“Saved you from a bad guy?” Olivia questioned as she came over and examined the cut on Honey’s face. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Honey told her sister as she looked pointedly at her son, probably not wanting him to know what happened. Noticing the cut on her face, Nikos rifled through the kit until he found some ointment.
“Can you get me a band-aid, Kai?” Nikos asked as he uncapped the tube. Honey watched him with an arched brow as he gingerly brushed the ointment on her cut, and next, Kai blew on her cut before he put a small band-aid across his mother’s cheek.
“Is it better now, mom?” Kai asked.
“It is. Thank you, honey,” she said, smiling at her son.
“You have to thank Nikos too because he saved you. Right, auntie?” Kai said as he looked back at his aunt, who smirked as she folded her arms together.
“Right,” Olivia agreed, looking amused by the situation. “Hope, you heard your son.”
Nikos blinked upon hearing the name.
Begrudgingly, with a tight face as she knotted the end of the wrapping, she said, “Thank you, Nikos.”
“No problem…Hope,” Nikos said as he tested the name on his tongue, and surprisingly, it did fit her. It had never occurred to him to wonder what her real name was because, though the name Honey had implications to it, it matched her. But Hope fit her even more. It fit the side of her that he saw outside the club when she took off her blond wig.
“Uh un,” Honey said as she stood up from the couch. “Only the people who love me can call me that.”
“I love you. Can I call you Hope too?” Kai asked as he followed his mother into the kitchen.
“Only the people who aren’t my children and who love me can call me that,” Honey said, correcting herself as she pinched her son’s cheek.
“What about the people who want you?” Nikos asked. “Any exceptions for that?”
Honey glared at him as she dug around her fridge, pulling out food. That was when Nikos noticed Honey’s sister watching him like she was looking at a species she had never seen before. Nikos didn’t mind. He was handsome enough to be under that kind of stare most of the time, but there was a curiosity in her gaze that made him intrigued.
“How do you know Hope?” she asked curiously. “Are you her boyfriend?”
“Olivia,” Honey said in a warning tone from the kitchen.
“I’m speaking to Nikos, not you,” Olivia called back.
“Uh, no, we just work together,” Nikos said.
“Y’all just work together…but she invited you here to her home?” Olivia questioned.
“Nikos’s been here before!” Kai said. “This is his second time here.”
“Kai, what have I told you about being in grown folk’s business?” Honey admonished her son lightly. “And stop playing 21 questions, Olivia.”
“And this isn’t your first time here, but y’all aren’t dating,” Olivia said in a tone that implied that she didn’t believe them at all.
“Just because of the circumstances, kind of like tonight,” Nikos said as he gestured to his arm, not wanting to go into details about why he was here the last time. Honey had been pretty cool about it and didn’t ask any questions, but he didn’t know if her sister would be the same way, and it wasn’t an appropriate conversation.
“You work at the club?”
“Yeah.”
“What, are you a bouncer there?” she asked as she looked at his build. “Bartender? Are men performing there now?”
“Can he get a chance to answer one question first?” Honey asked sarcastically.
“Not talking to you.”
“I’m not a bouncer, or a bartender, or a dancer, though I could be,” Nikos said, grinning. “You could say I’m there for entertainment. That’s all.”
