“By the whole situation,” he said, trying to play it off. “I mean, you have to admit—Thanksgiving with the Galanis and Guiterrez clans isa lot.”
He’d never actually realized how extra their family gatheringswere until he spent one Christmas Eve with his college girlfriend’s family. It was so quiet. Civil. There were no arguments over whose sugar-dusted nut cookies were better, his sister’s kourambiedes cookies, or Dani’s Mexican wedding cookies (Theo always voted for Dani). And the food on their plates was so…brown. Not a dolma or a bowl of salsa in sight.
He missed his and Dani’s families’ amalgamation of cuisine: Grexican, they liked to call it. There was nothing like his mother’s pork stew with a heaping spoonful of Mrs. Guiterrez’s Mexican rice on top. Or a shot of raki followed by Carlos’s spicy, cinnamony hot chocolate. But from the minute you walked in the door until the last good-night of the evening, there was laughter and clatter.
Giorgina hadn’t particularly enjoyed her experience at the Galanis-Guiterrez holidays. Even though she was a Triple G, a few times she’d mentioned she expected that future holidays would be more…conventional, as she called it.When we start our own traditions, she’d said.Theo figured Giorgina needed to warm up to their families, that was all. Eventually she’d see that what they had was special, and she’d be one of them. Three years into their relationship, and she still didn’t seem to understand.
Too bad it took Theo three years to realize it himself.
“Well, you’re the one brave enough to bring a guest in the first place,” Dani said. “I’d never bring a guy into that chaos.”
“Ever?”
“Uh-uh,” Dani said, shaking her head.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy that you’ve dated other than the randos you’ve picked up at Palmer’s,” Theo said. “I don’t even know what’s your type.”
“Why would you?”
Theo furrowed his brow. “Whywouldn’tI?”
“Um, well, for starters, they usually aren’t around long enough for it to make a difference. Besides, you live two hundred miles away. I’m not going to waste your limited time in town introducing you to some guy who probably won’t even be around by the next weekend. So there you go. That’s my type.”
“What is?”
“Guys who don’t stick around.”
There was a sadness to her voice. Like maybe she didn’t particularly like the fact that they didn’t stick around.
“You never answered my question, by the way,” she said.
“Which one?”
“About what kind of guyyouare.”
Theo watched her for a moment, considering her body language. She didn’t look at him when she said it, opting instead to stare straight at the computer screen, her finger scrolling slowly on the mouse even though they’d yet to type anything into the computer.
“I’m not sure,” he finally said.
“Well, what would Giorgina say?”
Giorgina would probably say he was an asshole, but he wasn’t about to tell Dani that. Last thing he needed was for her to askwhyGiorgina felt that way.
“I’m not sure my ex is the best person to ask,” he said.
“What? No way, your ex is theperfectperson to ask.”
“Fine. She’d probably say I’m…” He thought of the first word that came to mind and said, “attentive.”
“Oh.”
Anotheroh. Hereallyneeded to start learning what thoseohs meant. Dani stared at him blankly, clearly trying to figure out exactly what he meant by that. He could have explainedthat Giorgina always appreciated how he took care of her and met her needs, especially in the bedroom. But in reality, the night they broke up, Giorgina called him out on his attentiveness to Dani, rather than to herself. And Theo did nothing to deny it.
Because he knew that even when he was with Giorgina, his mind was often on Dani. And that wasn’t fair to her. To either of them.
“We should probably get to work,” Dani said, changing the subject and scooting her chair closer to the table.
She may have been done with the conversation, but he wasn’t. She couldn’t ask all those questions about him and then not answer any about herself.
