by A. J. Pine
“More coffee, se parakalo? For Jordan.”
Jordan rolled her eyes, and all three of them laughed.
“Fine,” Jordan relented. “Only because it’s your day, all right? Then I’m off the hook?”
Elaina’s father darted back into the kitchen and came out moments later with a small cup on a saucer. He set it down on the table in front of Jordan, and Maggie peered into it with her. Despite the shallow depth of the mug, the coffee was so dark they couldn’t see the bottom.
“You got this,” Maggie assured her. “It’s just coffee. Really thick, really strong, unsweetened coffee.”
Jordan rolled her eyes. “You aren’t helping.”
While Jordan contemplated her coffee, Elaina pulled her cell phone from her pocket and stared at it. She held it out for Maggie and Jordan to see.
“Why do you think this is all I got?”
Maggie read the short message.
Duncan: Forgive me. I couldn’t get on the second plane.
“Maybe his phone died,” Maggie offered.
Elaina sighed. “Griffin has a phone, no? And Noah, too? Why do they send all the messages and Duncan says nothing?”
Jordan opened her mouth to say something, but Elaina waved her off.
“I scare him,” Elaina said softly.
“You don’t scare him,” Jordan said, and Elaina gave her a pointed look. “Okay, you might be a little scary, but it’s part of your charm.”
“Do you think he is marrying me because he is afraid not to after all of this time? Noah did say in his text that he was afraid to tell me what happened.”
Maggie and Jordan both shook their heads. Maggie didn’t know Elaina and Duncan other than the one time she’d met them last year and from what she’d learned from Griffin. Elaina was guarded, yes. And maybe a little rough around the edges. But Duncan wore his heart on his sleeve, and she’d known the minute she met them that he was over the moon for this girl.
“Elaina,” Jordan started, grabbing her friend’s hand, but Elaina just shook her head and took a shaky breath.
“I don’t want him to feel forced to do something that doesn’t feel right to him. I don’t want to scare him into staying.” She took Jordan’s coffee from the table. “And I will not force you to drink the stupid coffee,” Elaina said. “I will not force anyone to do anything.”
And with that Elaina retreated from the restaurant and up the stairs that led to the Tripoli family’s apartment.
Maggie looked at her phone, opening up the last text Griffin had sent her. She’d seen it pop up when she was getting her nails done but couldn’t read it. She only now remembered it was there.
Griffin: We’ve got Duncan. Catching an afternoon flight back. The first one available. We need to talk, okay? As soon as I see you. There’s something I should have told you before we left, and I don’t want to wait anymore. I hope you’ll forgive me for waiting this long.
“What?”
“What?” Jordan asked, and Maggie realized she’d spoken out loud.
“Huh?” Maggie asked. “I mean, nothing. It’s nothing.” Because as comfortable as she had felt in her recent surroundings, Jordan wasn’t her friend. She wasn’t a person Maggie confided in. That person was Griffin, and if it couldn’t be Griffin, it was Miles. Well, how could she confide in Griffin about a frighteningly cryptic text that he had sent? And how could she confide in Miles when he was probably having sex in much too close a vicinity to the evening’s meal preparations?
“Are you sure?” Jordan asked. “I was about to go talk to Elaina, but if you need someone…”
Maggie waved her off. “No, no. Go talk to Elaina. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation why Duncan hasn’t called her yet. She needs a friend right now, and you can smooth things over.”
Jordan bounced on her toes. “Okay. I’ll be back soon.”
And she was off and up the stairs, leaving Maggie to read Griffin’s text over and over again.
She had tried not to notice it, how something with Griffin had been off the past couple days. Now she couldn’t help but see the signs. Whenever she’d seen that look in his eyes, that silent retreat, she’d asked if everything was okay.
“Totally fine, Pippi,” was his go-to answer, and she’d trusted him. He was always quick to cut off conversation about anything other than the mundane with a kiss, and she hadn’t questioned it because who would question kissing that man, especially when just his kiss could drive her nearly insane? If something was up, he would tell her, right?
But something was up, and he’d waited until now to tell her. What if this whole thing with Duncan and Elaina was giving him second thoughts about their relationship? What if he’d been afraid to tell her before the trip? Breaking bad news to her while she was so far from home—so far from safety—wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst of it was that after a promise to always, always lay their cards out on the table, Griffin had been holding back.
She looked around the crowded room, at the friends and family of the bride and groom—Duncan’s relatives included—laughing and enjoying one another’s company. She thought about Miles with Alex, and Griffin on a plane—and all the hope that had filled her evaporated as quickly as it had come.
In a sea of people, Maggie felt utterly alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Miles
It wasn’t as if Miles was a stranger to a kitchen. He worked in one, too. He was just better versed in beverages, pastries, and the occasional panini than he was in full gourmet meals.
Alex dried his hands after giving them a good scrub in the sink and then busied himself juicing lemons and cracking eggs into a bowl at a stainless-steel island. Miles strolled toward him, observing his surroundings as if they were exhibits in the Louvre.
“You don’t have to be afraid of touching anything,” Alex said, side-eyeing him from where he beat the lemons and eggs together. He poured the mixture into a large pot, giving whatever else was in there with it a few lazy stirs.
Miles released his hands from the front pocket of his jeans and inched closer, a finger poised to taste.
“After you wash,” Alex said, stopping him short, and Miles bit back a smile.
He unzipped his jacket. “Where should I…”
“There’s a closet over there.” Alex nodded to a small alcove off to his left, just past what looked like a walk-in cooler. Miles followed his gaze and rid himself of both his jacket and hoodie, leaving him in only his T-shirt and jeans.
“There are clean aprons on the other side,” Alex continued, and because his back was still to him, Miles let himself smile this time. He could tell from Alex’s tone—not a command yet not nearly playful—that he wasn’t out of the woods yet. But this wasn’t just some quick tour and see ya later. Alex was asking him to stay, and by pulling the crisp white cotton from the hanger, Miles was accepting the invitation.
He ambled to the sink first, cleansing his hands like he was a surgeon, soaping up to his elbows and rinsing with water hot enough to turn his skin pink. When he finished, he used the same towel he saw Alex use to dry off.
Alex was juicing another lemon, the rind of the fruit in his palm as he pressed it over the raised peak of the appliance. He wore a short-sleeved black chef’s jacket over dark jeans, the muscles in his forearms tensing as he wrung the lemon to nothing but pulp.
“Didn’t know you smoked,” Miles started, then rolled his eyes at himself. Judgmental was so not his usual M.O., but then again, nothing about today was usual. For the guy who put fun above all else, he sure was doing a bang-up job of making this encounter everything but. Self-sabotage also wasn’t his way, but there were these…feelings…seeping out from the places he had buried them, and they were making him do and say things so utterly unlike him. It would take everything in his power to turn off his psychoanalytical tendencies and to just be. Three days. He could handle being in the vicinity of this man for three days before escaping back to Minnesota’s sub-zero temps and its
complete and utter un-Greeceness.
Alex kept his eyes on the other half of the lemon he was pulverizing, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.
“I don’t smoke. Not habitually.” He ground the rind into the juicer, even after nothing was left to juice. “But when I need to clear my head?” He shrugged. “We all have vices. Mine is the occasional tsigaro.”
Miles pressed his hands flat atop the steel island, letting out a long sigh, and Alex finally looked up.
“What?” he asked, and Miles shook his head.
“I don’t like that you just made the word ‘cigarette’ sound sexy.”
Alex grinned. “You seem not to like a lot of things when it comes to me, including me.”
Miles shook his head. “You’re twisting my words,” he told him. “I said I didn’t want to like you.”
But he did. Every second he was in Alex’s presence, that feeling he didn’t want to have, it only grew stronger.
Alex turned back to what he was doing and added the juice he’d just squeezed into the steaming pot on the stove. But he was smiling as he did.
Miles watched the tendons in Alex’s neck tighten and release, and he allowed himself a self-satisfied grin. This guy may have gotten to him, but shit if Miles hadn’t gotten to Alex, too. So what now?
“Can I help?” he asked.
Alex nodded. “Come stir.”
He approached with caution, relaxing when he saw the tension leave Alex’s shoulders.
“Egg lemon soup. It needs to mix in and heat through,” he said. “Then we will chill it until the reception tomorrow.”
Alex grabbed Miles’s hand and placed it around the wand of the spoon. “Just like that—long, slow circles. Entaxei?”
Miles furrowed his brow.
“Sorry,” Alex said, letting go of the spoon and leaving it to his assistant. “It means okay. When I’m here, in Greece, I slip back into the language.”
“It’s nice,” Miles admitted. “The words—even when you’re angry—I like the sound of them coming from your lips.”
He could flirt comfortably now. Both men had admitted their attraction and that there were zero expectations from either of them. So why not see where the rest of the day went? Sure, there was a part of him that knew he was approaching dangerous territory, but didn’t he enjoy a little risk, especially when there was the safety net of a flight back to the States at the end of the weekend? “Does it happen in the States, too? The Greek and English together?”
Alex shook his head. “When I’m here I speak only Greek. But you”—he nodded toward the interior of the restaurant—“and all the Scots and the other Americans? It puts my head in two different places. Does that make sense?”
Yeah. Miles knew the feeling of being in two head spaces at once, the duality of wanting to both lay this guy out on that stainless-steel island and then walk away without a second thought, safe and secure, while also wanting this beautiful man to keep talking, keep revealing himself even though every word Alex spoke brought Miles closer to the danger zone. To caring. To wondering about possibilities beyond this weekend.
But he wasn’t about to say any of that, so he just kept it simple.
“It makes sense.”
Miles concentrated on the rhythm of the spoon moving against the thick soup, the savory aroma making his mouth water. Alex left him to it and backed away toward the cooler, unbuttoning the chef’s shirt to reveal a fitted white tank top underneath.
“Thanks for your help,” Alex said. “That was the last thing I had to prepare before this evening, so I’m going to take off.”
Miles’s eyes widened, and Alex barked out a laugh, the tank rising from his jeans and revealing a dark trail that Miles wanted to follow—just after he told this guy to fuck off.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I’m an asshole, but I have to say…it was worth it.”
Miles wanted to fling a spoonful of whatever this soup was at that smug grin on Alex’s face, but the liquid was hot enough to burn, and he couldn’t justify scarring that face, even if it was mocking him. Instead he scraped the spoon clean and laid it on the island, brushing off his hand on his still-pristine apron.
“Did you even need me to stir?” he asked, and Alex shook his head.
“Just once or twice. The heat’s already turned down so the soup can cool.”
Maybe Miles deserved a little teasing, but he was done holding back. He stalked toward Alex, who didn’t flinch at his approach. Fuck. He welcomed it. Miles cupped his face in his hands but kept his momentum until the two of them slammed up against the cooler door.
“Are we even now?” Miles asked, using every ounce of restraint to keep his mouth from crashing onto the one that was half a breath away.
Alex chuckled, unfazed. “Ask me when the weekend’s done,” he said, and there it was. A challenge.
Miles froze, his whole alpha thing backfiring, as he was clearly the one who was fazed.
“You don’t look like the tourist type,” Alex continued. “And I’m willing to bet you’re on the first plane back to the States as soon as the wedding’s over.”
“So?” he asked, wanting to call his bluff, yet he knew already this was not the kind of guy who backed down.
“So stay with me this weekend. I know you are here with your friends, but when you aren’t with them—be with me.”
It wasn’t a command. It wasn’t a plea.
It was three little words that simply made sense.
“Okay,” Miles said.
And with that he let it all go—the repressed emotion, the defense mechanisms, the hesitation—all of it. He let it fucking go.
Then he kissed the man who asked for nothing but three days. Three days and his name.
“It’s nice to meet you, Alex,” Miles said in between flicks of his tongue against lips he’d been hungry for since the airport.
Alex wrapped his arms around Miles’s waist, tugging him closer as he parted his lips in a smile.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Miles.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jordan
Jordan sprawled like a starfish on the hotel bed, luxuriating in the softness of the hotel robe. She missed Noah. Of course she did. But this alone time—quiet time without a story to write or a paper to grade; without Elaina putting on a false smile for all her guests, lying to Duncan’s family and her own that his flight was delayed; without worrying about the money Noah just spent on a round-trip ticket to Athens to rescue Duncan from whatever mess he’d gotten himself into—yes, this alone time was good.
The weekend would fly by, and then she and Noah would be traveling to the U.K. and taking a train to Scotland, back to the scene of the crime, so to speak. She laughed quietly to herself, picturing the vestibule on the train where Noah had first kissed her. A stranger in a strange place, he’d been exactly what she needed to interrupt her carefully planned life. Okay, so he’d traveled to Aberdeen with his ex-girlfriend, which led to her dating Griffin early in the semester. Maybe things weren’t exactly smooth sailing after that first kiss, but it was the start of something that would eventually alter her life.
I’m not a spontaneous guy, he’d told her that first summer when they’d traveled Europe before going home to spend their first real year as a couple in two different states. But you make me want to step outside that safe zone, even if there’s risk. Because despite the occasional mess—and the scars we have to prove it—loving you is worth all of it.
Jordan rubbed a finger over the scar on her forehead, caused by an unfortunate turn of events that included alcohol, mistletoe, and the edge of a pub table greeting her as she fell. She imagined the one on Noah’s palm, when she’d accidentally barreled into him after their British Novel in Film class and he’d cut it on a broken bottle.
Sure, what people saw were scars, but what Jordan saw were reminders that despite the hurt and the work, what she had with Noah was worth all of it. She hoped Duncan could do that for Elaina, show her tha
t whatever happened today was just one of those wounds that would heal and scar and remind them that they are stronger together no matter what life throws at them.
With that comforting thought, she closed her eyes, barely letting herself drift off when there was a quiet knock on the door.
She leapt from the bed.
“Noah?” she asked, giddy at the thought of his return. Okay, so maybe the alone time wasn’t as great as she thought.
But when she looked through the peephole, Jordan saw a fidgeting Maggie. Her heart sank. Had it been selfish of her to want time alone in her room? After all of the people and the food and the noise and—ugh. She just needed some quiet. But Maggie was here all by herself, not even Miles to provide the buffer she probably needed.
“Maggie!” Jordan said as she threw the door open. “Hey. Everything okay?”
Maggie stood before her in a casual yet elegant navy dress with white polka dots. Her tangerine waves cascaded over her shoulders and onto her bare arms. She was a beautiful girl, and it warmed Jordan’s heart to see how she lit up when she was with Griffin and how he did the same with her.
Maggie’s features relaxed into a warm smile.
“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t relax, and when I can’t relax, I look for things to do, and I know we still have another hour until we need to be back at the restaurant, but the only thing I had to keep me busy was to get ready. So I’m ready. But…I can’t zip my dress. Would you mind?”
Maggie spun so her back was to Jordan, who had the dress zipped in seconds.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.” She turned to head back to her room. Was it really only an hour before dinner?
“Maggie, wait.”
Maggie stopped to face her again.
“Are you worried that they aren’t back yet?” Jordan asked her.
The other girl let out a long breath, and Jordan realized they’d both been worrying, only separately. It was time to commiserate.
“Come on in,” she told her, and Maggie followed her into the room, taking a seat in the desk chair. “I’m sorry.”
