Aged Like Fine Wine Complete Series

Welcome to the Aged Like Fine Wine club! Four women in their 40s set off for a year in Europe and unexpectedly find love.

Rosé with My Fake Fiancé: It was supposed to be a fun weekend in Paris with my best friends. Instead, I’ve acquired an outrageously flirty and much younger fake fiancé.

Riesling with My Roommate: Chris Rächer is Europe’s most popular bad boy. He's questing for the band’s next big hit and seeking solitude. He's also my new roommate.

Prosecco with My Professor: When my ex-husband shows up in Rome begging me to come back, my one-night-stand—and silver fox professor—sets out to prove that I can do better.

Cava with My Colleague: My co-worker Carlos is so stiff and uptight, I’m beginning to think he’s a robot. But after one night with neighboring hotel rooms, we discover our growing chemistry can’t be contained by one flimsy door.

Tessa
It’s hard to stay mad at my friends when they feel so bad for ditching me.


Sara

You’re going to have such a fun time without us! You can do all the things you want instead of us dragging you around to the typically touristy stuff. 

We’ll just do all that when we get in tomorrow. 


Jade

Make new friends! Talk to the table next to you! Hook up with a man! You’ve got the hotel room to yourself tonight. ;)


Emma

Have a glass of wine with lunch today on me, all right? I am so sorry that I screwed up my flight. How did I book the wrong day???
No! Make it a bottle of wine! That’s how sorry I am.


Ah, yes. Day drinking. That’s exactly what I’ll do as soon as I find this tour guide.

Even if it is nine a.m.


This new year, new me situation is not going well. When Jade proposed we all move across the Atlantic, I thought it would be a great opportunity to start fresh. My sister has her own family and my mother doesn’t know who I am most days thanks to her dementia. Five months after my breakup with James, my circle of friends has dwindled since I moved back out to the burbs from downtown Austin where I’d lived with James. The best parts of my life were my job and my three best friends, and even though we all picked different cities to live in, we agreed we would meet up once a month.


But here I am, sitting all alone in a coffee shop in Paris on what was supposed to be our first weekend trip together. It’s a busy summer day, and chatter and sunlight fill the café. I got here a half an hour before I was supposed to meet our tour guide, so my pastries are reduced to crumbs, and the dredges of my coffee are cold. 


“Excuse me,” someone says in French, and I glance up from my phone to see a young woman pointing at the chair opposite me. “May I?”


I perk up. There are no tables available and sitting with someone is a chance to practice my French and make a new friend. “Oui,” I say, and move my purse off of the chair.


She smiles gratefully and then picks the chair up, moving it to the table next to mine where there are three other women.

Oh, god damn it. I fake a smile and pretend to sip my coffee. Nothing to see here. Not me being embarrassing.


I glance at the women out of the corner of my eye. They’re younger than me with youthful skin and no gray hairs—mid-thirties, maybe?—and effortlessly fashionable in the way that Parisians are. One of them says something funny, and all of them throw back their heads, laughing.


Great. I’m sitting alone at a table for one, jealous of strangers.


My phone buzzes with a new message in the group chat.


Emma

Don’t listen to Jade. If you aren’t ready for a relationship, you’re not ready.


Jade

Who said anything about a relationship? 
Tessa needs orgasms, stat.


I roll my eyes. Jade thinks orgasms solve everything. Which, to be fair, they solve a lot, so maybe she has a point, but I’m a serial monogamist. My orgasms usually come from reliable, steady partners and not from flings or one-night stands.


From now on, though, my orgasms will come from the most reliable and steady person in my life—me. Because I’m forty-two years old. If I was going to get married and have a happily-ever-after, it would have happened by now. After decades of dating and one failed relationship after another, it’s clear that the common denominator is me.


Tessa

I will take you up on that wine, Emma. As soon as I ditch the tour guide, I’ll head out on my own. I’ll have that wine over a leisurely, gourmet lunch. Very Parisian.


Jade

And then some afternoon delight back in the hotel room?


Tessa

No. No afternoon delight. No one-night stand. 
I’ll be fine on my own. I don’t need a man.


Jade

No one NEEDS a man.


Sara

Whatever you do today, just try to have fun without us, okay? Love you. 


Fun. It’s a long shot, but I’ll try.
What I need is a clean slate. A fresh start. While I’ve traveled all over the world, I’ve never lived outside of Texas, and this is my chance. Once I get settled into Portugal, where I have a one-year visa under their digital nomad policy, I will make new friends. I will travel on the weekends—solo travel and trips to visit my friends scattered throughout Europe. 


And I will not, under any circumstances, waste my time looking for a man.