Following the sound of familiar voices, Honey looked to her left and saw Nikos and Kai together in the kitchen. Nikos hovered over the stove, while Kai stood next to him, looking nearly as tall as the older man because he stood on a stool. She watched as Kai gently bumped the egg against the kitchen counter before he passed it to Nikos, who cracked the egg harder against the stove before putting it on the hot pan.
The last thing Honey thought she would see when waking up this morning was Nikos cooking in her kitchen with Kai as his helper. It was a bizarre sight that left her slightly puzzled, if not amused because though Nikos was clearly instructing her son, at times he looked confused himself as he frequently glanced at his phone, which she assumed had a recipe on it.
Honey continued to watch them until Kai glanced behind himself and noticed she was awake.
“Mommy!” Kai exclaimed as he hopped down from the stool before racing over to her. “Nikos cooked!”
“I see,” Honey said as Kai dragged her to her feet and tugged her toward the kitchen. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Nikos what the hell he was doing to her kitchen, but then she paused, realizing that she had just literally woken up. Honey touched her hair and the corner of her mouth, wondering what she looked like right now because she definitely knew it wasn’t radiant. No woman looked radiant in the morning after waking up, especially from a tough night on the floor.
“Give me a second, Kai,” Honey said, glancing at Nikos, who was still focused on the recipe on his phone while monitoring the eggs on the stove. Feeling self-conscious, Honey skittered off to the bathroom before Nikos could see her. She freshened up,washing her face, brushing her teeth, and fixing her hair before she stepped out of the bathroom.
By the time she came out, Nikos had finished cooking and had already set up the table. Honey came over and examined the food on the table with a critical eye. There were eggs scrambled with tomatoes and feta cheese, haphazardly cut avocados laid on toast that let her know Nikos had never taken a cooking class in his life, and three small bowls of Greek yogurt with honey drizzled on top.
“I’m not in the kitchen all the time, but I wanted to make breakfast this morning, so you wouldn’t have to wake up early,” Nikos said as he pulled out a chair for her.
“Thank you,” Honey said, slightly touched. It had been a long time since she had extra time to lay in before taking Kai to school. She glanced at the clock, realizing she had gotten an extra hour of sleep. But though she was touched, she couldn’t help but look at the food skeptically as she sat down. Nikos sat down too, along with Kai, before they all said their grace and dug in.
“It tastes salty,” Kai said, and usually Honey would admonish her son for saying that, but she couldn’t blame him because the eggs were a tad bit salty and had too much feta cheese on them.
“It does taste a bit different from the last time I had it,” Nikos said with a small grimace. Honey and her son looked at each other before laughing. Nikos could do many things, but cooking definitely wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t the worst thing she had ever tasted. At least he had done a good job with the yogurt, which she focused on.
“Then again, Ira used to always cook it for me, and if not her, Christina would,” Nikos murmured to himself. “God, I miss Ira’s cooking.”
“Who is Ira?” Kai asked.
“My housekeeper,” Nikos said, and Kai’s eyes widened.
“You must be rich, Nik,” Kai exclaimed.
Though Honey knew that herself from all the rumors she heard at work, it wasn’t until this moment that she realized that Nikos must really be rich to have a housekeeper in his home, especially multiple housekeepers with his mention of another woman. She found herself eyeing him across the table, seeing Nikos in a different light.
“Where do you live? It must be big like a castle,” Kai said, abandoning his food as he turned all of his attention to Nikos. She would make sure to give him some granola bars in the car so he wouldn’t be hungry. She had a feeling he wouldn’t finish his breakfast.
Nikos laughed. “It’s definitely not as big as a castle.”
“Is it as big as this building?” Kai asked, referring to their five-story apartment.
“Oh, no. It’s not nearly as tall as this building,” Nikos said, shaking his head with laughter, and Honey felt herself relax. Maybe it wasn’t unheard of to have housekeepers in Greece. “No, each building is only three stories. Not nearly as tall. Much wider than here though because of all of the land my family owns.”
“Do you have a pool?” Kai asked, excitedly.
“Yeah, we have two, and we’re also near the ocean. When we were younger, my brothers and I would jump off the cliffside.”
“Cool!”
While her son was impressed by the cliffside, she was startled by Nikos’s wealth and realized all the rumors people had said about his family hadn’t been exaggerated at all. Nikos was really the son of a rich, powerful man from Greece.
“Can I go?” Kai asked, looking as if he were ready to fly out of his seat and across the ocean to Greece if Nikos said yes.
“No—”
“Of course,” Nikos said over her. Kai jumped with excitement, while Nikos looked at her. “I want you to see my homeland.”
Honey found her heart racing because seeing his homeland sounded way more serious than she thought their relationship would be. At this point in their relationship, which was still at the very beginning, most couples were not talking about visiting each other’s homeland, which therefore meant meeting their family by proxy. Taking them to his condo here was one thing, but inviting them to Greece was another thing entirely, and she wasn’t sure how to process that.
“It’s time to get ready, Kai,” Honey said, glancing at the clock. Kai hopped out of his chair and went over to the living room, collecting his toys. When Honey went to collect the dishes off the table, Nikos came up behind her, grabbing the dishes from her hand before kissing her.
“I’ll clean them,” he said.
