guys I’d dated were total gym whores, shaving their entire bodies in fear others wouldn’t be able to see their muscles under the hair. Lukas didn’t look like he worked out in a gym. More like he did things with his hands that led to muscles as an afterthought.
“Okay, so now you’ve seen the whole backroom operation.”
John clapped his hands and I had to pull my head back into the conversation. I must have missed the last few minutes while I was lost in my thoughts about Lukas. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything important.
“It’s impressive, for sure,” Lukas said, his expression serious.
What was his deal? This was a minimum-wage job doing the crap no one else wanted to do. Was he really going to play that game where he kissed ass the whole time we worked together? Because that was going to get old. Real fast.
“Black Bishop has a long history of never cutting corners and always putting the grapes first.” John’s chest puffed up like he single-handedly planted the damn grapevines himself. “Now how about I get you two back to inventory and then restocking the supply in the tasting room.”
John led us back to the wall of wine racks and that damn clipboard. He explained how to do what I’d already been doing and then left Lukas and me alone. The sounds of the tasting room drifted into the back, making me realize lunch crowd was starting to pick up. I grabbed the clipboard as Lukas drifted his hand over the racks, staring at the bottles of wine like he was studying for a test later.
“How about you call out which wine and how many and I’ll mark it down?” My voice came out louder than I wanted, the words practically a gunshot in the silent room. I cleared my throat and tried a softer tone. “Maybe we can get done before lunch.”
Lukas’s laser gaze stayed on me for a beat longer than was necessary, making me shift in my black Converse high-tops. What was with this guy and his straight-faced stare that had my stomach churning?
He nodded once and gave me his back, touching each bottle of wine while he counted meticulously. His blunt-tipped fingers practically caressed each bottle neck. Butterflies hit my churning stomach and I realized that maybe I’d taken the wrong end of this job. I’d have to sit here watching him for another hour before we were done.
My head listed to the side and I allowed myself to sweep his entire body with my gaze, unhurried thanks to his focus on the wine bottles. He wore plain black Chucks that had seen better days. His jeans were already a faded black, molding to his ass quite nicely in a way you didn’t see much in guys these days. Even the guys who wore tight jeans tended to sag them so badly you couldn’t accurately see what kind of ass you were dealing with. But Lukas? Oh, he had a very fine ass.
“Princess?”
His voice pulled me from my thoughts. And pulled my gaze from his backside to see him looking over his shoulder at me, a smirk on his handsome face that meant he’d caught me staring at him.
My cheeks heated and I hated that he had me flustered. “Huh?”
