“It’s so nice that you’re home!” I went to give him a squeeze.
“Afternoon, lovely,” Eros said, adding chopped red chillies to the pan.
Here Eros was, calmly cooking while his Uncle Apollo was breaking nearly every rule in the gods’ handbook. Did this mean that he didn’t know? A part of me was excited to break the news to him like it was a juicy piece of gossip. Finally, I knew something the gods didn’t.
“You won’t believe who I saw on TV last night,” I said.
“Spill!”
“Apollo, on that new reality TV show House of Stars! I was watching it at Daphne’s last night, then suddenly there he was being introduced as a contestant.”
Weirdly, Eros didn’t look anywhere near as surprised as I expected him to be. He just carried on chopping.
“Typical Apollo, really. He never could resist the spotlight.”
Maybe I wasn’t explaining it properly?
“Eros, you don’t get it. This is more than just a talent show. It’s prime time, for one. And he will be watched by anyone who logs in online, twenty-four hours a day. Dad is going to hit the roof!” That got Eros’s attention. He looked up from his chopping board.
“Maybe it’s best that your father doesn’t find out about this. It’s not that big a deal, and he’ll only overreact.”
“How can he not find out about this? It’ll be the biggest thing on telly every Saturday night!”
We all tease Dad about his allergy to anything he considers “lowbrow”, so he’s unlikely to accidentally tune in. But he’s the head of the gods. How could he not sense that something was off?
Also, and I didn’t want to admit it, but a small part of me felt bad keeping a secret from Dad. Even if he was hardly home and seemed to forget about his parental responsibilities.
But I was not going to be the one to tell him about the TV show. And maybe Eros was right. If it was that big a deal, Dad would drag Apollo out of that house himself.
“I get it. So what’s for dinner?”
“I’m making a batch of chana masala using the spices I brought back from India. It’s a vegan chickpea curry.”
“Oh.”
“But don’t worry, Maria left your dinner in the fridge as usual. Gods forbid you eat a plant-based meal,” he muttered.
There were so many reasons why I was looking forward to my date with Marco, and not all of them were to do with his face, forearms or lips. The next episode of House of Stars aired that evening, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near the house when it happened. My date would keep me out of the house for most of the evening.
The house was a strange (well, stranger) place to be. Aphrodite and Eros clearly weren’t going to break the news to Dad about Apollo’s big TV break. Aphrodite was in her room/studio all the time, handling Foam of the Sea orders and uploading new vlogs to her beauty channel, and Eros seemed to split his time between several different volunteering projects. It’s almost like they were avoiding Dad.
Maybe I was overthinking it? When I told Eros about Apollo’s bid for fame, he barely seemed to care. The gods have successfully lived in a mortal society for centuries, so what’s the harm in them having a little fame now and then?
I was zipping up my parka in the hallway when the door opened, and in walked Dad with Lisa. Crap. I completely forgot to ask Dad if I could go out tonight.
“Hi, Dad. Hi, Lisa,” I said, masking my internal panic.
“Ah, hello, Helen! On your way out? I thought we could have dinner together,” Dad said, unravelling his scarf. Yeah, right. He probably only remembered I existed because I was standing in front of him.
“I’m going to the cinema with Daphne, Noor and Yas, remember?” I asked.
Obviously I couldn’t tell him the truth. How would he react if I told him about the date with Marco? Demand his full name (which I still didn’t know), blood type and a reference check, probably.
“Sounds fun! What are you going to see?” Lisa asked. Uh-oh. What was I going to see?
“You know, that new romcom with that actor who’s in everything these days,” I said. “Anyway, I’m running late. See you both later!” I ran out of the door before Dad could object.
“Helen, wait!” Dad called out the front door. Please, please, please let me go!
“Get yourself some popcorn,” he said, stuffing a tenner in my palm. Yes! The night was off to a good start.
I made my way to the tube station where we arranged to meet. The grubby, noisy main road wasn’t the romantic reunion spot I had in mind, but whatever. Meeting at a station meant that wherever we were going wasn’t in my neighbourhood. That made discovery by Dad even less likely.
I hoped that my outfit would fit in wherever we ended up. I sent a picture of my final look (black ankle boots, skinny jeans and an off-shoulder purple jumper with my favourite hoop earrings) to the group chat. They all agreed that it struck the perfect balance between casual and dressy.
It didn’t compare to the priceless vintage dress and inch-thick face of make-up I wore the first night we met. Would Marco be expecting a perfectly coiffed, ultra-confident glamazon? Would he even recognize me in my normal clothes?
Maybe it was for the best that I wore something more my style. If he truly wanted to date me, he’d have to date my windswept hair (seriously, it was smudging my lip gloss) and un-glam parka coat too.
I spotted him as I approached the station from across the road. He had his earphones in and was reading something on his phone, but I recognized his black coat. I waved to get his attention but it didn’t work.
My tummy did somersaults as I crossed the road. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Marco,” I said. He turned around and I nearly died.
It wasn’t Marco. That was obvious the second he turned to face me. Just another guy with brown hair and black coat. Why why why.
Not-Marco pulled out his earphones. “Can I help you?” he asked. I shook my head and willed for the earth to swallow me up. At least Marco wasn’t there to see me embarrass myself.
Or so I thought.
“You were close, we do look alike,” a voice behind me said. It was him.
Seriously?! Why did I have to embarrass myself every time I left the house?
I opened and closed my mouth, unsure of what to say. Marco ignored my goldfish impression and gave me a gentlemanly kiss on the cheek.
“I mean it, Helen. We have the same coat and everything. It’s uncanny!”
Marco was kind enough not to laugh in my face. Not only that, but he insisted it was an easy mistake to make. We hopped on the tube and he soon forgot about it (at least, I hoped).
I fancied him so much it was hard to concentrate, but we managed to have a good conversation on the tube. We talked about everything on our way to the surprise date destination: family, school, our favourite toast toppings. Y’know, the essentials. But it seemed to be me doing a lot of the talking. I’m usually nervous about revealing too much about my immortal family, even when I’m with my friends. But it was unavoidable with Marco. He asked so many questions.
“So is the Greek side from your father or mother?” he asked, shouting over the sound of the tube rushing through the tunnel.
“Dad’s the Greek one. My mum’s family are Jamaican.” I said. Then I blurted out, “She died when I was ten.”
I just wanted to get it out of the way. Telling people your mum died always makes them awkward.
“My mother is alive, but I haven’t seen her since I was twelve. She may as well be dead,” he said.
That was not the reply I was expecting. It’s not often someone replies to “my mum died” with something besides tuts, sad eyes or even an unwanted hug. It was kind of refreshing.
I wanted to know more, but the tube pulled into South Kensington station. “We’re here!” Marco said, tugging at my coat sleeve.
We hopped out of the station, busy as ever on a Saturday night, and walked up the stairs leading out into the freezing night. “Glad I told you to w
rap up warm?” Marco said, squeezing my arm. My skin tingled.
We were walking towards the Natural History Museum. I recognized the huge, churchlike building from days out with Dad. Thanks to his obsession with all things ancient (and cheap), I knew all the free museums in London.
Were we having a night at the museum? I guess that could be romantic, minus the fossils.
It was still decorated with fairy lights from Christmas. As we got closer, I heard the sounds of people laughing and yelling. Then I remembered. The ice rink!
I turned to Marco. “We’re going ice skating?”
“Damn, you guessed it! Yes, we’re going to skate. I hope that’s not too clichéd?”
Ice skating! It was so romantic. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends. The date hadn’t properly begun but already Marco was racking up points. He was too adorable.
“It’s completely unexpected,” I said.
He looked pleased by that. “I must warn you, I am a terrible skater. There wasn’t much ice in the Greek village I grew up in!”
“Which village was that?” I asked, but he’d already turned away to pay for our tickets.
Once we had our skates on, we edged towards the rink. Luckily, my after-school lessons came flooding back as soon as the skates hit the ice. I got my balance and jetted off, leaving Marco skating against the edge of the rink. After a few rounds of the rink, I decided to help Marco along, so I skated in front of him, holding his hands to keep his balance.
It took me exactly 0.2 milliseconds to clock that we were staring directly at each other while holding hands. It felt even more intimate than our kiss together, and I was tingling all the way to my toes (OK, maybe it was the too-tight skates).
Marco’s relaxed facade slipped away. He looked kind of nervous. Ha! So there was at least one thing I could do better than him. I mentally patted myself on the back. Even though Marco wasn’t much older, I felt like such a child around him. He seemed so mature and sophisticated. I, on the other hand, got confused for my little cousin on the phone. So it felt good to run rings around him, literally, in the ice rink.
After twenty minutes of that, he had decided that skating wasn’t for him and left the rink to get hot chocolate. This date was getting better and better.
I stayed to do a few more rounds on the ice. I’d forgotten how fun it was, zooming past everyone else.
Marco approached the rink with two cups. “I got one with the whipped cream and one without. What would you prefer?”
“Whipped cream!”
“I’m glad you said that. I’m watching my weight after a few weeks at home,” he said, winking.
He WINKED. Oh my gods. It was so sexy.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I stayed with my gran on my mum’s side over Christmas, and she was convinced I needed fattening up.”
“I don’t think you need to change a thing,” he said.
Wow. Even my toes blushed. I took another gulp of hot chocolate.
“Don’t tell Grandma Thomas I said that, though.”
“You’ve done your research!” I joked, wondering how on earth he’d known I called Gran that.
He looked confused for a second. “Oh! No, it’s nothing like that,” Marco said. “Just simple deduction. See, your surname is Thomas – definitely not a Greek name. So, it must have been your mother’s family name, right?” I nodded and smiled. He was sexy and smart.
A gust of icy wind forced me to pull up the hood of my parka. I could really feel the chill now that I wasn’t ice skating.
“I think it’s time we got dinner. How do you feel about American food?”
“I love it!” I said. Was he going to take me to Burger King?! That seemed quite unsophisticated by his standards. I couldn’t imagine him eating a Whopper, burger sauce on his nose and fingers (at least, that’s the way I ate it).
We hopped back on the tube and rode to Piccadilly Circus. I’ve never understood why this area is such an attraction for tourists, but it was rammed all the same. Ads on screens the size of double-decker buses glimmered and flashed, casting neon lights over our faces. A nearby busker began breakdancing to a Bruno Mars track, his audience swelling by the second, this song impossible to resist. The crowds, music, electricity in the air – it felt both incredibly exciting and way too much to handle at the same time.
Maybe it was the infectious fizz of the music, or the fact that I was out on a Saturday night (not watching everyone else have fun on Instagram, for once), but the night ahead felt magic and golden and full of wondrous possibilities. I wanted to bottle the feeling.
Marco looked around him, awe written on his face. “Is it ever possible to tire of London?” he said.
I guess, as a born-and-bred Londoner, I sometimes took the city for granted. But it was a pretty incredible place to call home.
“This way,” Marco said, taking my hand.
We both wore gloves but I swear my skin shivered when our fingers interlocked. I could hardly believe it. Here I was, in the middle of London, on a date with a guy so good-looking it made me stutter. And we were holding hands. Again!
In minutes, the garishness and frenzy of Piccadilly Circus transformed into quieter streets lined with cafes and quirky bookshops. We dodged people in pubs spilling out on to the street, despite the snap of ice in the night air.
“I think Soho is my favourite place in London,” Marco said. “The Beatles, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix … they all walked these streets. I like to imagine it hasn’t changed much since the 1960s, you know?”
“I love it, too!” I said. Yet another thing we had in common. “Mum used to take me here to go fabric shopping. And a couple of her friends owned secondhand clothes shops, too. We’d visit them, then buy a bag of nectarines from the market and eat them on the bus home.”
“It’s nice that you have such lovely memories of your mother.”
I smiled, feeling warm all over.
At some point in the evening my butterflies had calmed down. I felt just as comfortable as I was with him on the phone, chattering away. I added “good listener” to the mental checklist I was keeping of Marco’s best qualities.
We walked for a few more minutes until we got to a small restaurant with a neon sign and an amazing smell of barbecue.
“I hope you’re not vegetarian,” Marco said with a smile in his voice.
We were seated at a table in the basement. The menu looked amazing: chicken wings, pork ribs, burgers. Aphrodite would have a fit if she saw me consume this much salt, fat and sugar in one sitting. But I couldn’t wait.
“I thought you were watching your weight!” I said with a cheeky grin, as our root beer floats arrived with a huge scoop of ice cream on top.
“I know, but I’ve missed this place. Funnily enough, this isn’t the sort of food you can get back home,” he said. “You’re so lucky to have grown up in London, Helen.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess there are worse places to call home.” But home was where my family was. And at the moment, it didn’t feel like much of my family were around.
I got on with reading the menu. What could I order that wouldn’t make me look like a messy toddler? Barbecue sauce all over my mouth, hands and face is not a good first date look. I reasoned that anything I could eat with a knife and fork would work.
“What are you ordering? We should definitely start with the Buffalo chicken wings,” Marco said.
“I think I’m going to have the mac and cheese,” I said. His face dropped.
“Oh no. You really are vegetarian? You should have said!” He looked mortified. “I knew I should have checked first.”
“No, it’s not that. I just didn’t want to make a mess,” I said sheepishly.
He held his hands up, which made his fitted T-shirt stretch over his toned chest (YUMMMMM). “That’s the fun of it! I hope you make a huge mess. Like, hot sauce in your hair and under your fingernails. Perhaps it’ll make you less distractingly gorgeous.”
I swear my heart skipped a beat
or five. Luckily he mistook my quiet for hesitancy.
“Believe me, I won’t judge. Will you at least try it?” he asked, his smoky brown eyes gazing earnestly at me.
Those eyes. If he carried on looking at me like that, I’d have serious trouble saying no. Honestly, he could ask me anything (run the London Marathon, rob a bank, sit through a month of double science) and refusing him wouldn’t cross my mind.
“Fine,” I said. “But you were warned!”
We went for a platter of pulled pork, ribs, beef brisket, Buffalo chicken wings, coleslaw and fries. You couldn’t see the table for all the bowls and plates of food.
“Even if we don’t eat it all, you must try a little bit of everything.” Marco said this like it was a challenge.
And so we ate. As it turns out, the messy meal was a great icebreaker. Once we had Buffalo sauce all over our fingers and tore ribs apart with our teeth, the inhibitions fell away.
As we ate and chatted, my mind couldn’t help but race ahead. When could we do this again? How much longer should I lie to Dad? And if we really hit it off, could I ever invite him home to meet the family?
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When could I ever tell Marco who my family really were?
Helen, stop! I told myself. I pulled my mind away from family madness and back on to Marco. Who, apparently, could even make eating Buffalo chicken wings look hot. Here I was, focusing on the negatives, when the date was going … well? We’d made each other laugh and I didn’t get any sauce on my favourite jumper. Win.
Marco turned to flag down the waitress, and he looked so handsome from that particular angle (seriously, like he was carved from marble) that I spluttered on my final bite of mac and cheese. Ugh. I excused myself and nipped to the loo, grateful that I didn’t choke. While I was there, I touched up my lip gloss.
I checked my phone, but there was no signal in the restaurant basement. I’d have to wait until I got home before updating the group chat.
When I came back to the table, Marco was taking care of the bill. It’s not very feminist of me, but I was relieved that we didn’t have to split. That would have been a whole week’s allowance gone. On one meal! The tenner Dad had given me earlier was safe, for now.
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