That One Summer: A Collection of Steamy Contemporary Romance

Chapter 6

Nikos used to playa little game when he was a young boy. He would close his eyes and count how many steps it took him from one place of the hotel to the next. His favorite path had always been finding his way to his grandparents’ house. From his family’s home, it would be eighty-five steps. If he was coming from the office, it would take him twenty-five steps. From the main entrance to the hotel grounds, it would take him two-hundred-twenty-five steps.

This was something that had always brought him so much joy and had helped him map out the hotel. He could move around it with his eyes closed. The memories of him running into walls and having his father or mother correct his steps as he moved around with closed eyes echoed in the halls as he made his way to his Papous and Yiayia. But he had gone a long time without allowing those memories out, and he wasn’t about to do so now.

So, instead of focusing on a spot where he once hit his toes as he mapped out the hotel, he focused on how the paint looked chipped and would need to be fixed before he could take the needed pictures of the hotel. He refused to acknowledge the flowers climbing the ledges as a memory of his mother’s effort to “add personality” to their hotel and instead focused on how they needed to be trimmed and tamed for a more professional look. And, on and on he went, trying to replace the memories he didn’t know he still held with ideas of work and things that needed to be fixed.

By the time he made it to his destination on the other side of the hotel grounds, he had a whole list of tasks he needed to do and not enough time to be nostalgic. It was perfect. Ironically, the nostalgia he was running from jumped out at him as soon as he entered his grandparents’ house. Even before he had entered the house, he had already smelled the food cooking and he could only imagine how much his Yiayia had cooked for them.

He found both of his grandparents in the homey, brightly colored kitchen, his Yiayia bent over a large pot on the stove while his Papous arranged dishes overflowing with food on the counter that sat in the middle of the kitchen.

“Are you expecting company?” Nikos said, his eyes scanning the dishes.

“Nikos, mou!” Yiayia exclaimed when they both turned around to see him. “Come here,” she beckoned, hands outstretched.

She looked just the same as Nikos remembered from the last time he saw her. Her white hair pulled back in a bun, a cloth over it. She wore her favorite black dress with the frilly pink apron Papous had bought her as a present a long time ago. Her face had more smile lines than age lines and her brown eyes were looking at him as warmly as she’d always been.

“Yiayia,” Nikos’ smile stretched wide, matching his grandmother’s as he fell into her embrace. She smelled just like he remembered—a fresh, fruity smell with a lot of baked goods.

Yiayiawas many inches shorter than him, and yet Nikos always felt tiny when she hugged him. It was such a deep reminder of his childhood that the memories he’d been trying to drown out threatened to come back up and remind him of happier times when his parents were still here.

Nikos pulled back, a lump in his throat, and let out a laugh when Yiayia took his face and turned it every which way, like she was assessing him for the very first time. Her hands were warm but her fingers were cold, a contrast that was just so... Yiayia!

“You’ve lost weight,” she commented as she pulled back. “Are you not eating well?” And before he could answer, she added, “Not to worry, I will fix that.” Yiayia pointed to a chair next to where Papous stood, and Nikos took the seat without question.

No matter how many times he told Yiayia that he was taking care of himself and eating well, she always commented on his weight, telling him he looked skinny and needed to eat more. This was usually accompanied by her cooking large amounts of food, like the ones on display all around the kitchen.

After years of teaching him how to cook and take care of himself, you’d think Yiayia was content that she taught him enough to live by. But Nikos wasn’t complaining. It had been a while since someone cared about him enough to worry about things like his health, so he welcomed it wholeheartedly.

Papousgave him a brief hug and then went around to where Yiayia was cooking, picking up a spatula and dipping it in the cooking pot.

“Get out of my kitchen, Dimitrios!” Yiayia shouted at Papous in Greek. “Now, I need to wash this again,” she mumbled as pulled the spatula from his hands and moved to the sink.

“But you don’t have to,” Papous responded as he reached for another spatula, but stopped when Yiayia turned to glare at him. He promptly put his hands up and backed away to move back to the other side of the counter, close to Nikos. “Your Yayioula,” Papous shook his head like he was disappointed, and yet the tiny smile he was wearing said otherwise.

This was a familiar dance Nikos realized he had missed. Ever since he could remember, his grandparents always argued about things like this. Yiayia was the kind to pick up as she cooked, wanting everything to be clean and in order. Papous, on the other hand, preferred cleaning up after the cooking and eating were done, something that drove his wife crazy. He also liked to taste everything he cooked so he could adjust the flavor accordingly, whereas Yiayia didn’t believe in eating food as one cooked.

They never really spent time in the kitchen together because of this, each preferring to let the other do things their way, so Nikos was surprised that they were in the kitchen together now.

“Nikos, how is that girlfriend of yours? What’s her name?” Yiayia asked as she scrubbed the spatula Papous had used.

Nikos quickly shuffled through his memories, trying to remember the last woman he’d introduced to his grandparents. Tammy came to mind. She was a woman he used to have a mutually beneficial friends-with-benefits situation with whom accidentally answered his phone when they called a few months ago.

“Tammy?” he asked tentatively, not sure if that’s who Yiayia meant.

“Yes! Tammy. How is that sweet child?”

Nikos snorted at the fact that his Yiayia thought Tammy was a “sweet girl”. That woman was anything but sweet. However, at the risk of getting hit with the spatula in Yiayia’s hands, he kept that to himself. “She’s okay,” he responded, “But, we, uh, broke up.”

They hadn’t, really. She got freaked out because his grandparents wanted to meet her and that was the last time he ever saw her. Not that it had affected him. He knew where they stood when they’d gotten together. However, he wondered what it would be like to have a woman he truly liked meet his Papous and Yiayia.

“Oh–”

“It’s alright,” he stopped his Yiayia from starting the pity party. “We weren’t a good match.”

“Good match?” Papous scoffed, “Me and your Yiayia didn’t know each other until the day we got married. But look at us now. Fifty-two years later, and I wouldn’t want another woman next to me.” Papous had that twinkle in his eyes that he always got when he spoke about Yiayia and the life they had.

“Love grows, Nikos,” Yiayia said as she smiled at Papous. “You need to be willing to put in the work.”

They shared a look so full of love that Nikos had to look away because it felt like he was intruding on a very private moment.

“Times have changed, Yiayia,” he said, as he reached for a cupcake. “Arranged marriages are not a thing anymore.”

Thankfully! If it was, she would have married him off a long time ago.

“Well, they should be,” Yiayia said, as she swatted his hands from reaching for a second one. “Young people, these days, run away at the first sign of danger, and I will never understand it. Did you know that the Stamopoulos boy is on his fourth wife now? He barely spent a few weeks with the third one.”

“Maybe they weren’t compatible,” Nikos made a throwaway comment as he bit into his muffin. Vanilla with chocolate swirl. His favorite!

Christos Stamopoulos was a friend he grew up with and used to know. He was never the type to settle and was always off, looking for the next big thing. Nikos wasn’t really surprised that the man treated his relationships the same way.

“Not compatible? What does that even mean? You see your grandfather and me? Are we compatible?” She glared at him like he did something wrong.

Nikos shrugged, not wanting to be at the end of Yiayia’s wrath.

“When we first met, I didn’t like his face,” she started.

“Hey!” Papous protested. “I’m sitting right here!”

“He smelled weird,” she continued, like Papous didn’t say anything. “I didn’t like the way he chewed his food or the way he refused to cook for me. There was a lot to not like, but the more I observed, the more I realized there was much more to him. I doubt the Stamopoulos boy is staying long enough to look. Whatever he’s chasing with these relationships, he needs to find it within himself.”

Maybe you should tell him that. Nikos didn’t voice said thoughts, otherwise it might turn into him running errands with her he just could not handle at the moment.

“I hope you are not like that too,” she warned, pointing the clean spatula threateningly in his face. “I want to have grandbabies and that won’t happen if you can’t commit to a relationship.”

Great-grandbabies. The correction was at the tip of his tongue, but Nikos swallowed it down.

His grandparents had married young, and so had his parents. When Yiayia and Papous lost their only son when Nikos was only eight, they took him in and treated him as their own child. I guess it makes sense that they would think of his children as grandbabies and not great-grandbabies. Besides, no one needed that grim reminder right now.

Yiayiathen moved on, talking about all the people they knew and what they were up to, which served as the distraction Nikos needed to close his thoughts from the missing family he never got a chance to share his greatest moments with. That was quite the fit though, since his grandparents had numerous photographs scattered all over the house, the kitchen included, and his parents featured in a lot of them.

By the time he was updated on everything he’d missed on the island, they were finished eating and putting the leftovers away. Yiayia was working on gift baskets of baked goods she was going to send to a few people, something she always did every time she baked quite a lot.

“Nikos,” Papous called him, “walk with me.” He indicated to the back of the house and didn’t wait for Nikos to react before he turned and followed. The look Papous was wearing let him know he might not like the conversation they were about to have. “So, have you decided yet when you are ready to move back and run the family business?” Papous asked as soon as they hit the beach.

Nikos knew the question was coming, and yet he wasn’t prepared. Just knowing that Papous was eager to step down filled him with immense shame that he had to look away from the older man and focus on the people he could see parasailing over the sea.

“I believe in you, Nikos,” Papous said, probably misinterpreting his silence. “You’ve accomplished so much, and I know you’ll succeed in running the business. Your dad would be proud of what you’ve become.” He couldn’t decide what was worse. That Papous thought he only needed a little encouragement, that he was lying, or that if his father was here and he knew of Nikos’ actual plans for the hotel, it would be anything but pride he exuded. After a prolonged silence, Papous shifted his approach, as if sensing Nikos’ inner struggle. “I hope you’ll decide to stay longer with us, my boy. You don’t have to make a decision about the hotel now, but your Yayioula has missed having you around. I have too.”

Although the words sounded anything but, Nikos heard the plea in his Papous’ voice and he just about lost it. He hadn’t cried for any reason in a very long time, but tears were coming to his eyes now, along with the taste of shame bitter on his tongue. Here he was, hoping to sell the hotel, get it off his hands, and move on with the life he had built in America, while his grandparents hoped that he would choose to stay and rebuild a life with them.

For the first time since he got the brilliant idea to sell, Nikos wondered if he was making the right decision after all.