My dad let out a harsh laugh. “My sons don’t see.” There was a long pause. “Where am I?”
“At my shop. I’m Nikos. Remember?”
“That chicken man.”
“Oh my god,” I murmured, leaning in close to Nikos. “I’m so sorry.”
He chuckled under his breath. “I’m used to it. He’s called me worse.”
“Please tell me he hasn’t been some raging bigot,” I begged.
Nikos was quiet. “Not on purpose.”
“Fuck me. Fuck my whole life.” I took a step forward with the back of my hand out and stopped when it hit the edge of a table. “Come on, Dad. We need to get you home.”
“I’m not going with you. I don’t get into cars with strangers.”
I didn’t know what to do. I was entirely unprepared for this. Fuck, I wished I’d brought Tucker along. He had too much to do to get involved with my bullshit, but I didn’t want to deal with this by myself. My throat was starting to feel tight.
“Peter,” Nikos said softly, “you son’s ready to take you back to your place.”
“That’s not my son. My son doesn’t have eyes. Look at him. He’s got them.”
“He’s thinking about my brother,” I said. “Micah doesn’t wear prosthetics.”
“You—oh. I didn’t realize,” Nikos said.
My heart sank to my feet. People always got so fucking weird when they realized I wasblindblind. Like, the blindest. Like, you couldn’t see less than I could. I braced myself as Nikos cleared his throat.
“So you definitely didn’t drive here.”
I burst into laughter. “Uh, no. Not until they come out with self-driving cars that don’t crash into people or see ghosts.”
Nikos snorted, then sighed. “I’ll call my brother to come back. He can drive you.”
“Isn’t he doing—oh.” Shit, right. His work thing was hockey. “He’s at the arena?” I waved my hand around at the space in front of me. “He doesn’t have a game tonight because I do.” And oh shit, I was going to be late.
“It’s just something with his GM or his coach. I don’t think it’s important,” Nikos said. “And Alexio’s driven him home before, so he knows the way.”
I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “How many times?”
“A dozen, maybe,” he admitted.
Mother fuck. Or better, fuck my mother because the only reason Nikos’s brother needed to drive my dad anywhere was her failure to put him somewhere safe where he couldn’t wander into shops and fall asleep at their tables.
“I’m coming back tomorrow so we can talk about this and what to do if it happens again,” I told him. “I have a game tonight, so I have to get back to the arena. That’s the only reason I’m saying yes.”
“Alexio won’t mind,” Nikos assured me.
Shaking my head, I turned to where he had let me go and hoped I was facing him. “You guys don’t need to be doing this, okay? This isn’t your burden.”
“Kindness isn’t a burden, Jonah. I’m sorry if someone ever told you it was.”
Okay. Thanks for the gut punch, asshole. Though that wasn’t fair because Nikos wasn’t an asshole. Luckily, I said none of that aloud. “Do you know how far away his apartment is?”
“Seven minutes on a slow day. I’ll have Alexio pull around back.” He brushed against me as he approached my dad, and I heard the creak of the table as it took some of his weight. “Peter, let me take you to Alexio. He’ll give you a ride home, okay? Jonah’s going with you.”
“Jonah,” he repeated. There was a long beat, and then I heard him stand. “Jonah. When did you get here? How did you get here? Is your mother with you?”
“No, Dad,” I said from behind a sigh. At least he recognized me now. “I took an Uber. But my new best friend Nikos’s very nice brother is going to take us to your place.”
“You won’t like it,” my dad muttered.
Yeah. I had no fucking doubt, but what choice did I have?
