Page 80 of Holding Out for a Gyro
He counted off on his hand. “Hera, Hero, Cosmo, Iphigenia, Ajax.” He switched to his other hand. “Then the saints: Michael, Anthony, Nicholas, George, Sebastian.”
I snorted. “And Basil. Now I don’t find your name so odd.”
“You thought my name was odd?”
“Different. I’ve never known anyone with your name. Makes me think of food.” Never a bad thing. “Why do they call you Theo?”
“It means uncle.” He frowned at that for some reason but then urged me to continue.
We made it another couple of feet down the hall before his mom crossed our path, trailing yet another woman, younger than Ana, closer to my age. She introduced herself as Basil’s youngest sister Zoe, but their mom harried her to get back to the kitchen. “If you don’t roll out the Christ’s bread, we won’t have any for dinner.”
Bas snickered. “That would be blasphemy. Her bread is so good, you’ll decide to marry me on the spot.”
Then his mom spit on him. Not just once. Like three times. “Ptu! Ptu! Ptu!”
He laughed. “Ma, I’m only joking.” He winced at me. “She’s warding off the evil eye.” As his mom disappeared down the hall, jabbering something in Greek with hands flailing, he explained, “So I won’t ruin my chances of getting married.”
“Okay.” I double blinked, and the color drained from Basil’s skin. He must have seen the panic settling into my eyes.
“This might have been a mistake.” He sighed. “We’ve barely scratched the surface.”
We went downstairs to find a bunch of men building a dollhouse. Bas nudged one. “Nicky, you finally got what you wanted when we were kids.”
Nicky stood, rubbing his back. “This motherfucking—” Then he saw me. “Uh. Hi. You must be Chelsea.” Nicky looked like an older, more mature, yet softer version of Bas. Handsome still, but he didn’t seem to have started out with the same unfair raw materials as Bas. His eyes were dark but less kind. He hadfrown lines where Bas had laugh lines. While Bas glowed with charismatic energy, Nicky’s sallow skin and slouched shoulders exuded exhaustion.
Bas introduced the other dollhouse builders as Ana’s husband Michael and his own dad, Zander.
Bas pointed at another guy, sitting at a card table, observing everyone. “That’s Gaia’s husband, Nick.”
Of course. I stifled a laugh.
I turned to greet his father, anticipating the same boisterous welcome I’d received upstairs. Unlike Nicky, Zander had aged gracefully. His seasoned face showed years of experience, good and bad. The gray in his hair gave him an air of elegance and wisdom.
Welcoming, he was not.
He didn’t nod or greet me in any way. He didn’t insist I call him Dad. His eyes didn’t even lift to acknowledge me.
My stomach knotted.
Did he know I’d hurt Bas before? That I’d probably hurt him again? Did they all know? Was this his way of protecting his son from me?
Wise man; shunning me now would probably save everyone time. I clenched my fist to banish those self-defeating thoughts. I had to try to gain this man’s approval, for Basil’s sake at least. I stretched out to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr.—”
Zander glanced once at my proffered hand before he turned back to the dollhouse. “Nicky, can you grab those instructions?”
The tang of blood tinged my tongue from biting the inside of my cheek, but Zander’s cold rebuff couldn’t touch the level of menace I’d endured from my own dad. I could weather incivility. The fatherless girl deep inside rose to Zander’s challenge, hoping to prove myself, to gain his respect. No wonder Bas had spent so much of his life feeling like he couldn’t measure up.
Bas squeezed my wrist, reminding me of our greater purpose.He’d warned me one or the other of his parents might be rude, good cop/bad cop. I prayed that’s all this was, a temporary test of my mettle. He’d said it was better to win over his mom, which I had. I’d win over his dad, too.
I relaxed my tight jaw and smiled as sincerely as I could manage.
Bas tugged me. “I’m just passing through, Dad. I wanted Chelsea to meet Gaia.”
His brother ran a thread of glue across one edge of a tiny window. “She should be upstairs. Did you check the kitchen?”
“You can be such a caveman, Nicky.”
Nicky chuckled. “And yet you know I’m probably right.”
