by E M Lindsey
Niko realized that was Basil’s sister, and he laughed. “I know her, though I have no idea what she’s into. Might be worth exploring, though. She’s kind of a badass.”
Eleni grinned at him as she moved on to seasoning the meat for the pastitsio. He realized he hadn’t actually told her what he wanted cooked, but she’d put it together from the ingredients he’d laid out. If possible, that made her more perfect. “She seemed like it. But honestly, it was your concept that hooked me. Holland found my resume online, and I wasn’t going to answer her at first. But when she emailed me about your idea, I knew I had to give it a go. I love everything I’ve learnt over the years from schooling and traveling round the world, but nothing makes me feel all soft and squishy inside like my mum’s cooking.”
“Yeah,” Niko said softly, unable to hide his grin. “You get it.”
She said nothing as she started to prep the noodles, then moved on to the tomatoes for the domates yemistes. With the rice was already going, he watched her work on the zucchini with the same concentration his mom always had when getting their dinner ready, and he felt the idea of her agreeing to cook in his restaurant as a physical thing—like the missing piece to the whole concept.
“So, what about you?” she said. She turned away as the meat continued to brown, and she folded her arms over her chest. “Why the bloody hell would you go from accounting to this?”
Niko couldn’t help a little grin as he shrugged. “I’m good at math, but that wasn’t my thing.”
“What is your thing?” she demanded.
“It was hockey,” he told her. “I was in the NHL for two minutes, then a skate blade destroyed my knee and my career, and somehow I ended up here. I took a culinary class when I was getting my degree—just for something to do— and I ended up having a talent for it. It’s soothing, which I needed, because my life felt chaotic.”
“I know what that’s like,” she said quietly, and he knew there was a story there, but he wasn’t going to push her for it, having only known her an hour or two.
“I don’t think I’d be any good working in a restaurant, but I think I’d be good at making one.” He shrugged and pulled the chair out to sit down.
“And this boyfriend of yours? Does he realize just how much of your time is going to be sucked into the black hole that is food service?” she asked, pointing the end of her wooden spoon at him. “How fucked up the hours are, how impossible it is to have even a single night off?”
Niko grimaced. “He’s a tattoo artist, so he’s used to bizarre hours and a non-traditional work environment. We haven’t really talked about it,” mostly because we just decided we were okay a few hours ago, he added to himself, “but I’m not worried.”
Her eyes brightened. “Tattoo artist? Like from Irons and Works? I popped in there today when I was having a poke round, and excuse me, but how the bloody hell is everyone in there basically like a GQ model?”
Niko couldn’t help his laugh. “Trust me, I’ve been asking myself that forever. Two of the guys are my gym buddies and it’s kind of hard to stand next to. Muscle and ink? We’re all screwed.”
She slid the stuffed tomatoes into the oven and turned back to him. “So, which one was yours?”
Niko flushed with pleasure as he let himself think about Sam. “Uh, well, he’s got one of the front stations, the one off to the left if you’re facing the shop. Light brown hair, straight nose, perfect face. Wheelchair,” he added at the end.
“I saw him,” she said with a nod as she turned to assemble the noodles and meat together. “He was tattooing a ruddy great snake on some bloke’s leg. Poor sod was near tears and they were only ten minutes in. Done work for you, has he?”
Niko shook his head. “I have one shitty tattoo that I got during my time in the junior hockey league, but it’s faded and nasty. I’ve been considering a cover-up, but things got a little hectic.”
“As they do,” she said. She fell silent then as she assembled the pasta dish, and Niko let himself relax into the silence and rich smell of meat and spices. It was like being home, and yet there was a touch of something unfamiliar to it which he found he didn’t mind at all.
He was creating his new normal, and in a way, it was better than he could have imagined.
* * *
Sam found himself pacing, Sock nipping at his wheels as he moved across the floor. He whipped into a turn, pushed forward, whipped into a turn. Repeat. Ad nauseum. Maisy was contentedly playing with her dolls, her entire demeanor changed once Sam told her she wouldn’t have to be with her grandparents by herself anymore. He couldn’t promise anything further, couldn’t assure her that her life wouldn’t be upended, but for now, they had peace.
And for now, he was going to take Rowan’s advice and stop shying away from something that could be good for them both. Niko had texted about running late with his new chef, which ended up working in Sam’s favor. He finished up his last tattoo earlier than expected, then took Mat up on his offer to clean Sam’s station. He made it to Kat’s for Maisy right on time, then got home with enough time to shower instead of a quick wipe-down with a wet cloth.
He only partially regretted not cooking—the offer hadn’t just been because he was trying to be nice, but without the distraction of meal-prep, he was forced to sit. And think. And worry. Niko had assured him that it wasn’t all his fault, that the lack of communication had gone both ways, and that he wanted whatever it was building between them.
Sam had to trust that, because apart from not confessing his feelings, Niko hadn’t ever lied to him. He’d never patronized him, treated him like a fetish or an experiment. He simply wanted him. It was a new concept, in a way, and maybe it wouldn’t have been if Sam had trusted people earlier on in his life, but he supposed it worked out for the best. If Sam had let himself be more open in the past, he might have been taken, might have missed his chance with Niko, and he didn’t want to think about that now.
Not when he had this second chance to make it right.
“Dada?”
Sam looked up to find Maisy reaching for his arm, hanging off him like a little squirrel. “Yes, my love?”
“Are you sad?” She moved around his arm to clamber into his lap, and he reached to adjust her so she could sit comfortably on his thigh.
Sam pushed them both back to the living room where she had one of her doll houses set up, and he came to a stop near the coffee table. “No. I’m not sad. Do I look sad?”
She stared at his face for a long time, then sighed. “Maybeeeee, no,” she drawled out. “When I was gone did you miss me?”
Sam felt his throat tighten, and he cleared it before answering her. “Yes, of course. I always miss you when you’re not with me.”
“Even if I’m wiff auntie?” she demanded.
He chuckled and tugged on one of her braids. “Even when you’re with auntie. But I’m not sad about it because I know you’re having fun with Auntie and Jazz.”
She bit down on her lip, considering what he was saying with all the brain-power of her three-year-old mind. “Dada?”
“Yes, my love?” he answered.
“Those…those people, I don’t…they said I could come live wiff them,” she said, her face scrunched with struggle. Sam felt his entire body tense, and he put his arm around her without being consciously aware of it. “But I don’t…I don’t wanna. You would miss me. Would you be sad?”
“Yes,” he answered her honestly.
She sighed against him and let her cheek rest against his chest. “I would be sad. I don’t want to. Do I haff to go?”
“No,” he told her, trying to temper his voice. “You don’t have to go. Remember what I told you? No more visits by yourself, okay?”
“Did they go home?” she asked very softly.
“Yes.” He was more than happy to be able to give an honest answer to that. How they’d tucked their tails and ran when the judge refused their petition, and when their ally in Beth and her supervisor were unceremoniousl
y ripped off the case. He watched the illusion of power drain from their eyes and he would have been a liar if he said he didn’t openly gloat as they left the courtroom.
It was far from over, but as Rowan had said, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
Sam was pulled from his thoughts when Maisy slipped off his lap and went back to her doll house as though the conversation had never happened. He let out a shaking breath, but before he could spiral too far, his buzzer rang. Sock started yipping, ignoring Maisy’s stern shush, and only quieted when Sam got the door and Niko immediately crouched to appease the furry beast with a few pets.
“Can you?” Niko asked, thrusting a paper bag stuffed full of warm containers into Sam’s arms.
Sam grunted, but pulled it onto his lap and left Niko to the dog as he headed into the kitchen. He heaved it all onto the table, wondering what the hell Niko had cooked up for them, because he was pretty sure the guy knew it was only going to be three people, not a damn army.
He heard a noise behind him, and he spun, his face falling into a gentle smile as he saw Niko standing there with Maisy in his arms. She looked content as she held the back of his neck with one hand, her doll with the other, and she peered curiously over to see what Niko had brought.
“Pasta and stuffed tomatoes,” Niko explained as Sam began to pull the containers out. “Simple stuff. Some baklava, but it was with store-bought dough because Eleni didn’t have time to make her own.” Niko eased Maisy down to the floor who ran off, bored by the idea of food, and it gave him the opportunity to walk up to Sam, cup his cheek, and kiss him. “I hope that’s okay.”
Sam hummed against Niko’s mouth, closing his eyes, letting the warmth of his touch flood his senses. He’d wanted this for so damn long now. He was starving for it, thinking he wouldn’t have it ever again, and it was all he could do not to drag Niko back to his bedroom right then.
“How was the rest of your day?” Niko asked as he finally pulled back.
Sam let out a tiny sigh. “Oh, nothing unusual. Had a couple of walk-ins which was nice, and a couple of my regulars heard I was back, so they booked a few sessions for the start of summer. Had a guy who wanted this massive leg piece, but I got maybe a quarter of the way done with the lines and he started sobbing.” His lips twitched and he had to reign it in. He wasn’t the kind of guy who mocked someone else’s pain levels, but he couldn’t help but marvel at how people didn’t realize tattoos hurt.
Niko was grinning at him as he fetched plates from the cabinet. “Eleni actually saw that. She popped in earlier to get a feel for the other shops around.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Short woman, dark hair, big eyes?” he asked. “Wearing a really bright red leather jacket?”
Niko chuckled. “That would be her.”
“So, it went well then?” Sam couldn’t help but wonder as he took in the fragrant scents of whatever Niko was dishing out.
Niko’s smile was soft, maybe a little hesitant, but he’d lost the heaviness to his gaze. “I think so, yeah. She seems to get what I’m looking for.”
Sam pushed away from the table and wheeled up to Niko, reaching for his hand. He smiled to himself when the touch was accepted, at the way Niko went pliant at his grasp. “I never asked enough about it,” he told him, a form of apology he hoped Niko understood. “But I want to know everything. I’m really proud of you.”
Niko turned his hand so they were palm to palm, and his other reached for Sam’s face, cupping his cheek as he leaned in to kiss him. With Niko’s height, the angle was awkward, and he grunted a little, but he still smiled into the kiss. “Why doesn’t this thing have handles or arm rests?”
Sam chuckled as Niko straightened back up. “Well for one, to keep asshole strangers from pushing me places without asking first.”
Niko’s eyes went wide. “People do that?”
“They used to, before I spent all the fucking money on this,” Sam told him. “I have my other chair for when I travel and might need help, but this has saved me so many pains in my ass.”
Niko considered him for a moment, then asked, “And what’s the other reason?”
Sam grinned a little wickedly, then tugged Niko’s hand hard enough that he fell onto him with a loud grunt. “Room for you on my lap when we’re making out.”
Niko’s head fell back with his laugh, and he adjusted himself more comfortably on Sam’s thighs before leaning in to kiss him again. “Should we be doing this with your daughter in the next room?”
“She’s three. She won’t be traumatized by our PDA for a few years yet,” Sam said, and he put every emphasis in those words, telling Niko with them that he meant it long term— that he saw them together being disgusting and embarrassing Maisy in front of her friends for years to come.
Niko’s cheeks went a little pink, and he licked his lips, but he didn’t look afraid. Maybe a little hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he could trust Sam meant it, but he seemed willing. And Sam, well, he could work with that. Sam leaned in with purpose, lips slightly parted and tongue warm when it pushed into Niko’s mouth, and he was rewarded with a quiet, chest-deep moan. Niko’s hands clutched at the top of his shoulders, his head tilted just so, the angle perfect. Sam knew he could lose himself for hours like this if he wasn’t careful, and right then, he couldn’t remember why he cared.
It was Maisy’s giggle at something on the TV which broke Sam’s concentration, and he took Niko by the shoulders and disengaged in a series of slow pecks. “If we don’t stop now,” he told him, his voice a little strained, “I’m never going to, and we did promise to take this slow.”
“Right,” Niko breathed out, just this side of ragged. He swallowed thickly, then pressed his forehead to Sam’s. “We have time.”
“Yes,” Sam said firmly, gripping him at his waist before he could slide off. “Yes, we do.”
When Sam finally let Niko up to finish setting the table, Sam moved to the living room to collect Maisy for dinner. She reluctantly put her dolls away, but she was excited to have a dinner guest, and she immediately clambered into her booster chair as Niko put a plate in front of her. Sam transferred into one of the dining chairs directly next to Niko, and he looked at the gorgeous spread in front of him.
“Wha’s dis?” Maisy asked, poking one of the tomatoes with her blue plastic fork.
“It’s called domates yemistes,” Niko said, the Greek flowing off his tongue only the way a native speaker could. It did things to his insides. “They’re really yummy. I used to eat these when I was your age.”
Maisy looked at him suspiciously, like she wasn’t sure any grown up could ever have been three. “I don’ wike ‘amatoes.”
“How about you just try it,” Niko said patiently. “This recipe came all the way from Greece where I was born.”
“Do you still speak a lot of Greek?” Sam asked, hating that he didn’t even know that much about him.
Niko chuckled as he dug into his pasta. “Nai, fysiká,” he said and winked. “Mostly with my mom and sister.”
“Do you have an accent when you speak it?” Sam asked, then dug into his pasta dish and tried not to moan aloud at how good it was.
Niko snorted a laugh and shrugged. “Yeah, a little bit. My parents didn’t speak much Greek at home until my sister and I became fluent in English. They wanted us to blend in. Plus, I got made fun of a lot for sounding weird when I was a kid, so I tried not to speak Greek when I could help it. I never lost the language, but I definitely don’t sound like a native anymore.”
Sam scowled. “Kids made fun of you? That’s bullshit.”
“Yeah well, kids are bull…poop,” he said, eyeing Maisy.
She giggled and covered her mouth, her hand a little sticky from the rice inside the tomato, but Sam was more excited that she was actually eating it. “He…he said…” she started.
“I heard him,” Sam told her, then winked at Niko. “She thinks the ‘p’ word is worse than the ‘s’ word right now.”
“Ah,
” Niko said, biting back a grin. “Well anyway, I spent a lot of my youth in Quebec for hockey, so I think that’s mostly where my accent got muddled. Not everyone there was Quebecois, but most of the kids were New Englanders or Canadians, and I wanted to fit in.” He shrugged, pushing his fork through the noodles, looking strangely morose.
Sam wanted to ask, but he had a feeling it was a deeper conversation than dinner would allow. “Do you speak French?”
Niko choked a little on his water, wiping his mouth as he shook his head. “Let’s just say I know enough French to get me by on the ice and to uh…” he glanced over at Maisy, “let other players know how I feel about them.”
Sam laughed, feeling more than just amusement rushing through him. It was joy, pure and simple, and he felt a sudden desperation to grab onto this moment and hold it, to clone it again and again so they could have this every night.
For as long as they lived.
Niko seemed to understand the sudden heaviness of the moment, and they locked eyes, staring until they heard a heavy plop. The scrabbling sound of Sock’s nails broke the moment between them as the dog snatched the layered pasta Maisy dropped on the floor and ran with it.
Shooting to his feet, Niko looked terrified. “Oh god, can he eat that? Is that going to kill him?”
Sam waved him off. “Cheese, meat, and noodles? He’ll be fine. He’s a scavenger, and Maisy tends to spoil him instead of eating her dinner like a good girl,” he said, his tone warning.
She was utterly unaffected as she dug into the rest of her tomato. “It’s good,” she said, like a queen declaring her royal blessing.
Niko laughed softly. “Well, I’m glad someone approves.”
* * *
They got halfway through Maisy’s Peppa Pig DVD before she dozed off in the space between them on the sofa. Sam was more than looking forward to getting alone time with Niko, so he quickly pulled his chair over and transferred into it, lifting Maisy into his lap for her nighttime routine.
