“I don’t know, but it’s so good.” She closed her eyes as she tried to pin down the flavor. “Pumpkin and fennel, I think. I saved a couple from breakfast.”
I grabbed her hand. “Don’t eat it, Isabelle.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Isabelle pulled her pastry back.
It’s powerful stuff. A few bites and you’ll be honking your nose again, like an angry goose on the loose.
I glanced from her to the little parcel of magic that Alex had baked into golden, flaky layers of phyllo.
No, Moti.
No.
Steady now.
Don’t. Do. It.
“Gimme that.” I snatched the other one.
We licked our fingers and let the crumbs fall on our laps as the bus lumbered up the hills surrounding the shimmering harbor.
Our first stop was a museum in the beautiful Venetian settlement of Ano Syros. As we filed out of the bus, Dolly and Fia bumped each other. They recoiled like they’d touched flaming booger balls and retreated to mutually exclusive trajectories.
Joseph Uncle stood in front of the ticket office making mental calculations. When he first arrived in Chicago from Goa, he would convert everything from U.S. dollars to Indian rupees. Thirty years later, he was still doing it—a habit that always had him shaking his head and trying to bargain. Once, he took Naani to the surgeon and tried to get her a discount.
If one thing had been drilled into me early on, it was to never pay full price without putting up a respectable objection. Every time I bought a coffee at Starbucks, I heard my ancestors chanting,Shame, shame, shame.
“Why would anyone pay to look at a bunch of old things?” Joseph Uncle scowled at the exhibit poster.
“Exactly. See?” George elbowed Kassia. “I’m not the only who one thinks that way.”
Joseph Uncle and Thomas’s father beamed at each other. They’d just found a rare kinship—their dislike for having to part with money. Underwear salesman or billionaire, their attitude about money was the same. Rachel Auntie and Kassia shot each other a sympathetic look.
George’s phone rang.
He glanced at the number, then at Kassia. “You guys go on ahead. I’ll catch up as soon as I’m done.”
“Really, George? Even when we’re on a holiday?” Hand on her hip, Kassia waited for an answer, but George was already looking for some place private to take the call.
“A billionaire’s lifestyle. Tethered to his phone.” Joseph Uncle chuckled, but Kassia shook her head.
“He knows better.” She watched him disappear around the building and sighed. “Well, I guess we’ll just go on without him.”
We walked through the narrow, winding lanes to a lookout point at the top of the hill. Nikos singled me out the moment Isabelle left my side.
“I like your hair up like his.” He slid his finger down my nape and an electric jolt shot all the way up to my ponytail. “I can’t wait to be alone with you tonight.” His voice was low and husky. For my ears only. And from my ears to my brain, where it fried things up good.
While everyone was ooh-ing and aah-ing over the breathtaking views of the island from the top of the hill, I was suffering from the temporary decline in cognitive function that follows an encounter with a really hot guy. It happens to the best of us. Why? Because this is where your evolutionary instinct kicks you to the curb, jumps in the driver’s seat, and goes chasing after the potential to elevate your gene pool. There’s a science to swooning, compounded by providence dropping a sexy, three-thumbed man into my life.
The rest of the day turned into a blur as I mentally flipped through my luggage for the perfect outfit to induce a mutual swoon. My trip wardrobe was nothing like my Chicago wardrobe. It was a projected wardrobe built around projected scenarios:
Sunset in Santorini or having a drink over the caldera with Nikos: maxi skirt with a thigh-high side slit and a T-shirt to keep it from looking like I was trying too hard.
Yeah, baby.
Lounging by the pool: floppy hat, Jackie O sunglasses, high-waisted shorts, cropped top.
Try to resist me now.
