“We all know you won’t find a wife,” his mama interrupted.
He huffed into the phone and she chuckled.
“You know you can come home and not work with your father.”
Right.
He had always known that, but his family was everything and if he came back home, how could he be there without working with his father, without being the doting, active uncle that Aeliana wanted him to be, without finding a respectable spouse like his parents both wanted.
When Andy had told him about the hotel, it had taken all of Leonidas’s willpower not to run. The parallels of their lives were more than he’d bargained for, but they’d been together in that moment and playing roles and pretending they inhabited a world where no one else existed. Where the only thing that mattered was the ground beneath Leonidas’s knees and Leonidas’s skin beneath Andy’s hands.
He licked his lips and closed his eyes, shaking his head.
“Can I?” he asked.
“Of course,” she told him, like he was being absurd.
“What if I don’t come home?”
His mama sighed. “Aeliana might come find you and drag you home.”
“I know.”
“What now, then?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I told you not to lie to me.”
“I’ve never been to America,” he mumbled.
“Is now a good time to go?”
“Probably not.”
“Where in America, Leonidas?”
“Colorado,” he answered, wondering what it looked like there, wondering if it felt like home to Andy.
“They have that beer, right?”
“Mama!” He bolted upright in his chair, eyes open now and wide.
She laughed at him, a loud and rich sound that filled his ears and wrapped around him like a hug. “I’m not a corpse. Just because I’ve never left Greece doesn’t mean I don’t know that a world exists outside of it.”
“I can’t go to America if Aeliana wants me home.”
“Aeliana is your sister, not your wife.”
“Are you going to be the one to tell her?” he asked, hopeful.
“Absolutely not,” his mama answered.
Then his sister’s voice was in his ear. “Tell me what?”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“Tell me what?” Aeliana repeated. “I just got here, what’s going on? Why are you calling? Does this mean you’re done? You’re coming home now?”
