Page 94 of Not Safe For Work

“Then your parents are in California too? What part?”

“No, umm, my mom died before we moved here. And my dad’s gone. It’s just me and my sister now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Me, too,” Liv whispers. I squeeze her hand in return, and luckily her parents get caught up in another conversation right away.

“You okay?” Liv asks a moment later.

“Of course. All this wine is making me a little sleepy though.”

“It’s not like we were well-rested when we got here either.” She leans into me, laughing a bit. “Wanna call it a night?”

“I can’t believethis is where you grew up.”

We take a winding staircase to the second floor of the private estate where all the bedrooms are. The walls here are coveredin photographs of her family. All of her childhood memories immortalized.

My eyes snag on one with Liv inside a wine barrel. Her face is stained pink, and her brothers are all laughing. You can see a sliver of her dad looking like he’s about to take someone’s eye out. Then I remember the story she told me. It feels like I’m getting a behind-the-scenes tour right now.

“It’s weird, huh.”

“Weird is not the word I’d use. You’re lucky, Liv. This whole house feels so alive, like I can’t imagine you ever had a quiet moment here.”

“You’re definitely right about that. Not with my brothers.” She opens the door to her bedroom and the size of it alone has me reeling again. Our lives could not be more different. “Can I show you something?” she asks.

“Of course.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and kiss her temple. It’s nice finally having a moment alone together.

She walks us over to the opposite end of her room where double doors open to a small balcony. The air outside is crisp, a gentle breezing cascading around us. There’s a large tarp that Liv pulls down to reveal a telescope.

“Fancy,” I murmur.

“When I was little, my brothers and I would camp out in the vineyard and count the stars. It became kind of an obsession for me, so they got me this for my thirteenth birthday. It’s still my favorite part about coming home.”

I look up, realizing there are about a hundred stars visible from where we are standing. “Wow.”

“You’re lucky it’s a clear night. When the fog rolls in, sometimes it can be impossible to see anything. But the views will be incredible now.”

She starts tinkering with the telescope before looking through it and making some more adjustments. “There,” she says. “Come look.”

I peer through the lens and find myself utterly speechless. I’ve never seen anything like this. I take in as much as I can, feeling so small in the moment compared to the vastness of the universe. Finally, I pull myself away.

“It’s cool, right?” she asks. “I know it’s kind of silly, all the wine names and the stars and?—”

“It’s very cool,” I say, cutting her off. “I guess we both have an affinity for sparkly things.”

She smiles. “When I was younger, I said I was going to be an astronomer. I was so desperate to get away from this small town that I wanted the whole universe. But then I kept failing science, so I settled on San Francisco.”

I laugh, watching as she repositions the telescope a few more times to show me different views, finally showing me the constellation Lyra, her favorite rosé’s namesake.

“For someone who was desperate to get away, you seem to like it here,” I offer. How could she not? It’s idyllic in the most basic sense of the word.

“I appreciate it more now. Sometimes you don’t know how great one thing is until you have something else to compare it to.”

As soon as we get back inside, she quickly changes into a T-shirt and slides into bed. “Come lay with me?”

I follow suit and join her under the covers. I almost moan, it feels so good to lie down. After the trip to New York, our late night and early drive this morning, I’m beyond exhausted.

Liv rolls toward me and leans in for a kiss. It’s just a quick brush of her lips, nothing more. “You don’t like talking about your family, do you?”

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