“Do you want kids?”
“Maybe . . . with the right person. I never really thought about it until Lexi had Alec and then it sort of went from no interest to if it happens, that’d be cool. I’m not in any hurry though. I didn’t turn thirty and suddenly think, time is running out!”
“Please tell me no one said that to you.”
“Oh, more than one person has said that to me.”
“Fuck, being a woman sucks.”
“Thank you for noticing.” She shakes her head. “There it is.”
The restaurant is a standalone building with a small parking lot that’s already full and a valet sign out front with a bored-looking teenager loitering next to it.
Xavier pulls up to it and Bianca leaps out of the car, basically bowling over the tall skinny kid wearing a red blazer that’s hanging off of him, clearly made for someone broader.
“Nico, did you grow again?” she’s asking, holding the kid by the shoulders by the time Xavier makes it around the car.
“A little bit,” Nico says, a flush building, even through skin even darker in tone than Bianca’s. “This him?”
Bianca steps back and Xavier practically beams when her arm wraps around his waist. “Nico, this is Xavier, my, um, fiancé. Xavier, my cousin, Nico. He’s going to UCLA in the fall. Try not to hold it against him.”
“Nice to meet you, man,” Nico says, holding his hand out. When Xavier takes it, the kid squeezes and he tries not to snort, squeezing back just enough for the younger man to realize that’snot a game he should be playing. Though he can appreciate the sentiment behind protecting his cousin, even if she’s perfectly capable of handling herself.
“You too,” Xavier says as the kid pulls away and he holds out his keys. “Here you go.”
“When you get your schedule, you send it to me,” Bianca’s saying as the kid takes the keys and heads for the car. “We’ll figure out your options from there.”
Nico salutes her and then he’s in the car and peeling away from the curb way too fast.
“You might have a new scratch or two when it gets back,” she says, wrinkling her nose as the Jeep disappears around the corner.
“It’ll blend with the others,” he reassures her. “Should we go in?”
“Just . . .” she hesitates, standing back, “how do I look?”
He clicks his tongue, taking in her cropped white top showing off a sliver of perpetually tanned skin, and her olive-green skirt that falls to an uneven hem from one knee to her calf, down to wedged sandals that wrap up with strings above her ankles. She always looks great. He told her so the other day, but now it feels different, somehow. But it’s not like she doesn’t know how attracted to her he is. Hell, his dick was inside her mouth for – quite frankly – an embarrassingly short amount of time before he completely lost it. He can give her a compliment.
“Stunning,” he says finally, “as always.”
It’s hard to tell when she’s blushing, her skin tone doesn’t give much away, but he thinks he sees a hint of a flush at her cheeks and he revels in the small smile that forms across her face when her eyes meet his.
“You look nice too,” she says, taking in his crisp collared shirt, sharply creased navy-blue pants and brown dress shoes. “Thisis a little much though.” Reaching up, she unbuttons one more button of his shirt. “There. Perfect.”
“Ready?”
“Ready,” she says and leads the way into the restaurant.
It’s like walking through some kind of space and time portal straight from 2020s LA to 1990s Greece.
The walls are whitewashed, columns lining the rows of tables down the center of the restaurant, and at every table, a window painted with a different Greek landmark from the Acropolis to Santorini to the Parthenon.
“Bianca!” an older Greek man shouts, coming out from behind the bar in the front, head to toe in white, which matches the thick thatch of hair on the top of his head and the neatly trimmed beard. Tall and broad, he doesn’t look anything like either of her parents.
“Theíos!” she says, as she’s swept up into his arms.
“A doctor, the first in the family,” he says, squeezing her tight, lifting her off her feet for a second before finally putting her down. Xavier likes this guy already.
She turns back to Xavier with a smile. “Uncle Peter, this is Xavier.”
