I cast another glance over at Julia, and my damn breath caught in my throat. She had always affected me that way, and there was a pretty good chance that she always would. Which, let’s be honest, didn’t fare well for my future relationships if she wasn’t a part of it.

Being raised to not only hate, but also stay the hell away from the one girl who starred in every single teenage fantasy had been the bane of my existence. Do you have any idea how hard it is to “stay away” from the girl next door?

I mean, literally.

My property line ends where hers begins. Acres of vines divide the La Bella winery from the Russos’ but not our homes. You would think that with all that expansive land, our great-grandfathers would have built the main houses to have some seclusion and privacy, but no, the idiots had practically built them right on top of each other.

And the worst part? I had grown up being able to see Julia’s bedroom window from mine. Talk about some piss-poor parental planning. How the hell was I ever supposed to fall out of love with the girl if she never left my line of sight? And then there were nights where I swore she’d left her curtains open on purpose, just so I could see her getting undressed for bed. She tortured me in every possible way, but she never gave in, never crossed the invisible line separating us even though, at the time, I would have bet my life that she wanted to just as badly as I did.

That was why I started inviting girls over and making sure that Julia would see them up in my room with me. I freaked out one night after catching her staring from her window to mine. It was exactly what I had wanted, but she actually looked hurt. I thought about her doing the exact same thing to me in retaliation, and I would have deserved it, but the idea of seeing Julia with some arrogant loser from our high school grated on my every nerve. My insides twisted in a jealous rage at the mere thought of another guy’s hands touching any part of her skin or being in places that I was forbidden from ever entering. I’d stopped bringing girls home that night.

“Are you going to sit there, daydreaming all day, or are we going to pour this wine?” My best friend, Dane, appeared out of thin air and clapped me on the back.

I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, watching me watch her.

“I wasn’t daydreaming,” I bit out and reached for a bottle a little too aggressively, spilling some of the contents out of the top.

“Reminiscing, daydreaming, fantasizing”—he shrugged as he wiped up my mess, his too-long blond hair falling over his eyes—“whatever you want to call it.”