It was boiling hot on the farm where I was staying with my parents in the south of France. We were on our first ever family trip abroad, a “world tour” that turned out to be more of a “strictly business” trip. So far the only parts of the world I’d seen were vineyards in Portugal, vineyards in Spain, and now vineyards in France, the holy mecca of wine country.

To me, they all looked the same. Sure, in Portugal the wine came paired with local egg custard tarts to sample, and in Spain our tasters were interspersed with tapas, of which the only ones I liked were patatas bravas, a French fry-esque dish with spicy sauce on top. But other than that? The farms looked the same, the machinery used to harvest and produce the wine looked the same. Even the vintners acted just like my parents. Most of them spoke better English than we did any other language, but sometimes we’d need a translator to interpret between us. Even then, talking to people from a world away, who grew up in a totally different land than our own, my parents shared the same stories—difficulties with pests, bad harvests and good ones, processing mistakes everyone had made when they were first starting out, no matter where they started, it seemed.

Frankly, I was bored.

Which was embarrassing, because who the heck gets bored on a trip to the south of France? All the kids in my high school glared at me with envy before I left, and nobody more pointedly than Darius Bantham.

Darius, who’d run home to tell his parents about our trip the second I shared the news during a class presentation. Darius, whose father had started spreading around town that he was going to take his family on a trip.

Darius, who got me into trouble with my parents for speaking out-of-turn about work secrets.

“This trip was supposed to give us a leg up,” my father had complained for weeks straight before our departure. “It was supposed to be a way to get the word out about Spring Valley. Now it’s turning into ‘every vineyard in Paso Robles goes abroad to tout their wares.’ We look ridiculous, following each other around like this.”

“How was I supposed to know Darius would tell his dad about a stupid what I’m doing this summer school presentation?” I’d grumble every time Dad brought it up.

But I’d regret doing that, because every single time, Dad countered it with his favorite anthem. “Never trust a Bantham,” he’d remind me, again and again.

Well, I knew better now. Darius was just like his parents. Too stuck up to sit with the other farming town kids at school. He sat at the jock table, even though he didn’t play football. They let him, though I didn’t know why. The rest of us farm kids were looked down on by the townie kids. Called po-dunk or made fun of for our clothes, which more often than not were hand-me-downs, since unless you’re some world-famous internationally recognized wine brand, it’s a tough industry to turn a profit in.

Stuck up, a tattle-tale, and what’s worse, he asked freaking Sally Jones to the spring social a few weeks ago. Sally, who used to tie my shoes in knots under the table so I’d trip on my face in elementary school. Sally, who stuck a note in my locker the last week of school telling me to ‘have a great summer rolling around in a field like a pig.’

But why was I surprised? Sally and Darius seemed like a perfect match.

That was the thought on my mind that boiling hot day in France when I snuck out of the farmhouse where my parents and I were staying, guests of a local winemaker and his wife. They were nice enough, as far as people my parents’ age went. But their idea of a fun evening was sitting in their kitchen drinking tea and discussing crop failures. And their idea of a hearty breakfast was not the delicious pain au chocolate or croissants with butter and jam we’d been feasting on at other homestays. No, they preferred some hideous liver-paste known as pâte. After the escargot they tried feeding us for dinner last night, it was too much.

I needed a break. From my parents, from this trip, from everything.

It was hot outside too, but not as hot as inside the stifling little cabin this couple called home. Outside, the cool breeze helped alleviate some of the sun’s scorching sting. I trailed along a path from the cottage, one that meandered through the farm for a few miles before depositing you onto a dirt road into the nearest town, which was really little more than a bakery, a cheese shop and a grocery store. I had a vague idea in my mind to pick up some cheese at the shop, though I only had a few euros to my name—my parents were stingy with the vacation spending money. “The plane tickets alone are allowance enough.”

As if I asked them for this. As if this was my idea of a dream summer. Being carted around the world while my parents do their job and I nod off in boredom in a corner.

But I shouldn’t complain. I knew most of my friends back home would kill to be in my place. Even if that place was currently scorching hot, bored out of my mind, and starving.

So when I reached the main road, and across it, caught a glimpse of someone in the distance, half-hidden by the overhead vines of a farm across the way, picking grapes and popping them into their mouth, my own mouth began to water.

Why didn’t I think of that idea?

But I didn’t want to start eating the produce of the nice farmers whose land we were staying on. I didn’t know how they’d react if I came home with my fingertips stained the color of their wine and an apology for eating some of the harvest.

Instead, I started out across the road, intent on asking whomever it was foraging on the far side if I could share some of their bounty.

Then I stopped dead halfway there, my eyes going wide, my eyebrows shooting skyward.

Of course.

I didn’t recognize him from far away, with his back turned and his head inclined as he examined one of the vines. Now, though, as he turned around to reach for another branch, it became obvious who I’d spotted. Darius Bantham squinted at a vine, then plucked off a cluster of grapes and popped one into his mouth. His eyes floated half-shut as he chewed, as if he were concentrating very hard on the flavors in that grape, the same way my parents taught me to test and see if a vine was ready to be plucked.

That, or he was just feeling overly pleased with himself for his grape-stealing idea.

Still, my mouth watered even more watching him, and my stomach growled almost in concert. In the distance, I heard wheels crunch on the road—a car approaching.

Just as I was about to step back off the road, Darius looked up, also alerted by the sound. To my surprise, the moment our eyes met, he broke into a broad, genuine smile. “Holly!” he called, waving me toward him. “Fancy seeing you here.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. But with the car approaching, it was either walk toward Darius, or run back toward the overheated farmhouse and sit down to eat some pâte with my parents.

I took a step toward him, though I kept to the side of the road. Still at least ten feet between us. Enough to show him I wasn’t being too friendly. “Darius,” I shouted. “And of course I’m here. You’re the one whose whole family followed mine halfway around the world.” I meant to keep my voice hard, stern. To let him know I didn’t think it was funny, what they were doing. Trying to steal our secrets and sabotage us at every turn.

But somehow, when I spoke, my voice sounded lighthearted instead. Amused.

“Sorry about that,” Darius replied, cracking a grin. In the bright sunlight, as he stepped toward me, he looked different than he ever had at school. More refined somehow. Older. Well, and broader, too. Had he been working out or something? I remembered him as a scrawny kid. Now he looked like he’d put some muscle on, at least on his arms where they jutted out from beneath his T-shirt. “Business, though. I’m sure you understand.”

“I understand that it makes both of our families look ridiculous,” I replied, though I took another step closer to him while I said it. He did the same. “Like we’re chasing each other around the world.”

“Maybe we are.” He shrugged one shoulder. “But if you ask me, I think it makes us both look motivated. Anyway, people love a good nemesis story. It’ll sell papers back home.” He spread his hands in the air, miming a banner. “I can see the headlines now. ‘Bantham and Spring rivalry heats up in south of France.’”

I snorted, in spite of myself. “You can say it’s heating up all right.” I glanced up at the sun and fanned myself.

Without my asking, Darius stepped in between the sun and me. He stood taller than me, enough to block it out, at least from reaching my eyes. “Better?” he asked, standing there like my own personal shade garden.

I pressed my lips together, but nodded, too. After all, it was better not to be squinting. “Testing vines or eating breakfast?” I asked, pointing at the few grapes he still has clutched in one hand. As if in response, my stomach rumbled again, loud enough for Darius to hear this time.

He laughed. “Bit of both. Want to try?” He plucked a fresh grape from a nearby plant and handed it to me, that daredevil grin of his tipping me off.

“Are you allowed to be tasting these?” I asked as I held out a hand. His fingers brushed mine as he dropped the lone fruit into my palm, and I didn’t want to think about the way it made my body tingle, my fingertips feeling like I’d just touched something electric or filled with static.

“Not exactly,” he said. “Though nobody specifically said I couldn’t…”

I rolled my eyes. “So you’re stealing these.”

“I am a grape thief,” he admitted, laughing again. “But I’m a noble one, sharing my harvest for all the hungry ladies around. Unless, of course, you don’t want to participate in thievery.” He extended his hand once more for the grape.

Part of me wanted to give it back to him just for an excuse to touch him again. A bigger part, however, namely my appetite, refused. Without another word, I popped the grape into my mouth and bit down. My eyes fluttered half-shut, just the way Darius’s had when I’d spied on him earlier. A groan escaped my lips without me meaning to let it, as a sweet, sugary rush flooded my senses.

Wine grapes didn’t taste like the kind you’d try in stores. They were sweeter, more concentrated. Bred to produce as many sugars as possible so that you could ferment them into a delicious wine later.

After a full day without food, this grape tasted almost like it was wine already. Heady and sweet, it gave me a headrush. Even more so when I opened my eyes again to find Darius watching me closely, reaching for another vine. “Seems like thievery agrees with you.”

“Only when I must resort to it to fill my empty belly,” I countered, but I reached for another bunch of grapes too, eager for that flavor again.

We spent the better part of the morning out there in the field. I told him all about the boiling hot farmhouse where my parents were staying across the road. He told me about the equally stifling farm where he and his parents were camped out, about half a mile down the road. He’d apparently been out all morning picking his way up the street, sampling the goods at every vineyard he passed, just as an excuse to get out of the house.

“You bored too?” I asked, as we wandered toward town, stopping every now and then to taste another fruit.

“Not bored, no,” he replied in a tight-lipped way that made me curious.

“What, then? Just sick of vineyards already?” I tilted my head and smiled, trying to make light.

His expression closed off even more, however. “Sick of listening to my parents’ screaming matches every morning, evening and night, more like.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him, and I meant it. This was more words than I’d ever exchanged with Darius Bantham in my life, except on the odd occasion at school when we had to work together in the same class project group. I never knew what his life was like at home. Never really imagined it, beyond what my parents always told me about never trusting the Banthams.

He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s fine. You get used to it. Hey, did we try any of the green ones from here?” He shifted the subject, led me across another farm to a plot of white wine grapes.

We were halfway through sampling all the varietals of those when it happened. I was eating a couple grapes at once, studying Darius out from under my eyelashes at the same time, thinking about how I’d never noticed the way his grin made a dimple appear in his right cheek, when he said something funny. I didn’t even register what it was, really, I just laughed, but as I did, I inhaled, and sure enough, one of those grapes shot straight down my throat, unbitten and whole.

I froze where I stood, trying to breathe in or out, my eyes going wider.

“Holly?” Darius said my name with a smile, an eyebrow lifted. “Don’t look so surprised; it was just a joke.”

But I shook my head, and clutched at my throat with both hands, as though I could wrench the damn fruit out myself with the right motion. My head was beginning to swim and buzz from the lack of oxygen, and dots appeared in my vision.

That’s when Darius realized what was happening. Before I could move, before I could do anything else, he was behind me, wrapping strong arms around my waist and positioning one fist against the top of my stomach, wrapping his other hand around it. In one swift, strong motion, he pulled me up and against him, and with a popping sound, the grape went flying out of my mouth.

He let me go and I stumbled back to my feet with a gasp, doubling over to suck in oxygen as quickly as I could. Darius crouched beside me and gripped my shoulders with both hands, as though to make sure I wouldn’t topple over. He reached up with one fingertip to tilt my chin toward him, and his dark eyes sparkled in the sunlight, a bright yellow bit around the center looking like a starburst.

“Are you all right, Holly?” he asked, his face genuine, sincere.

“You saved me,” was all I could think to say, staring at him.

“Of course,” he said, right away, without even thinking about it. “I’d never let anything happen to you.”

Our eyes still locked, I slid my arms up around his neck. Before I could talk myself out of it, before I could think better of the idea, I leaned in to kiss him. Soft, slow, sweet. I tasted the grapes we’d been eating all morning on his lips, felt him sigh against my mouth in surprise and then relax into the kiss, his lips parting as my tongue touched them. Then his tongue slid between mine, curled against my tongue, and the kiss alone had my whole body on fire. I’d kissed boys before, but never like this, never with tongue, never without us being boyfriend and girlfriend first, or at least some semblance of dating.

Then it hit me all at once. Who he was. Who I was. He was a Bantham. I was a Spring. Whatever I might have felt in that moment, this could never work out.

I jerked out of the kiss with a gasp and pulled away from him.

“Holly, wait,” he said, already sensing what I was about to do. But it was too late. My mind had already sprung back to life, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how terrible an idea this was.

“Sorry,” I blurted.

“Don’t apologize,” he replied. “That was incredible. But—”

“I have to go,” I said, louder, and then I was moving. Running, away from him. Away from the beautiful, sun-kissed day we’d spent together, chatting about our families, joking about winery culture. We understood each other in a way most other kids wouldn’t, not kids who hadn’t grown up the way we did, in wine families, and wine families steeped in competition, no less. We were from the same tiny bubble.

But that was exactly why we would never work out. We had too much history already, before we even began. So I fled that day, and I never looked back.