Page 14 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

Her face brightens with a smile. “Why shouldn’t you have said that? I told you you’re hot. You can tell me I’m beautiful.”

“Because you’re basically Petruchio’s sister. He’d have my nuts if he knew—” I manage to stop myself from admitting exactly what I’ve been thinking about Juliet.

“Let’s get something straight.” She drags her hands from mine and plants them on her hips, scowling up at me. Hell, even her scowl is cute. It makes her nose wrinkle and turns her wide, pretty eyes adorably squinty. “Yes, Christopher is like a brother to me, but I am not his property whose virtue needs to be protected.”

I scrub at my neck, my cheeks turning even hotter. “I know that. I just…I just mean you’re important to him, and it’s a code between friends, we keep an eye out for the people who matter to each other. We don’t…flirt with them. Or at least try to. Very badly.”

Her scowl dissolves. “You’ve been flirting with me?”

“Like I said, very badly.”

She smiles again, and she’s so damn pretty, it makes my stomach flip. “I wouldn’t say you were doing itvery badly.”

I give her a look.

A soft laugh jumps out of her. “I mean it! I’d just say it wasn’t very…obvious. But, then again, I’m out of practice myself. Maybe I just didn’t pick up on it. It’s been a while since I…” Her voice dies off. She clears her throat. “I’ve been taking a break from romance—not that, you know, you’re feeling romantic toward me, I just mean…” She wrinkles her nose and groans. “I’m not saying this well. See? I’m rusty, too.”

“I’m not rusty,” I tell her flatly. “ ‘Rusty’ implies I was once a well-oiled machine. I’m terrible at it.”

“At what?”

“Romance. Flirting. All of that. Always have been.”

Juliet tips her head, peering up at me. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, believe it.” I shove my hands in my pockets and nudge a pebble in the grass with my boot. “It’s just how it is.”

She’s quiet for a minute as she stares at me. “Does that…upset you?”

I give the pebble more undue attention, scooching it across the grass. “Who likes being terrible at something?”

“Everyone is terrible at plenty of things—we can’t be great at everything we do. Being terrible at something only bothers us when that somethingmattersto us.” She hesitates for a beat, then says, “Doesromance matter to you? Do you want it?”

I frown down at the pebble, grinding it into the grass.

I’ve never considered it that way, never asked myself if I was “bad” at romance because I actually didn’twantit. But, thinking back to when my insecurities started as a teen, when my sensory issues, my social anxiety, morphed from me being a quiet, particular kid to a painfully awkward and shy adolescent, when we figured out I was neurodivergent, I can admit that romantic connectionissomething I wanted. I wanted someone to walk around the farm with hand in hand; who’d trust me with their feelings and hopes and fears and listen to me when I wanted to trust them with those things, too; whom I’d feel so close to that the hunger and want burning through my body would have a place with them, would havemeaningwith them.

But my intense shyness, my need for earplugs in noisy spaces, my tongue-tied quietness, my anxiety when trying to socialize, made it hard to connect that way with girls in high school, then in college. The rare times I managed to click with someone, it only got as far as a couple of dates before I’d get some version ofI don’t feel a romantic connection. I think we should just be friends. So Istopped trying to have romance, when time and again people told me that they weren’t experiencing it with me, that they didn’t want it with me. I moved on, let myself have what theydidwant from me—a good time in bed and nothing more. Since then, I haven’t let myself get so far as even considering what I wanted again.

Until recently—now that I’m faced with the fact that I need to marry, which, at thirty-four, has gone from a far-off problem for future Will to a pressing problem for present Will. I’m already functionally running my family’s distillery and farm, but there are giant gaps in the business that I donothandle—all the in-person work of maintaining a business’s connections, expanding its reach, networking, and wining and dining. That’s where I need a partner, someone who’ll happily take on the social aspect of running this business, who’ll help me step fully into being the next generation leading Orsino Distillery and Farm. No consultant or manager is going to cut it. I need someone with those skills having my family name, being at the heart of our brand as a family-run business. I need a wife, and I intend to find one. I’m just not sure, based on my experience, if she’s someone I can reasonably expect to love me romantically and feel me romantically loving her back.

“I guess…I’d like to be better at flirting,” I finally tell Juliet. “At…romance. I’ve got to settle down at some point. Soon, actually.”

“Youhaveto?” Juliet wrinkles her nose. “That sounds awfully obligatory.”

“It is,” I admit, shifting on my feet. “My family business, I’m getting ready to take it over so my parents can retire. And running that business requires…well, a lot of socializing and networking, things that are not my strong suit or my interest. Hoping to find someone who’s passionate about the business, who wants to get married to join me in that work.”

“So…like, a mutually beneficial business arrangement?” she says.

I nod.

She tips her head. “And that’s the reason you want to be better at romance? To find someone who’ll be willing to partner with you. Not to find someone who could fall in love with you?”

I scrub at the back of my neck. “Past experience…it hasn’t made me think that’ll happen. Suppose I just want to find someone I could make happy—make her feel appreciated, listened to, cared for. I’d be faithful to her. I’d…you know, hope we could meet each other’s, uh”—I blush fiercely—“needs. We’d share a life, a business, maybe a couple kids, if she was up for it. But can’t say I’d expect her and I to be…in love.”

“Why?” she asks.

Because I’ve tried before, Juliet, and every time I did, I was told I’d failed.

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