Chapter Nine
Ian
“…and then Clive took his first bite, and I swear to God, I don’t think Dad will ever let him back in the house,” my older brother said over the ambient buzz of the tattoo machine. “Not liking moussaka? It’s a Greek felony. It just can’t be allowed in the Pallas home.” He shook his head. “Especially Nana’s recipe. God, what an idiot.”
I bent over a particularly complicated bit of shading on Nicky’s Greek pantheon tattoo sleeve, teeth gritted in concentration as I filled it in with a gentle touch.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nicky’s fiancée, Kresley, said from her perch in the corner, where she sat hunched over her sketchbook. “It’s just moussaka. It’s not like he hates Greek food, period.” She looked up. “That would be the real insult, don’t you think?”
“I agree with Kresley.” I dabbed at Nicky’s arm with a paper towel, sponging away the stray droplets of ink to reveal the art underneath. “Anyway, Clive’s a good guy. Dad just gets into it with him because he’s so much older than Frankie. Clive makes her happy, and that’s the most important thing.”
Kresley straightened, setting her sketchbook to the side as she flicked her long, way blonde hair over her shoulder. “Ian’s right,” she said with a nod. “That is the most important thing. I’ve never seen Frankie as happy as she is now.”
“Speaking of disgustingly happy people,” I said as I touched the machine to another section of Nicky’s arm. “How’s the wedding planning going?”
I looked up at them just in time to see the two of them exchange glances.
“It’s not going badly,” Kresley started, just as Nick cut in with, “Total nightmare.”
“Well, which is it?” I wiped away another drop of dark ink.
“Kresley and I want something small,” Nick started. “Nothing big, just close friends and family. And Mom—”
“Wants to invite the entire Greek-American diaspora of the Seattle-Tacoma area,” I supplied. I looked over at Kresley for confirmation, and she just shrugged as Nicky nodded emphatically.
“Your mom has a lot of friends through church and the Hellenic Society,” Kresley said, always a peacemaker. “I understand her position, it’s just…not how I feel.” She looked over at Nicky, who smiled at her—a soft and sweet smile. I’d seen it a lot since he’d gotten serious with Kresley.
I wanted that kind of contentment for myself.
“It’s not how we feel,” Nicky said, then took a deep breath. “We’ll get it figured out, though. One way or another.”
I reached for another capful of ink and carefully switched out the needles in the tattoo machine. “I have a question for the two of you.”
Freed from the machine for a few moments, Nick stretched his arms above his head and wiggled in the chair. “Fire away, little brother.”
“How did both of you know that it was…you know, the real thing?” The words came out muddled, but I counted on my big brother, who knew me so well, to understand what I meant. “Did you know right away that it was—"
“True love?” Nicky grinned broadly at me. “Is there something you want to tell us, Ian?”
I was glad that I didn’t have Sam’s fair skin, because I would’ve blushed fire engine red. “Just answer the question, jackass.”
They looked at each other again, like they were having a silent conversation that only they could hear. It was absurd and adorable, and I wanted more than anything to share that with someone myself. And maybe I could, I thought.
Nicky broke the silence first, as Kresley looked on with a gentle half-smile on her beautiful face.
“I think I always knew,” he said. “I could never get her out of my head, not since the first time I met her.”
“Even when you were with Vanessa?”
He nodded. “Even then.”
“I don’t know if I thought about it exactly that way, but I always had it pretty bad for Nick,” Kresley supplied. “I was in a weird place when we got together, and it took me some time to figure out what I was really feeling.” She looked over at Nicky and smiled. “This guy never had any doubts, though.”
“We could always tell.” I scooted the wheeled stool around to the other side of the chair and bent over Nicky’s other arm for the next bit of touch-up. “For years, when we saw the way that he looked at you, and the way you kept sneaking glances over at him—a blind man could’ve seen it coming.”
I concentrated on my work while the two of them murmured sweetly to each other, but my mind drifted back to the way the two of them had always seemed connected. They were an inevitability, I’d always thought, and when Nicky called and told me that they’d worked it out, that they were together for real, it was no surprise. And I wondered if the pull that I felt toward Sam was that way, if we could look forward to the same kind of future.
That future—a stable and loving relationship, shared plans and silent communication—I didn’t want it with just anyone, I realized. I wanted it with Sam.