Three days later, Cole was at his desk when an email pinged alerting him to an incoming message. The subject line revealed it was a new posting on his medical chart. He quickly downloaded the file, pleased but not surprised to see the results all indicating negative. He forwarded the email to Rhett with some suggestive emojis before leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs.

“You all set for our two o’clock?” Elena, the product development manager for the vineyard asked, strolling into his office with her arms full of folders and paper.

“Of course,” he answered, clearing space on his desk for her to set down everything she’d brought with her.

“I’ve got to tell you, Cole, sparkling wine isn’t easy.” Elena flopped into the chair and pushed a brown curl out of her eye.

“Bubbly wine,” he corrected.

She waved a hand between them dismissively. “You have a few options.”

“Alright, let’s hear it.”

“There’s basically three ways you can make a wine sparkling, and it depends on what kind of bubbles you want to get and what kind of grapes you want to use.”

“Do we need to plant new vines?”

“No. You can use the pinot noir grapes for the rosé you asked about, but aside from that, there’s three ways you can ferment.” She passed some documents over to him.

He glanced at them briefly before asking, “Do we need to get Laurence involved?”

Cole glanced at the calendar, trying to see if the production manager had any time he’d be able to sit down and hammer through the best course of action on this.

“Well, yes. But we can discuss this at a high level then go back to him once you know what you want to do.”

“Awesome. Go on then, three ways?”

“Yeah,” Elena said, reaching across his desk and tapping a fingernail on one of the pamphlets she’d given him. “So, Charmat, which ferments the fastest; champagne, which actually ferments in the bottle; and the bulk method, which basically just shoots air into the wine.”

“That sounds…” Cole searched for the word. “Not appealing.”

“Right,” she agreed.

“Okay, then. Charmat and traditional.”

“Charmat is sweet, like Asti.”

“Mmmn,” Cole approved.

“You do love the sweet wine.”

“I do.”

“And then the traditional method, which uses the final bottle as its own little fermentation tank. But this needs an additional fifteen to sixty months to ferment properly.”

Cole whistled in disbelief. “I’m not one to cut corners, but Charmat is a viable and acceptable method?”

“Definitely,” she confirmed, “I mean, Asti.”

Cole laughed. “Point taken.”

“Sooooo…” Elena grabbed some of the pamphlets out of his hand and shuffled around the papers between them, shoving a handful toward him and pulling the rest back into her arms. “This is what you’re going to want to look at, then we can loop Laurence in and make plans for installation and production. The capital expenditure for the new equipment shouldn’t be too bad compared to the operating budget. Oh! And we need to get Scott involved too, for marketing.”

“Sounds good, Elena. I’ll read it all over. I appreciate the time you put into everything.”

“No thanks necessary, Cole, it’s my job.” Elena smiled at him, relaxing slightly. “So, how was Kristen’s wedding?”

Cole loudly exhaled, flapping his lips together. “It was a lovely photo op.”

Elena barked out a laugh, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand. “I hear you brought a date.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did you now?”

“Word travels fast, especially when the most eligible Mallory bachelor is involved.”

“I’m the only Mallory bachelor,” he reminded her dryly.

“Exactly. So, Rhett Kingston?”

“Rhett Kingston.” Cole’s breathing hitched as he said Rhett’s name and he chuckled, well aware of just how much this man had taken over his life in such a short time. He remembered how reluctantly he’d crawled out of bed this morning, leaving a sleepy Rhett under the covers. Cole had drank his coffee in the kitchen and watered Lucy, who now sat proudly on the windowsill over the sink.

Rhett wasn’t moved in yet, by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d brought over the important things. His camera, his e-reader, and his plant. Hopefully, when the weekend rolled around, they’d have an opportunity to move more of his things over, but that was assuming Rhett wasn’t tied up with work.

“That’s unexpected,” Elena said, tilting her head in doubt.

“Why?”

“You’ve known him your whole life and there’s never been anything between the two of you. What changed?”

Cole sucked the corner of his bottom lip into his mouth. “I have another meeting in a few minutes, Elena. I’ll have to cut this short.”

“Right,” she agreed, standing up and taking all of her papers and pamphlets with her.

Cole mentally chastised himself for being as standoffish as he had been about the sudden change in his relationship status with Rhett, realizing that he couldn’t be so dodgy if he expected people to take him seriously. The relationship with Rhett was genuine now, so there wasn’t really a need to lie. The only fallacy he had to keep track of was a fake anniversary date of June 12th.

“I did,” he blurted out, truthfully, before Elena reached the door to his office.

She cast a glance over her shoulder. “What?”

“You asked what changed,” he elaborated. “It was me.”

She smiled at him, her eyes crinkling softly around the edges. “That’s really sweet, Cole.”

He shot her a fake scowl. “God, stop. Get out of my office now.”

She laughed and closed the door behind her. Cole let out a rushed breath and tapped the screen on his phone to light it up. He didn’t really have another meeting coming up; he was clear for the rest of the afternoon.

He had a reply message from Rhett, a scandalous looking picture of his midsection and thighs with a strategically placed fold of Cole’s sheets across his groin. Cole shoved the heel of his hand against the base of his dick, trying to convince himself now was not the right time to get a boner.

Thankfully, his office phone rang.

“Mallory Vineyard, this is Cole,” he answered.

“Cole,” greeted his grandfather, Jacob, “how are you doing today?”

“I’m doing well, Pops, thank you. How are you? You and Nan recovering from the jet lag all right?” Cole picked up a pen and doodled circles across the bottom of his desk calendar.

“Oh, you know how your Nan is,” he said noncommittally.

Cole chuckled in lieu of verbalizing an answer.

“How are things at the vineyard?” his grandfather asked.

“Really well,” Cole enthused. “I actually just met with Elena about a new product I want to develop so we’re going to rope Laurence in next week and get the ball rolling.”

“Huh. Is now a good time for that?”

There was a hesitation in his grandfather's voice that made him shift uncomfortably in his seat. He’d always been supportive of the decisions Cole made around the vineyard.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Cole questioned. “It was actually Rhett’s idea. Mallory Bubbly Wines.”

“Ah, yes. Rhett. It seems like you’ve been giving him a lot of leeway over there, Cole.”

Cole grimaced. “We were talking one night and he asked why Mallory didn’t have any sparkling options and the idea really just took off from there. Elena thinks it’s doable with little capital and Rhett and I really think the market is there.”

“He has no experience with wine,” Cole’s grandfather protested.

“I do.”

“Just make sure you take your time and think it through for yourself.”

“I know, Pops. I’ve been at it here for seven years,” Cole reminded him.

“What is the history with this Rhett boy?” his grandfather asked, changing the subject.

“We’re dating,” Cole summarized.

“Since when?”

“June,” Cole bit out, before deciding to add, “twelfth.”

“He’s that Kingston boy’s brother?”

“Well, first off, neither of them are boys,” Cole emphasized. “And since he and Ryan are twins, they’re both Kingstons, yes.”

“Weird they’re both gay,” his grandfather remarked casually.

Cole inhaled an annoyed breath, not interested in going into details about genetics and sexual preferences with his seventy-eight year old grandfather.

“Pops, I have a meeting to get to. Is there anything you needed from me right away?” Cole asked, ready to end this awkward inquisition.

“Nope,” his grandfather answered. “Just wanted to see how things were going with the grapes.”

Cole couldn’t stop himself from laughing at the casual way his grandfather always referred to the vineyard as the grapes. Then he swallowed it down when he realized the majority of the call had focused around Rhett and not the grapes at all.

“Sounds good, Pops,” he said quickly. “We’ll talk soon then.”

Cole hung up and grabbed his cell phone, scrolling back to the picture Rhett had sent him before sending a reply.

Rhett sent him a picture of his middle finger. Cole laughed, his lip quirking up into a sincere smile. He’d never felt the way Rhett made him feel and it just solidified that he’d done the right thing by not getting serious with anyone else in his past. No one had the spark Rhett did, no one made his insides feel like mush, no one made his cock as hard as steel.

Cole waited while a picture loaded on his screen. He was hoping for another lewd photo of his boyfriend, maybe with some fingers shoved up his ass, but what he got was twice as good—a printout from the clinic with Rhett’s negative test results.

Cole turned his computer off and locked his desk. He grabbed his jacket from the back of his door and practically jogged to his car. He was ready to go home and show Rhett just what it meant to be well used.