“Hundred bucks per petal. Another six months and I’ll be able to trade in my car for one with proper air conditioning.”
“How is he so far behind?” Why did he buy that flashy SUV instead of paying up?
She read all the questions behind the one he asked. “When he was freelance before he started with you, he managed to jump from place to place faster than the Attorney General could serve the papers. Mostly. So the arrears built up. I know it’s a bigger decision for you than what he owes, but it’s been nice having him in one place so I don’t have the wait while the system figures out where to garnish.”
“That only explains the arrears if he was job-hopping on purpose and not remitting support on his own.” He turned at her dry laugh, and grimaced.
“You’re a smart one, Theo.”
He lifted a box of cereal off the top of the fridge and carried it to the table. Smart? Maybe. But obtuse, too. He was reassessing every time he’d given Sergei the benefit of the doubt.
Well. Whatever else, if he kept Sergei on while he paid Rachel off, or if he and Ron looked for a replacement, he knew now to keep doubt in place. It didn’t resolve much, but it might stop him from making more mistakes.
Once she and Hannah were unpacked and settled down, they called her parents. Dad answered, all smiles and wearing an Uncle Sam hat.
“Getting ready for the fourth?”
“There was a festival this afternoon, we went with Blythe and Jason.”
Of course they did. Nothing against people who got on with their extended families, but it seemed sometimes like these monthly video calls were nothing but a chance for her parents to mention all the varied and fulfilling hours they spent with her sister and brother-in-law. “How’s Blythe doing? Everything with the pregnancy good?”
“You should see her,” Mom said. She was in a star-spangled shirt and a red-and-white striped scarf. “That baby does nothing but squirm around inside her. Jason’s already talking about padding out the basement and building a toddler-sized gym.”
“Cute. Can’t wait to see it.” At her pettiest, she hoped that Blythe and Jason had a wonderful, healthy, happy baby who set about destroying every single one of their preconceived notions about parenting. It wasn’t such a mean wish. She’d yet to meet a parent whose offspring hadn’t spun every controlled thing about their life out of alignment. The parents had to adjust, but tended to not mind all that much.
Hannah leaned into the screen to poke at Dad’s image, and they all spent a few minutes focused on her. Mom and Dad asked the right questions, remembered the names of her school friends, spoke with age-appropriate words.
Not for the first time, she wondered if they updated a cheat sheet after each month’s call.
“So your sister is trying to get me to move back home,” she told Dad, once Hannah wandered off.
Mom looked around her own living room, like Aunt Johnston might be lurking. “Here?”
“No. I mean, Plainview.”
“Be nice, having you closer,” Dad said.
“Plainview is not your home.” Mom’s narrowed gaze moved between Dad and the screen.
“I know. I told her I wasn’t interested. This jerk guy from high school is running Brookside; remember where I used to work in summers? He wants me to take over as Director of Recreation.” She didn’t know why she was telling them. She’d turned down the job within seconds of getting Brent’s email, giving him no room for ambiguity.
Okay, she did know. She wanted a damn gold star. She wanted them to hear how people from across the state were recruiting her. She wanted them to see she wasn’t some pitiful less-than, never as accomplished or valued as her brilliant doctor sister.
Thin a veil as she’d draped over her request for praise, her parents didn’t see it. “I don’t know why you call her place ‘home,’ Rachel. You only lived there for high school.”
“Mom, I don’t. I call Houston home.” Eighth grade through graduation, and she’d only been an hour away during community college. And lived with Aunt every summer even once she started at University of Texas. But Mom never wanted those reminders.
“This hat is making my scalp itch,” Dad announced. “I’m going to go shower. Talk to you next month, love?”
“Talk to you and see you,” she reminded him. “We’ll be there the twelfth or thirteenth, depending on how the drive goes.”
Mom didn’t even watch her husband’s retreat. “I suppose you’re staying with her on the way?”
“For a night or two, of course. And we’ll stay a bit longer on the way back. I haven’t taken Hannah on this long a road trip since before she was walking. I can only guess what our schedule will be like.”
“You went to stay with her last summer.”
It wasn’t like it had been some teen rebellion, her running off to live with Aunt Johnston. Her parents organized it all, then told her the day before the ‘For Sale’ sign went up in her childhood home’s front yard. Well, mostly Mom told her. Dad managed to stay in the room, but didn’t contribute much.
Despite all that, Rachel couldn’t remember her mother saying Aunt Johnston’s actual name once since then. It was always ‘her’ or ‘your aunt.’ As if Aunt was a pariah for taking her in when no one else would make room for her. As if she’d done something egregious by guiding Rachel to high school graduation. As if her success required Aunt’s head on a chopping block.
She sighed. “I had my friend with me then, remember? It’s different, being the only adult in the car. Anyway, we’re excited about seeing you all in person. And I get to take in the reality of Blythe, pregnant. I don’t think the photos do it justice. I want to watch her abdomen ripple. And see her stand up from a too-deep chair.”
Mom let herself laugh and be diverted, talking about the nitrates in the hot dogs at the Fourth of July festival and Jason’s paternity leave negotiation until everything else had sunk down and the surface of their chat was nothing but calm.
“Sergei, step in here if you’re free.”
“What’s up?” He started to lean as usual against the doorframe, but whatever was on Theo’s face spurred him to his desk chair instead. He swiveled to close the door, and then rotated back to face Theo. “I didn’t want to bring up the Ron and Lonnie thing again, but I guess he came complaining to you? I get that he’s also the boss, but everything I do to keep the front of house staff happy, I can’t ignore the rules because it’s him.”
Theo pinched the bridge of his nose, in no mood to switch gears and deal with the tension between Sergei and Ron. “No, he didn’t come complaining to me. I didn’t know Lonnie came by again.”
Sergei shrugged. “Twice more since we talked about it before. I don’t know what his fight with his uncle is about, but this last time I intercepted him in the foyer and told him to take it round to the dock.”
Theo eased into the back of his chair. “Okay, that’s fine. If he gives you a problem let me know.”
“Good stuff.” Sergei slapped his hands to his thighs, and then halted his forward momentum. “Hey, okay, so what did you want to talk over, then?”
“Rachel.”
He hoped they weren’t true mirrors of each other, or if so, that he’d never worn such a sneer on his own face. Sergei slicked his hair back and asked, “What’d she do now? Is she going after my paycheck again?”
“That money’s for your kid, Sergei. You know what it costs to dress and feed a child, much less send her to a decent daycare? Your business is your business, but that brand-new SUV in your parking space retails for like seven times your arrears, man. How’d you tell yourself it’s okay to buy that and not make sure your daughter’s taken care of?”
He cut himself off. They’d both stood, stances tense across Theo’s desk.
“You’re saying a lot of words about something that’s not your business.”
It took effort, but he nodded twice. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have.” He could concede, but he couldn’t quite apologize.
“So
that’s what she’s done? Recruited you to her side, in all those little chats you two’ve been having when she drops my child off? I didn’t figure you to be a sucker for those faux-innocent baby blues of hers.”
“Jesus, Sergei, listen to yourself. No one’s taking sides. There aren’t sides here, just court ordered support and being adult enough to take responsibility.”
Sergei snorted, and Theo couldn’t even blame him for it. His denial of side-taking was as transparent as his phyllo dough.
He sat again. Sergei didn’t, but Theo opted out of the body language wars. He said straight out what he needed to say. “Rachel and I are dating.”
Sergei left the office, which was, all in all, an eloquent response.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She pulled in alongside Theo, and caught the gleam of her pink top reflected in the dark gloss of his car door. While she unlatched Hannah, he emerged and opened her passenger door to retrieve the diaper bag.
“Can you grab Effie?” she asked. An exuberant toss during the bouncing song resulted in the toy sliding into the front foot well. Her girl’s aim needed finesse, but she had a strong arm.
Before they headed inside, Theo kissed both Hannah and her. Right there in front of the pub windows, no looking first for lurkers. Funny the way her chest warmed to his affection while her stomach curled against confrontation.
If she pitched it right, her question wouldn’t at all sound like her nerves had a hold of every finger and toe, leaving her unsure about basics like walking head-on into the brewery. “You’re feeling sure about this?”
He smiled, and the lift of his cheekbones helped ground her. “Oh, yeah. But it’s up to you. Plenty of options if you change your mind.”
Tempting as retreating to his place for naked time was, she held fast to the reasons for their plan.
The whole point of this dating experiment was to see if they had more to them than chemistry, which meant lower key nights less likely to land them in intense talks or bed. Or both. Also, Elixir was Theo’s place and he wanted to show it off to her. And Sergei and Depy needed to see all their scorn and derision and snide comments—they’d both received plenty in the two days since Theo told Sergei about their relationship—had no impact on Rachel’s dating life.
She deserved freedom from all that.
Leaning into the arm Theo wrapped across her shoulder, she smiled. “Let’s do this.”
Depy mock-spat thrice at the floor when they walked in together. He almost lost all composure. Nearly straight-faced, he turned to Adela at the host stand. “Can you set us up at table fourteen, maybe? Is that Marti’s section tonight?”
“It is. You got it, boss.”
“Thanks, mastermind.”
Rachel raised eyebrows at him. “It’s what she calls herself; don’t blame me. Besides, Sergei hates it.”
“Okay then.” She kissed Hannah’s curls. “Let’s get you over to Dad and Depy, eh?”
“Want me—”
“Nah.” She took the diaper bag and he placed Effie in Hannah’s hands. “Meet you at table fourteen, wherever that is.”
He did laugh at that. “It’s the one by the window over there. Far side of the bar.”
“Got it.”
He could head that way himself any time. No need at all to watch Depy snatch up Hannah, to smirk at the ostentatious way Sergei put a hand each on his mother and daughter, to share a grin with Rachel behind their backs.
She didn’t want him acting the dragon, so instead of walking towards her, he leaned over the reservation book and scanned the parties for the rest of the night. Not that anyone needed his input; Adela had everything under control as usual. He pulled out his phone and made a note to offer her hours if she wanted to stick around once the school year got underway.
“Ready?”
There, he’d filled his head with enough Elixir business to pretend he wasn’t lurking within earshot of the Matsouka family. “For you? Absolutely.” He guided her to fourteen and held her chair, positioning them both with a view to the kegs. And out of Sergei’s sight. Not for his sake, but so Hannah wouldn’t be confused.
He swallowed the nervous awkwardness and jumped in with the boilerplate details about brewing and cuisine. How he and Ron became friends online, back during their home brewing days, and partnered up when he dropped the hobby and Ron was ready to elevate it to a career. Market research and flavor profiles and remodeling the former service station to make it their own. She didn’t quite glaze over but he knew wandering interest when he saw it. “Right. You don’t need the sales pitch. Sorry. I’m pretending neither of us are listening for Hannah or wondering how powerful Depy’s curses are.”
She took the oil from the cruet set and coaxed a drop into her water glass. It floated. “We’re safe.”
He laughed. “How did you know to do that?” He’d never encountered a non-Greek who knew the trick to ensuring no evil eye cursed you.
“It’s not like I ruined every moment of Depy’s life by taking her one and only grandchild away the moment we met. I had a good few years of being her daughter-in-law first. That woman spat three times as I walked up the aisle at my wedding. She taught me to be as Greek as possible, despite my inferior DNA.”
Three seconds with the woman and he strained to leash his effusive feelings. She was such a danger to his equanimity. “I can totally imagine the stare-down you’d have with my own grandmother.”
With a deft move, she spooned the oil out of her water glass before it had a chance to sink. “Does she live in Houston?”
He launched into his family tree—the Greek-American and the Mexican-American and the few outliers in between. And included the reassurance that Tomás was the only one she risked running into in Houston.
“But didn’t you grow up here?”
He nodded. “My parents moved to Georgetown for Mom’s job last year. And my sisters and their families are all in Austin, which explains why Mom was looking for a job out that way to start with.”
“Is that hard?”
He sensed a deeper meaning in her question. “Which part? Having everyone out of town?”
She shook her head once. “Your parents choosing your sisters.”
Ah. She’d mentioned this with her own family a bit. “I don’t think of it like that.”
And damn if his throat wasn’t wrapped in thorns all the sudden. He’d caught himself in a lie, and couldn’t scrape up the presence of mind to move past it. He licked his lips. “Or maybe I do. Some. Not ... not that I’d realized before just now. It helps that Mom’s so into her job. And they were here when Andres was a baby, which helped us out a lot. I know my sisters both groused about how easy I had it with the babysitting, especially Helen when her twins were new. Anyway, since I travel to Andres most of the time, they only were seeing him during the longer visits, and that was hard on them.”
She nodded, but left him with the strong impression his revelations had skittered right past her. Which was fine. He was the one who needed to process a truth about himself.
She, though. She’d asked about his parents choosing his sisters like physical proximity determined emotional connection. “Do you and your sister get along?”
She blinked a quick code, and he second-thought bringing it up in the middle of his pub. She answered, though. “When we were little, we did. She’s four years older, and she liked to play good cop for me. Looking out for me, telling me what to do. But helping, too, you know? Reading me all the rules when we played a game, picking what I’d like off restaurant menus, that kind of thing.”
“Because of your dyslexia?”
She stilled, and he wondered if he’d broken a rule by mentioning it. But she’d brought it up earlier like no big deal.
She blew out a breath and sipped her water. “No, I think because she was that much older and a little bossy. But telling you about it, I see how many of my examples are her reading for me, and how it became the norm for us. For all of us. I wonder ... it’s noth
ing. A question Aunt Johnston asked once, about how I went undiagnosed until I was eleven. Mom and Dad went poker-spined at that, and it infuriated me, you know? But now....”
“Hey.” He took her hand. “It’s fine. Maybe your sister picking menu items was part of your coping mechanisms, but it wasn’t anything she or you did deliberately to.... To whatever. Trick anyone. Delay your diagnosis. Whatever else you’re thinking.”
Her knuckles tensed under his palm. He circled his index finger on her wrist. Smiled up at Marti dropping off their beer. Waited.
“Way to take my mind off Hannah.”
He drummed the fingers of his free hand on the table. “Not my precise intention, but I’m glad to help?”
Rotating her hand, she intertwined their fingers. Squeezed. “Okay, stop being cute. Tonight’s supposed to be chill hanging out, not more heavy shit. I showed up all ready to enjoy a meal and be low key flirted with. You keep making those eyes at me and I start wondering if anyone notices us disappearing into your office.”
Yeah, he wasn’t standing up from the table anytime soon. She laughed at his expression. He shook his head in resignation. “Way to derail me from all the deep talk about families of origin.”
She raised her drink for a toast. “We’re quite a pair.”
They sure were. And he devoted the rest of dinner to keeping himself from getting intense about the increasing perfection of their pairing.
His home turf date ended with Hannah’s visitation hours. Serg brought her to the table where they lingered over his peach-rose pie. “She says she wants to go potty.”
Rachel glanced at her phone, not that her ex stuck around for feedback about cutting short his time with his child.
“Sorry.” She gathered everything for the trip to the restroom. “Half the time she just wants the experience of going bottomless, but I have to check.”
“Of course.” He meant it, too. He’d kept his expectations for the night low, anticipating interference from Serg or Depy. So he savored the miracle of eating in peace, skirting past family issues and diving deep into her passion for knitting.
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