I glance back and spot him jumping off the ridge of the bowl with his skateboard before letting out a screaming howl.
He was her dealer. Theo’s sister was busy doing underwear shots for money. I wonder if Theo knew his sister at all? His mother seems to have. Maybe it’s time I met dear old Mom.
I pull my phone out and start texting my newfound boyfriend.
Changed my mind about Thanksgiving if the offer is still on the table.
He texts right back. You bet it is. Can you get someone to cover Friday? You won’t be able to move the next day. That is, if your stomach doesn’t burst.
“Nice visual,” I mutter. I will for sure. I’m excited. Thanks again for the invite! Cutesy exclamation point, only this time I think I actually mean it. I hit send as I pick up my clip and circle around the lake.
Theo is taking me home to meet his mother.
I, for one, cannot wait. I’m thinking his mother has a few secrets of her own.
Gabby didn’t let up until I walked out the door. She lent me her Vera Bradley duffel bag in a wild pattern of salmon, black, and green. I used to admire it when she took off for the weekend with Jackson, and now I fear it. She stuffed it full of those ridiculous matching bra and underwear sets made of pasties and dental floss. No, thanks, I wanted to say. I’m more of a let’s-get-straight-to-business girl. No time for the frills. I’m all thrills. But then, the guys I’ve been with have never requested frills. I doubt they would have appreciated them.
Theo’s family lives in Redgrass, almost two hours away. And the entire drive over is peppered with a potpourri of conversations, everything from religion to politics to gasp! the fact that his ex seems to be suddenly stalking him. No taboo subject was left off the table. We picked up coffee at Starbucks first thing, and the caffeine wound me up until it seemed like my teeth were clattering on their own. I figured I’d need to turn up the charm from the get-go. Make Theo comfortable first. And I want to. I like Theo. A lot more than I should. For sure more than I want to. But I need his mother to like me, too, and in order to do that, we need to go in with good energy. No regrets on his part for bringing me here today. The mother is basically a human lie detector. The sister will be, too, if not more so. That’s why I didn’t dare tell him about my little meet and greet with Miles Wallis. If Theo knew his sister was shooting porn for “dirty dudes” and that his mother had an inkling about this behavior, he might go in guns blazing, quite literally. He’s packing. It’s in a holster tucked under his left arm somewhere. I felt it when he hugged me at the gate. The sports coat hides it. I don’t get it, though. We’re going to his mother’s for God’s sake. I guess he needs to do something with it. I’ll be the last to tell him I’ve done a few things with it myself.
The Stavros homestead sits on a sprawling twelve-acre ranch that looks as if it could swallow Wakefield whole. Out front there’s an expansive box garden that has gone to slumber for the season. Rows and rows of oblong pine boxes line the vicinity like coffins as far as the eye can see. To the right sits flat-yellowed fields with a string of elm trees skirting the property like a fortress. The house is massive, a typical rambling ranch, with a giant wagon wheel mounted under the roof pitch. The porch is so wide you could host the student body of Conrad out here. About two-dozen cars sit in a semi-organized pattern around the driveway. Laughter and the steady hum of conversation emanate from inside, and when Theo opens the door, the sound of lively music in a language I don’t recognize vibrates off us, heavy on the cymbals and the vocals. The thick scent of turkey greets us and the scent of something spiced layered just underneath that. Cloves, I think. Joe has them in the kitchen and hardly uses them, but I like the smell. I can see why people smoke it.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” Theo shouts, and the room breaks out into a wild cheer with the same enthusiastic greeting.
Dozens and dozens of people fill a spacious grand room. All of them olive skinned, dark curly hair, eyes like cut jewels. You don’t know who to look at first. One by one they steal glances in this direction. The whispering begins. I avert my eyes from the masses and study the architecture instead. High ceilings with chocolate wooden beams outline the length of the room. The walls are paper white with bright blue dishes dotting the walls in a cheery pattern.
“Oh my God!” a high-pitched voice squeals as a girl who looks eerily like Lizzy comes at him with open arms. Here she is, his sister. Look no further. They share a quick embrace. “I was starting to get worried about you! And who is this?” Her periwinkle eyes light up, and if I look closely, I can see Theo hiding in her face.
“This is Charlie Neville.” He pulls back and waves a hand over me as if I were a prize.
I am if you’re a deputy of Strafford County.
“Charlie.” She ticks her head to the left, same way Lizzy has it in that picture they’ve wallpapered Wakefield with. “What a cute name. I’m Nicola, but everyone calls me Nikki. What’s Charlie short for?”
My mouth opens, and I take a quick breath. Bullshit rule number seven hundred thirty-five: Think quick on your feet or sink. “Charlene.” I shrug. “My dad called me Charlie. It just stuck, I guess.”
Theo’s brows dip, and his smile dissipates. Crap.
“Stepdad.” I bat my lashes up at him and jostle my cleavage. Look at my tits, you pervert. It’s what you’re best at, and I don’t really mind it. I might have let a morsel of truth slip with him earlier, and I can’t for the life of me remember. Every bullshit rule ends with never slip up in a lie.
An older version of Nikki comes at us fast from the kitchen. Her hair is long and wild, her eyes a dazzling shade of green, and this throws me. Huh. The sky-blue eyes must have come from their father, the one with a second family in New York.
“Welcome to my home,” his mother cries with a groan as she pulls both Theo and me into an embrace. She takes a moment to examine me. “My goodness, you are beautiful.” She slaps her son over the stomach. “Treat her right. Don’t let this one get away.” She winks at me as if she were teasing, and I instantly warm to her. Theo is so lucky to have such a great family. I would have never done what I did if this were the case.
Theo blows out a breath while glancing to the ceiling. “All right. Charlie, this is my mom, Calla. She’s a bit of a drama queen when it comes to me, so ignore just about everything she says.”
“Hey!” She gives him a quick tap on the side of the head with her knuckles, and already I like her. “Nikki, come help me get the food on the table. Now that the prince is home, we can get to business.”
They scuttle off, and Theo takes up my hand again. “Sorry about that.”
“About what? I love them.” I jump a little as I say it. I’m so giddy to be here I can hardly contain myself. “So, this is your family, huh? Wow, you are rich with relatives,” I marvel, looking out at the crowd, each with a cocktail in hand, no shortage of laughter in their mouths.
“Yup. That’s Jackson’s mom.” He points across the room to a woman who looks identical to his own mother. “Aunt Di, short for Dionysia. And those girls”—he points over to a gaggle of younger women, ranging in age from middle school through what could be college, although you can never tell these days—“sitting around the fireplace are my cousins—Lucinda, Jen, Cora, Matilda—Mattie, Shawna, and Pip. Over by the kitchen are my Aunt Eleanor and Aunt Gene. My uncles are outside somewhere hiding from all the estrogen, and the boys are probably in the back room watching the ballgame.”
“I’m impressed.”
“That I have a big family?”
“No, that you’ve managed to memorize all of their names.”
He gives a light chuckle. “Come on, I’ll show you around.” He takes me by the hand, and I glom onto his entire arm as if it were a life raft. I like the way that Theo feels, sturdy, strong, that cologne of his acting as the invisible carrot that keeps me hopping along for more. Theo does something for me that no man has ever done before. He makes me feel safe. Wanted. He takes me on a tour of the downstai
rs, pointing out paintings and statues imported from their mother country. Gifts from his grandparents, heirlooms all of them. But my eyes flit to the bevy of gilded frames strewn about. Theo and his sisters at various ages and stages. I can’t tell Lizzy and Nikki apart in any of them, but Theo sticks out like a sore testicle. I make a face at my own cheap analogy. He was an adorable baby. A beautiful boy, still is. But there must be about a dozen pictures of him at formals and proms with Ashley. Her younger face is rounder, her hair darker, but I recognize that pinched snout of hers. I can’t help but frown as I pass by each one.
“You sure went to a lot of dances.” I couldn’t help myself. My God, isn’t prom still just relegated to the one? I really did go to the wrong school, or the right one considering I hated to dance. My hand glides over his chest briefly. “You’ll have to show me your moves sometime.”
His chest pumps with a laugh, and I can feel it strumming against me. It feels good, like a relief, and I’d do anything if I could wrap my arms around him. I feel strangely aroused by Theo in this setting—in every setting, those eyes, this glorious family, his beautiful, beautiful mouth. I want it on me. All over me.
Dinner is a feast for the ages. Theo takes each dish and explains what it is to me. This isn’t your grandmother’s Thanksgiving, or it might be if your grandmother had very strong Greek roots.
There are two small turkeys, clearly not the stars of the show. But the lamb is plentiful, clearly a crowd-pleaser. Theo helps load up our plates. There’s a chestnut, rice, and ground meat creation in place of stuffing, and it smells to die for. Of course, I would never say those words out loud, not here anyway. Not from my murderous lips. The sides are more or less traditional—mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, but there is also a massive salad dotted with Kalamata olives, imported feta cheese, which tastes tangy and divine all at the same time.
“We’ll have baklava for dessert,” Theo warns. “There might be a pumpkin pie if we’re lucky.”
I warm my back against his chest as we make our way to a table. “I’m feeling lucky already.”
The older sect sits at the main table done to the nines with elegant place settings. The rest of us straggle over to smaller tables strewn around the edges of the living room, on couches, and a few people have decided to brave the icy air and eat on the porch. We sit with his sister, Nikki, and she regales us with her dating misadventures. She seems sweet. Highly normal, and if her dating horror stories are true, the wild thing gene has completely skipped over her. Soon enough, Theo and his sister are in a deadlock about what stocks to invest in where you might see your money grow fastest. A couple of hours whip by, and before too long, relatives are saying goodnight by the droves. Nikki stretches her long arms to the ceiling and looks dangerously cheeky over at her brother.
“All the rooms at the inn are taken. I hope you and Charlie won’t mind sharing a bed tonight.”
He bites down on his lip as she shoots a look to his mother who’s busy cleaning up in the kitchen. “I swear I asked, and she assured me there was more than enough room.”
Sharing a mattress with my favorite Greek? My insides heat at the prospect. My thighs are already trembling to have him.
“Yes”—his sister chides—“in your room. Charlie, you take the bed. He’s got a sleeping bag, and he knows what to do with it. I got to help get the girls settled.” She takes off, and Theo turns to me with a panicked deer-in-the-headlights look in his beautiful eyes.
“Don’t worry.” I pull him in, taking the time to lock his gaze. “I’m more than fine with it. Besides, it’ll be fun to share a room with you. It’s just one night. It’ll be like camping.” I shake my head and laugh because it won’t be anything like camping.
“Like camping.” He bites back a smile.
“It’ll be like that night at the Falls. Only this time, I’ll try not to urinate on you.”
“You’re too kind.” He takes in the room as if he’s suddenly a man on a mission. “Let me see if I can find someplace else to crash. In no way do I want you to think that’s the reason I brought you here tonight.”
“Oh, right. Isn’t it every man’s dream to take a new conquest in the room next to his mother’s? I think Freud would have a field day with that one.”
“It’s my sister. Nikki has the room next door. Not awkward at all. Give me a sec,” he says, walking backward and nearly tripping over a chair.
“Take your time. In fact, I think I’ll help your mom in the kitchen.” I head on over to the spacious kitchen with an island so long and wide you could land a 747 on it. Calla finishes up the last pan before turning off the faucet.
“I’ll dry,” I offer, picking up a dishtowel and going for the enormous stack of dishes that threatens to touch the ceiling.
“Why, thank you, young lady. I want to apologize for being so rude. It’s not my nature to be so quiet, but the holidays—you know, they’re tough to get through.”
Lizzy appears like a ghost between us, and I couldn’t be happier to see her so soon. I thought it would touch like extracting a healthy tooth, but Lizzy is rotting right out of her mother’s skull.
“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine. I mean, it must be tough on a regular day, let alone when you have so much family around. You’re kind of isolated within a crowd.”
“Yes!” Her emerald eyes swim with the idea. “That’s exactly how I feel. It’s amazing you knew just the right words. I’m liking you better and better by the second.” She taps her elbow into my arm as she picks up a dishtowel of her own.
“So, this is Theo’s childhood home, huh?” I’m not sure how to steer the conversation back to Lizzy. I still have tomorrow to work on her, though. Tonight is just a good warm-up. “How long did he linger at home before you had to give him the boot?”
She belts out a deep belly laugh. “He flew the coop too early for my taste. They all did. And then two of them migrated back! Imagine that. In they came one by one.”
“Really?” I might get something yet. “Was Theo in that number?” No. I know he wasn’t. He moved out to Wakefield with Jackson to grow a pair. Those were his words.
“No, not my baby boy. He’s his own man. It was the girls. Girls always want more from their mothers.” Her cheek tugs to the side like she might cry. “First, it was Charlize.” My insides grind when she says her formal name. It’s too close to Charlie. It makes me feel as though I need to stomp out a kitchen fire, and as much as I want to deflect this conversation, I must see where it’s headed. “Lizzy went straight back to her bedroom after she and Thomas—” She places her forefingers together, then pulls them apart abruptly. It’s as if she can’t even say it. I bet she sees divorce as sacrilegious. It should be, but since most people don’t venerate religion, it’s impossible to enforce. It’s legal dating is all it is these days.
“She must have taken it very hard. It’s nice that she saw you as her safe place.”
She rolls her eyes. “Lizzy never took a damn thing hard. She was hard. She ran out of money. She had habits. Disgusting habits. If you want to slip into hell, you follow a disgusting habit and see how far it will take you. She liked clothes, too. Expensive handbags and shoes. In Idaho. Can you believe it? Where are you going to wear an entire collection of Jimmy Choos? I said to her once please don’t waste your money on that crap. Focus on living a good quality life. You know?”
I nod. But I don’t really know. I’ve thrown away my own life, and I’m busy living her daughter’s.
“Did she eventually pick herself up? You know, get a job and put her life back together?”
“Lizzy hated traditional work. Nobody will admit this, but I know firsthand she was fired from Thomas’ office. She wouldn’t tell me why.” She shakes her head.
“How about Ashley?” My face burns with heat as if I just spoke a dead woman’s name and soon she would be there to haunt us. “I mean, Theo says they were best friends. Wouldn’t she know?”
“Not then. By then they couldn’t stand one another.
Something got in their way, and neither of them was talking. Nikki thought it might have been Thomas himself, but that’s ridiculous. Nobody loved my daughter the way he loved her. He calls me every week, and we cry over the phone together. He’s a winner. My daughter threw him away for a whack job with a beard to his knees.” Her gaze drifts out the black window, a glass pan froze midair in her hands. “Lizzy needed to sow her wild oats. She married too young. She was too alive. Too childish in all her ways. She drew trouble to herself like a magnet. She perverted herself.” Her voice drops a notch. So she does know. “A part of me realizes this is a direct result. I failed her as a mother.” A fat tear wobbles down her cheek, unsteady. “I gave her whatever she wanted, and then she expected the world to do the same. Don’t ever spoil your children. Maybe pull a switch from a tree in the back and scare them with it once in a while. It might save you a world of heartache.” She shrugs. “You might know where they are on Thanksgiving.”
A shadow darkens the doorway, and we find Theo with his arms spread like wings. “Goodnight, Mom.” He comes over and kisses her on the cheek before taking the dish from me and putting it away. “You ready?”
“I guess I am.” My cheeks burn like flames. Calla says goodnight to us and turns out the kitchen lights as if there was no going back for me.
“Where are you sleeping?” I whisper as he leads us upstairs.
He leans in and brushes his mouth over the hair by my temple. “In my old bedroom, with you.”
There have been times in my life where my own adrenaline has overpowered me. The hard pounding of my pulse beating straight through my ears, the feeling that I was about to expel from my skin. All of those emotions flit through me like a spinning top on fire. I try to calm myself as Theo shows off his room—decent size, no posters on the wall. Instead, there’s a painting of the beach, most likely hung by his mother. A sturdy oak bedroom set is the focal point. A bookshelf filled with dusty paperbacks catches my eye, and under different circumstances I’d browse each and every one. You can learn a lot about a person just by the books they choose to spend time with. A queen-sized bed sits prominent in the middle of the room with a navy quilt smoothed over the top.
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