Chapter One
ThecloserXandergotto his parents’ home, the tighter he clenched the wheel.
Skipping Sunday dinner was out of the question, especially today, but he couldn’t resist grumbling a string of curses as he searched for a parking space beneath the bare-limbed maples. He added a few more choice words when his dented Prius jolted over a monster pothole. Typical Seattle—even prosperous neighborhoods like his parents’ had crappy, cratered streets.
The neighbors must hate it when the Anagnos clan assembled for a party. Luxury cars belonging to his siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins filled every parking space in view, including several illegal spots. And no one in his extended family dared miss Aunt Zoe’s seventieth birthday celebration—which meant all of his parents’ generation were septuagenarians now, not that they looked it.
“Good Greek genes,” his dad proudly proclaimed to anyone who’d listen. “Plus good Greek food and good Greek luck.”
Unless you were a second son. Then you were screwed.
Xander checked his reflection in the rear-view mirror—no green in his teeth, no eye boogers, hair tamed for the occasion with enough product to subdue the unruliest curls, even in the February drizzle. “Three hours, tops,” he promised himself as he climbed out and fetched Zoe’s gift from the back seat—a basket of gourmet goodies salvaged from his defunct shop, along with a few bottles from his recently closed wine bar.
He straightened his shoulders, pasted on a painfully fake smile, and strode up the flagstone walkway. Overhead, a crow squawked and dropped a splat of shit right in his path.
He glared at the feathered harbinger. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m cursed. Now, fuck off.”
On his way to the living room, he scanned the hallway photo gallery—a gilt-framed shots of Mama, Baba, and older brother Dimitrios in front of Niko’s Taverna, the iconic Greek restaurant founded by his great-great-grandparents, along with elder sister Elena behind the counter of her artsy Capitol Hill coffee shop, and a glowing newspaper review of younger sisters Sofia and Irida’s downtown lunch place.
But the photo of his wine bar’s grand opening was gone, replaced by a picture of his nephew’s soccer championship. The kid’s team had been knocked out in the quarterfinals, but he still merited a place on the wall of honor.
And Xander did not. Not that he begrudged his siblings’ success. The restaurant business had been his family’s stock-in-trade for generations. Lacking a chef’s training—he’d dropped out of culinary school after a series of unfortunate kitchen accidents—he’d taken a degree in business and tried his hand at food-adjacent pursuits. So what if his first few tries fell through? Failure is just a learning opportunity, as his favorite professor used to say.
He tapped his former spot on the wall. “I’ll be back.”
No one even glanced Xander’s way as he strolled into the noisy, jam-packed living room, deposited his basket on the overflowing gift table, then wandered to the buffet and filled a plate with lemony stuffed grape leaves, flakey spanakopita, and tangy marinated olives.
Easier to evade questions when your mouth is full.
“Alexandros,” a resonant alto voice called out from somewhere near the fireplace. “Come, give your auntie a kiss. And bring me some of those shrimp.”
Juggling two plates and a glass of bone-dry Assyrtiko, he wove through the crowd until he found the birthday girl perched on a velvet armchair between a marble Hercules and a bronze Aphrodite. Zoe was in her glory today, dressed in a pink silk suit, her dark hair lacquered into a helmet, diamonds glittering in her ears and on her fingers.
“Here you go, Theía Z.” He handed over her plate and pecked her cheek.
“My handsomest nephew. Let’s look at you.” Her eyes twinkled. “I don’t care what they say, you’re always a winner in my book, kiddo.”
“Thanks.” Ignoring the backhanded compliment—because why should today be any different?—he widened his phony smile. “And you’re stunning, Theía. Sure you’re not turning thirty?”
“Oh, you.” Tittering like a schoolgirl, she swatted him with her napkin.
“There he is.” His mother bustled across the room, elbowing her relatives aside. She planted her fists on her hips, narrowed her eyes, and inspected him from head to toe. “You look sickly, Alexandros. Aren’t you eating up there in that drafty hovel?”
“It’s not drafty, Mama.” His studio apartment might be cramped and dark, but it was the best he could afford. And if his luck didn’t change soon, he’d have to find lodgings outside the city to escape Seattle’s insane prices.
“It’s a bad neighborhood. My son deserves better.” She patted his cheek. “Please, darling, come home. Baba will make a job for you at the restaurant.”
Nope. Not happening. I’m nearly forty, and I’m not moving back into my childhood room.His fingers drifted toward the envelope in his pocket.
“I’ll be fine, Mama. I’ve got a new opportunity.”
She topped her scoff with an extra helping of stink-eye. “You and your opportunities. They never work out, and you know why?”
“Ma, for cripes’ sake, lay off with that curse nonsense.” Irida, his youngest sister, sidled up to join them. “Xander always lands on his feet, don’t you, bro?”
“Absolutely.” He grinned like a toothpaste model. “No need to worry about me.”
“Enough squabbling,” Zoe insisted, rising from her seat. “It’s my birthday, and I say it’s time to eat.”
