Chapter Twelve
Samantha
“Do I look okay?”
Ian reached over and brushed a strand of hair over my shoulder as we stood on his parent’s porch. “You always look okay. Better than okay. And today, you look stunningly beautiful.”
I caught his hand in mine, squeezing it gently before I pressed a kiss to his fingers. “This is a big deal for me. I’m such an oddball. I hardly dated until college and I never met parents. I always just kind of got ghosted and I—”
“Shh,” he said. He dropped a quick kiss on my lips. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re babbling.”
I breathed deeply—in for four counts, hold for four counts, out for four counts. Square breathing, something I read about as a tool to manage anxiety. It worked—sort of.
“Do you think your mom will like me?” I asked, somewhat more composed after the deep breaths.
“I—" he started, but the words died off as the front door burst open and a petite woman with wild curls and Ian’s dark eyes bustled out.
“Ioannis,” she said sternly. “You’ve been going out with this girl for what, weeks? And you couldn’t bring her around for family dinner?” She wrapped a gentle, but firm hand around my forearm and pulled me forward. “Welcome to our home, Samantha. I’m Christine and I’m sorry that my precious son left you hanging for so long.”
She pressed a motherly hand to my back as she led me into the house, and into a bright, warm kitchen. I glanced back over my shoulder at Ian, still on the porch. He rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air, as if to tell me that he was officially no longer in charge.
Christine didn’t stop talking, barely taking a breath as she parked me on a bar stool in the kitchen, whipping out a wine glass and filling it with a generous amount of red wine. But just as she was about to push it toward me, she paled, and went as still as one of the reproduction Greek statues that decorated her front garden.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I’m such an idiot.” Her eyes found mine, her mortification clear. “I should’ve asked, are you—do you—”
“Mom, keep your shirt on,” Ian said as he stomped in behind me. “Sam can have a glass of wine if she feels like it.”
I glanced over at Ian as he strode toward the fridge, and he just shrugged. I wasn’t a heavy drinker, just a glass of wine or a beer now and then—but since Ian had entered my life, I’d abstained entirely, and we hadn’t yet discussed how he felt when he saw others drink. How he would feel if I drank around him. Relieved that he didn’t mind—though not as relieved as Christine seemed to be as she sagged over the kitchen island—I wrapped my hands around the wide bell of the glass and took a small sip.
“There’s some of that non-alcoholic beer you like in the refrigerator, Ian,” Christine said as she composed herself. She pushed her wild hair out of her face and moved to the sink, briskly washing her hands before she attacked a pile of greens with a chef’s knife.
“Thanks, Mom,” Ian said. He reached into the fridge and grabbed one of the frosty green bottles, tossing me a wink as I stared in confusion. Mildly, he explained, “It doesn’t actually taste good at all, and it’s obviously not beer, but it makes me feel like I’m breaking the rules, and that kind of satisfies my rebellious streak.” He glanced down at the bottle as he cracked the lid. “I wouldn’t do it if I thought it was a threat to my sobriety.”
I sipped my wine, aware that Christine, still madly chopping salad greens, hung onto every word. That anything we said to each other would likely make its way through the rest of the Pallas family before the day was through. “I trust you, Ian.”
He smiled. “I know you do.” He leaned in closer and dropped a brief kiss on the top of my head, adding in a low voice, “Don’t worry. You won’t be the only non-Pallas here.”
Right on cue, the kitchen door opened again, and a petite woman with the same dark, wild curls as Christine stepped inside, followed by a tall man with a close-cropped beard. Ian’s sister Frankie and her fiancé Clive, if I recalled correctly.
Christine abandoned the greens immediately, charging over to wrap her daughter in her arms. “How’s my grandbaby?” she murmured.
Frankie pulled back far enough to pat her lower belly, the faint roundness just visible through her close-fitting shirt. “Everything’s fine. Officially in the second trimester tomorrow. I think this guy—” she jerked a thumb at Clive, who gazed down at her like she hung the moon itself— “is having a rougher pregnancy than I am. I had to tell him that he didn’t need to buy an at-home sonogram machine so we could watch the baby 24/7.”
Clive just shrugged, a goofy smile still fixed on his handsome face. “I’m out of practice with babies.” He brushed a gentle hand over Frankie’s belly. “It’s been so long—I just want to make sure everything is okay.”
“Yeah, you’re an old man, but I love you anyway,” Frankie teased, patting his cheek, a large diamond winking on her finger. She turned to me, her smile widening as she took a step forward with her arms open. “You must be Sam. Welcome to our crazy family.” She folded her arms around me in a gentle hug. “It’s great to meet you.”
Under Ian’s watchful eye, I hugged her back, cautious of the baby bump. “Congratulations,” I murmured. “You must be so excited.”
Frankie’s answering smile was radiant as she ran a hand over her tummy. “Thank you,” she said as her tiny hand with the sparkling diamond lingered on that roundness. “We really, really are happy and excited to meet this little one.”
Ian’s family reminded me so much of Annie’s—the noise, the laughter, the gentle ribbing—and instead of my customary nervousness at new situations and larger groups of people, I felt at home. Included. The dinner table was the kind of friendly chaos that I didn’t even realize I had missed—talking, laughter, sharing and the teasing that only families can get away with.
“Run this by me again,” Ian’s dad, Stavros, said at dinner as he stabbed at his plate of baked fish. “The two of you met at knitting class? At the senior center?”
Under the table, Ian’s hand squeezed my thigh, warm and reassuring. He nodded at his dad. “Yeah. Sam was—is—my knitting teacher. At the senior center.”
“Interesting.” Stavros thought for a second, then looked at me. “I have this sweater with a hole in it, and maybe you could take a look—”