She pulled in alongside Theo, and caught the gleam of her pink top reflected in the dark gloss of his car door. While she unlatched Hannah, he emerged and opened her passenger door to retrieve the diaper bag.
“Can you grab Effie?” she asked. An exuberant toss during the bouncing song resulted in the toy sliding into the front foot well. Her girl’s aim needed finesse, but she had a strong arm.
Before they headed inside, Theo kissed both Hannah and her. Right there in front of the pub windows, no looking first for lurkers. Funny the way her chest warmed to his affection while her stomach curled against confrontation.
If she pitched it right, her question wouldn’t at all sound like her nerves had a hold of every finger and toe, leaving her unsure about basics like walking head-on into the brewery. “You’re feeling sure about this?”
He smiled, and the lift of his cheekbones helped ground her. “Oh, yeah. But it’s up to you. Plenty of options if you change your mind.”
Tempting as retreating to his place for naked time was, she held fast to the reasons for their plan.
The whole point of this dating experiment was to see if they had more to them than chemistry, which meant lower key nights less likely to land them in intense talks or bed. Or both. Also, Elixir was Theo’s place and he wanted to show it off to her. And Sergei and Depy needed to see all their scorn and derision and snide comments—they’d both received plenty in the two days since Theo told Sergei about their relationship—had no impact on Rachel’s dating life.
She deserved freedom from all that.
Leaning into the arm Theo wrapped across her shoulder, she smiled. “Let’s do this.”
Depy mock-spat thrice at the floor when they walked in together. He almost lost all composure. Nearly straight-faced, he turned to Adela at the host stand. “Can you set us up at table fourteen, maybe? Is that Marti’s section tonight?”
“It is. You got it, boss.”
“Thanks, mastermind.”
Rachel raised eyebrows at him. “It’s what she calls herself; don’t blame me. Besides, Sergei hates it.”
“Okay then.” She kissed Hannah’s curls. “Let’s get you over to Dad and Depy, eh?”
“Want me—”
“Nah.” She took the diaper bag and he placed Effie in Hannah’s hands. “Meet you at table fourteen, wherever that is.”
He did laugh at that. “It’s the one by the window over there. Far side of the bar.”
“Got it.”
He could head that way himself any time. No need at all to watch Depy snatch up Hannah, to smirk at the ostentatious way Sergei put a hand each on his mother and daughter, to share a grin with Rachel behind their backs.
She didn’t want him acting the dragon, so instead of walking towards her, he leaned over the reservation book and scanned the parties for the rest of the night. Not that anyone needed his input; Adela had everything under control as usual. He pulled out his phone and made a note to offer her hours if she wanted to stick around once the school year got underway.
“Ready?”
There, he’d filled his head with enough Elixir business to pretend he wasn’t lurking within earshot of the Matsouka family. “For you? Absolutely.” He guided her to fourteen and held her chair, positioning them both with a view to the kegs. And out of Sergei’s sight. Not for his sake, but so Hannah wouldn’t be confused.
He swallowed the nervous awkwardness and jumped in with the boilerplate details about brewing and cuisine. How he and Ron became friends online, back during their home brewing days, and partnered up when he dropped the hobby and Ron was ready to elevate it to a career. Market research and flavor profiles and remodeling the former service station to make it their own. She didn’t quite glaze over but he knew wandering interest when he saw it. “Right. You don’t need the sales pitch. Sorry. I’m pretending neither of us are listening for Hannah or wondering how powerful Depy’s curses are.”
She took the oil from the cruet set and coaxed a drop into her water glass. It floated. “We’re safe.”
He laughed. “How did you know to do that?” He’d never encountered a non-Greek who knew the trick to ensuring no evil eye cursed you.
“It’s not like I ruined every moment of Depy’s life by taking her one and only grandchild away the moment we met. I had a good few years of being her daughter-in-law first. That woman spat three times as I walked up the aisle at my wedding. She taught me to be as Greek as possible, despite my inferior DNA.”
Three seconds with the woman and he strained to leash his effusive feelings. She was such a danger to his equanimity. “I can totally imagine the stare-down you’d have with my own grandmother.”
With a deft move, she spooned the oil out of her water glass before it had a chance to sink. “Does she live in Houston?”
He launched into his family tree—the Greek-American and the Mexican-American and the few outliers in between. And included the reassurance that Tomás was the only one she risked running into in Houston.
“But didn’t you grow up here?”
He nodded. “My parents moved to Georgetown for Mom’s job last year. And my sisters and their families are all in Austin, which explains why Mom was looking for a job out that way to start with.”
“Is that hard?”
He sensed a deeper meaning in her question. “Which part? Having everyone out of town?”
She shook her head once. “Your parents choosing your sisters.”
Ah. She’d mentioned this with her own family a bit. “I don’t think of it like that.”
And damn if his throat wasn’t wrapped in thorns all the sudden. He’d caught himself in a lie, and couldn’t scrape up the presence of mind to move past it. He licked his lips. “Or maybe I do. Some. Not ... not that I’d realized before just now. It helps that Mom’s so into her job. And they were here when Andres was a baby, which helped us out a lot. I know my sisters both groused about how easy I had it with the babysitting, especially Helen when her twins were new. Anyway, since I travel to Andres most of the time, they only were seeing him during the longer visits, and that was hard on them.”
She nodded, but left him with the strong impression his revelations had skittered right past her. Which was fine. He was the one who needed to process a truth about himself.
She, though. She’d asked about his parents choosing his sisters like physical proximity determined emotional connection. “Do you and your sister get along?”
She blinked a quick code, and he second-thought bringing it up in the middle of his pub. She answered, though. “When we were little, we did. She’s four years older, and she liked to play good cop for me. Looking out for me, telling me what to do. But helping, too, you know? Reading me all the rules when we played a game, picking what I’d like off restaurant menus, that kind of thing.”
“Because of your dyslexia?”
She stilled, and he wondered if he’d broken a rule by mentioning it. But she’d brought it up earlier like no big deal.
She blew out a breath and sipped her water. “No, I think because she was that much older and a little bossy. But telling you about it, I see how many of my examples are her reading for me, and how it became the norm for us. For all of us. I wonder ... it’s nothing. A question Aunt Johnston asked once, about how I went undiagnosed until I was eleven. Mom and Dad went poker-spined at that, and it infuriated me, you know? But now....”
“Hey.” He took her hand. “It’s fine. Maybe your sister picking menu items was part of your coping mechanisms, but it wasn’t anything she or you did deliberately to.... To whatever. Trick anyone. Delay your diagnosis. Whatever else you’re thinking.”
Her knuckles tensed under his palm. He circled his index finger on her wrist. Smiled up at Marti dropping off their beer. Waited.
“Way to take my mind off Hannah.”
He drummed the fingers of his free hand on the table. “Not my precise intention, but I’m glad to help?”
Rotating her hand, she intertwined their fingers. Squeezed. “Okay, stop being cute. Tonight’s supposed to be chill hanging out, not more heavy shit. I showed up all ready to enjoy a meal and be low key flirted with. You keep making those eyes at me and I start wondering if anyone notices us disappearing into your office.”
Yeah, he wasn’t standing up from the table anytime soon. She laughed at his expression. He shook his head in resignation. “Way to derail me from all the deep talk about families of origin.”
She raised her drink for a toast. “We’re quite a pair.”
They sure were. And he devoted the rest of dinner to keeping himself from getting intense about the increasing perfection of their pairing.
His home turf date ended with Hannah’s visitation hours. Serg brought her to the table where they lingered over his peach-rose pie. “She says she wants to go potty.”
Rachel glanced at her phone, not that her ex stuck around for feedback about cutting short his time with his child.
“Sorry.” She gathered everything for the trip to the restroom. “Half the time she just wants the experience of going bottomless, but I have to check.”
“Of course.” He meant it, too. He’d kept his expectations for the night low, anticipating interference from Serg or Depy. So he savored the miracle of eating in peace, skirting past family issues and diving deep into her passion for knitting.
“What a couple of old fogies we are, with your baking and my needles,” she’d said, and hadn’t pulled away—emotionally or physically—at his offhand comment about them taking up roller derby and hang-gliding when they reached their sixties. Just laughed and added traveling to music festivals to the list. Like they were in accord about sharing decades of adventure.
So Sergei’s interruption didn’t derail him at all.
“I’ll hold her while you finish your pie,” he offered when she returned.
“Oh, I don’t....”
“It’s fine. Besides, I asked Marti to bring me a dish of I-C-E C-R-E-A-M in case you need a reward. You can wave her off; I warned her you might.”
“You’re uncanny.”
“Promised a treat, did you?”
“I meant a couple bites of this,” she pointed her fork at the pie. “But your idea is better. She’ll make a mess grabbing at your shirt, though.”
He shrugged. “Must be an inherited trait.”
Her wide eyes and hasty bite told him all he’d wondered about her thoughts on them missing out on intimate contact that night. But soon ... one more week and they’d be at his place, and he’d make her moan without a single slice of his pie in sight.