“Paint this?” I laugh. “Nah, I wish I had this sort of talent. But I have a friend who might as well be a modern-day Picasso. I sketched out what I wanted, and he made it happen.”
“And he did this while we were in Maine?”
“Yeah.”
I hear her choked sob a second before she launches herself at my chest. Her arms loop around my back, and I don’t mistake the kiss that she gives to my ribcage, right over my new tattoo. She squeezes me, hugging me tightly. “I’m in the mood for a dance.”
My heart skips a beat. “Naí?”
“Yeah.” She glances up, tears coating her dark lashes, happiness swimming in those honey eyes of hers. “A dance like on prom night—but this one can be under the stars.”
My hands find the dip in her back, and I pull her flush against me. “I’m thinkin’ this one should end on a kiss.”
So, we dance. In the middle of her salon, in the middle of the day, underneath a painted mural of sunsets and stars that peek out through the clouds. I hold her tightly, spinning her around to the music no one else can hear. I catch our reflection in the mirrors.
My work jeans and messy, curly hair.
Her mismatched shoes and bare, beautiful face.
“Nick?”
My hands skim the curves of her body as I prop my chin on the top of her head. “Yeah, agape mou?”
She smiles up at me. “I was always yours.”
I kiss her fully, then brush her hair to the side so I can trace a pair of soaring wings. It took me a trip to the altar and one stint on a bat-shit-crazy reality show to see it, but this I know to the bottom of my heart: “I’m hopelessly, recklessly, in love with you.”
40
Mina
Two Weeks Later
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
Beside me, my boyfriend—boyfriend!—leans forward to knock on the wooden door to my parents’ house. “You can do this. Deep breaths, remember? I know you’ve got this.”
My heart gives a swift, I’m-so-lucky-to-have-this-man kick in my chest. “You have such faith in me.”
Nick gives a low, sultry laugh. “Always, koukla. I wouldn’t let just anyone pick out ink for me, you know.”
“You mean you weren’t pleased that I strayed from the arrow pointing to your dick?”
A masculine hand circles my waist and squeezes me tight. “So long as you’re the only one to know that it’s there, I’d be fine with—”
The door swings open and I stifle the panic rising within me. It’s not my mom who stands there but my dad—my adoptive father, anyway—and I don’t miss the way he looks from me to Nick, curiosity furrowing his already craggy features.
For years, I’ve let this man ruin not only how I react to life but how I look at myself. I can’t do that anymore. And I won’t allow either him or my mom to drown me in their never-ending fight. If they want to hash it out with each other for the next sixty years, that’s on them. But I want to live, and I’m tired of letting their shame hang over my head.
“Ermione,” my dad grumbles, his expression neither pleased nor upset to see me back on his doorstep, considering I moved all my stuff out two weekends ago. I can’t say that my apartment is homey, especially in comparison to Nick’s humble abode, but it works for now. Until Agape is up and running, I want to stay close to the salon and put out the fires as they come. But I’m lucky—because Nick knows what it takes to kickstart a business, and rather than asking me to move in with him, he’s effectively moved all of his stuff into my place instead. It’s small and cramped, and every time he takes to the stairs, I know he sees his life flash before his eyes, but he never complains.
And, boy, do I love him for it.
Turning my attention back to Yianni Pappas, I note his impassive demeanor and the surly tilt to his mouth. I don’t know how I ever managed to think he and Nick were ever alike, and the point is hammered home when Baba snaps, “What are you doing here?”
The words fire at me in Greek, and I tip my head back to meet his green eyes. “I need to have a little chat with you and Mama. Is she home?”
He steps back, begrudgingly inviting me in. “In the kitchen.”
“Great!”
I storm past him, not bothering to pause and give him a hug. I learned many moons ago that hugging Yianni Pappas is like trying to hug a rattlesnake. He rejects affection the way my body rejects latex leggings; though I’ll admit that, for the sake of fashion, I’ve stuffed myself in a pair or two over the years anyway.
Nick follows behind me, one hand rooted to the small of my back. He’s the one who convinced me to come today. No matter how many times I tried to play devil’s advocate and count all the ways confronting my parents was a bad idea, he quashed each one into the ground with the heel of his massive boot. He was right, of course. I can’t move forward with us until I settle the past with them.
I throw a thank-you glance over my shoulder, to which he only mouths, You can do this. I love you.
Funny how the admission coming from his pillow-soft lips doesn’t make me want to run—not anymore. He’s my rock, my best friend, and I mouth back, S’agapo.
I square off my shoulders, then cut the corner into the kitchen. Immediately, I spot my mom standing near the kitchen island, a glass of champagne in hand while she flips through some magazine. She looks elegant and poised and I shove away the long-time hurt that she’s so obsessed with the image of the perfect Greek family that she can’t see that she’s lost us all. Me, Katya, Dimitri.
“Ermione,” she exclaims when she spots me. Her gaze tracks over to Nick, and though her smile falters at the sight of him, she’s quick to recover. “And Niko, agori mou, how good to see you.”
At the “my boy,” Nick grumbles something beneath his breath. Not for a second do I think it’s complimentary. He’s not the biggest fan of Kyrie and Kyria Pappas. Then again, to be fair, it’s tough to see the good in vultures when you’ve got Aleka and George Stamos in your corner. Even Nick’s yiayia has softened toward me, though I know it’s only because she wants grandbabies and lots of them.
Slowly, my dad moves to stand beside Mama. His hand on her shoulder, the way he curls his fingers in—that possessive incline to his chin that’s so very him. “Do you need to come back home, Ermione?” he asks.
Never.
“Óxi.” My voice is clear, succinct. “I came here to tell you that I’m done with your games.” I turn to my mother. “I’ve spent years wondering who my real dad is.” She gasps—no doubt shocked I’d mention any of this in front of Nick, a “stranger” to our home. She’ll get over it, just as how I had to get over the prospect of ever waking up to discover that my parents are sweet, caring, loving. Our realities are much more cut and dry: she slept around on her husband and I’m the result. “I’ve spent years feeling chained to this idea of who I should be, because you and Baba force-fed me toxic ideologies since I was a kid.”
“Ermione,” my mom starts, finally putting down the champagne, “mipos theloume—”
“No. I don’t care what you two only want—it matters what I want. And as my parents, you should encourage me. Boost me up. Take pride in the fact that your baby girl, your daughter, has her own salon, runs her own business, and she’s done it all on her own.” Nick’s hand falls from my back as I step forward. Confidence kicks up my chin and clenches my hands into fists. “It is not okay for you two to make me feel stupid. Better yet, you shouldn’t tell me I’m stupid either. It’s not okay.”
My dad barks out my name, like the drill sergeant he’s never been. “You will not speak to us this way, Ermione.”
Pity pushes aside the anger streaming through my veins. “Respect is earned, Baba, not given with blind loyalty—and neither of you deserve mine.”
“Do you speak back because I will not say who your father is?” It’s my mom who utters this, and I wish—oh, I wish—she looked anything more than frustrated right now. A hint of compassion would ease the burn. A show of affection to me, her eldest, would erase the need to be done with them both . . . or at least it would make me think again about severing all ties. “Is that what you want?” she demands, this time in Greek.
Ten years ago I would have said yes.
A month ago I would have said yes.
But as my heart races, I hear myself say, “It doesn’t matter what I want, does it? You won’t tell me and I’m tired of asking. It’s your secret to keep but I’m tired of feeling like a secret too.”
Mama’s expression tightens, and her fingers begin to tap on the magazine. Her eyes dart to my father, and then fall to the kitchen island. Alarm bells sound off in my head at the tension I spot in the line of her trim frame. But it’s those tapping fingers, exactly the same nervous twitch of my own, that hold my attention.
“Mama?” I ask, my hands down at my sides.
“Yianni, I need you to leave the room.”
My father’s face turns a blusterous red. “Óxi.”
It’s all he says, and my mom physically shrinks into herself. Her shoulders round and her olive skin pales and the tapping increases speed. “Yianni, now.”
It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever seen her stand up to him, this man who isn’t my biological father and doesn’t even deserve the right to be my adoptive one either. He doesn’t move a muscle, not until Nick steps forward.
They exchange words in Greek that I fail to interpret quickly enough, and then my dad is storming out of the kitchen. I don’t expect him to leave, not completely, but either my mom doesn’t care or she’s itching to get whatever it is off her chest because her voice comes low and hurried.
“Prodromos.”
One word. One word, and my knees buckle.
I expect to hit the floor but a pair of familiar, bulky arms catch me. They haul me upright, tugging me into a broad chest. I feel his heart hammering against my back. “Mama—”