Page 82 of The Mountain
“I’ve been to Paris,” Liam retorts. “The wine was… okay.” He purses his lips. “Not as good as what we grow in New Zealand.”
“Hmm.” Antoine eyes Liam critically, as if attempting to judge the entire country’s viticulture by his boyfriend’s demeanor. “Maybe you just weren’t drinking in the right places.”
“Like gay bars in Montmartre?” Liam quips, and Antoine’s cheeks darken, his eyes dropping to Liam’s feet. “You don’t think that would be the place to try good French wine?” Liam’s voice drops an octave, and he takes a step closer to Antoine, until their bodies are practically touching. “I remember liking what I tasted on you.”
I stare between the two of them, my eyes wide, lips parted, a hundred questions rushing through my mind.Had they met before? In Paris? When was this?
“Hey, Liam! Stop seducing Antoine and get me a drink, will yah?” Eddie calls out, swiping wet hair back from his forehead as he strides into the kitchen, his cheeks flushed from the shower. He flops into one of the wooden chairs at the dining table, leaning forward on his elbows to flash a challenging grin at Liam.
Liam rolls his eyes, but pours his friend a glass, sliding in to sit beside him at the table.
“Ugh. Fucking terrible,” Eddie says, then takes another sip. “How do you people drink this shit?”
“You don’t like wine?” I ask, smiling when thick arms band around me from behind, a warm cheek nuzzling against the side of my face, the smell of Matty’s body spray filling my nostrils.
“Hey, baby,” he murmurs, large hands splaying with tentative possessiveness over my stomach. He presses his face to the top of my head, ruffling my hair as he breathes me in, almost hungrily. Like he’s been waiting all day just to hold me, taste me.
Eddie snorts, lifting his glass with a sneer, then takes another sip. “This isn’t wine, Missy.” He makes a face. “This is horse piss pretending to be wine. Completely undrinkable, except by the desperate.” Another sip. “Which, unfortunately, I am.”
I turn in Matty’s arms, pressing my smile into his chest as I pull him to me in a hug, shaking my head at Eddie’s antics.
“So you’re a sommelier now, are you?” Liam teases, knocking Eddie’s elbow with his own. Some of Eddie’s wine spills over the lip of his glass and he shoots Liam a feral scowl.
“A soam-ah-what?” Matty murmurs, more to himself than to anyone else, like he’s trying the word out on his tongue.
“It’s someone who tastes wine professionally,” Antoine explains gently, his back to us as he chops the last vegetables for the salad.
“That’s a thing? Huh.”
Eddie grins. “Oh, yeah. My family hires one each year. It’s fucking hilarious, the shit he comes up with. ‘Notes of wild thyme, rose hips, and summer berries.’ Or ‘sun-ripened apricot with hints of crisp pear and manuka honey.’ Like what does that shit even mean?”
“Your family?” There’s no missing the sharp interest in Antoine’s voice, his salad-making forgotten as he turns to fix Eddie with a questioning stare.
Eddie shrugs. “Better money in wine than sheep these days, so mum planted a lot of the station out in vines about ten years ago. We mainly keep the sheep to the high country now.” He chuckles, his gaze going distant as he stares down at his wine. “Dad told her it’d be a waste of money when she planted it allout.” His lips quirk, a faint huff of amusement exhaling out as he adds: “Last year she won a bunch of awards and the wine business brought in more than the sheep did. It was fucking epic.”
I blink at Eddie in surprise, my mind rushing to catalog this new information about him, to marry up the image of this rough-speaking, slightly feral creature with a mom that grows award-winning wines.
“Quel bordel.” Antoine chuckles, shaking his head with bemusement that mirrors my own, and turning back to his salad. “C’est trop…”
“That’s through in Central, aye?” Liam asks conversationally, completely unfazed by Eddie’s proclamation.
“Yeah. Near Bannockburn, but basically in the middle of nowhere.”
“Huh.” Liam scrubs at his face in thought. “I’d always thought you guys were up near Wanaka for some reason.”
My heart stutters, realizing that they’re talking about places in New Zealand. Places that are nothing more than names to me now—nothing more than pinpoints on a map, if I was to look them up. But maybe one day, a few months from now, maybe they’d be places I’d know too. Maybe in a few months’ time, those names would conjure up scenery and people and feelings.
I swallow, my nerves from earlier coming back in full force, and tighten my arms around Matty’s waist, pressing my ear to his chest, his steady heartbeat calming my own.
“You guys should have let me help with dinner,” Seth complains, pulling a long-sleeved tee over still-damp hair as he rushes intothe kitchen. He groans in dismay at the sight of Antoine carrying the salad to the table, then glances behind him, searching hopefully for any tasks left unfinished in the kitchen.
“Should have got to the showers quicker, mate,” Eddie quips, flicking his own damp hair off his forehead.
Seth huffs, but doesn’t respond, instead rushing to pull out plates and cutlery to set the table. Antoine glares at him in mock annoyance.
“Sit down.” Antoine tilts his chin imperiously toward the table. “Lily and I have it under control.”
Antoine lifts his brow expectantly, his eyes tracking pointedly to where my arms are wrapped around Matty. Arms that should probably be setting the table or getting the meatballs out of the oven or straining the pasta. I bite back a smile and peel myself out of Matty’s grasp.
