Chapter Seven #2
“Ope,” she said, falling again and again.
Every time they tried getting up, they slid back into each other’s arms. And each time, a searing pain shot through his shoulder.
She eventually rolled off him and got on all fours as he slowly stood up and reached down to help her.
He took both of her hands and pulled her up, and she wobbled on the slick liquid before finally making her way to standing in front of him.
“Sure could have used some of this slippery shit back at Ma Barker’s,” she said. They took one look at each other, and burst out laughing, recalling the day Dani got stuck in their neighbor’s window.
Dani leaned into Theo’s chest, burying her laugh in him.
God, he loved her laugh. He’d heard it so many times, yet it still gave him warm fuzzies.
He thought of their night at Palmer’s, laughing and singing karaoke.
What he wouldn’t do to go back to that night.
To say the fuck with it. To tell her how he’d really felt when she spoke those words.
It’s always been you.
But his smile faded when Maurice walked over, glowering at them.
“We need to go,” he said.
A crowd had gathered around them, people stopping and gawking. An older employee rushed over, holding his hands on his head.
“What happened?” he asked the stock boy.
The boy explained that Theo had bumped into the display, and the other man, presumably the store manager, started yelling that they needed to pay for all of the damaged bottles.
“Come on,” Maurice said, brushing the man off and trying to pull Theo and Dani away.
“He says we need to pay,” Theo told Maurice as the manager continued yelling at them in Greek.
“I don’t give a fuck what he says. We’re leaving,” Maurice said.
“I’ll call the police!” the manager said.
The police? Yes, please. This was it. This was their way out!
Theo spun around looking for security cameras. If they left and reviewed the footage, maybe they’d see his face. Recognize who he is.
“Maurice, I think he’s saying something about the police,” Louis said, tugging on his arm.
“So fucking what?”
“So, what if they go looking for…him?” Louis said, nodding his head in Theo’s direction. “What if he’s recognized?”
Fuck!
“Fine, pay them off,” Maurice said to Louis, then turned to Dani and Theo and pointed. “And you two? You’re coming with me.”
Maurice marched them out of the store and straight to the SUV. But the minute Theo and Dani settled into the back seat, Maurice clicked the door locks, reached over the center console, and pulled Theo toward him by the collar.
“You little shit!” he growled.
Theo closed his eyes, bracing himself for impact with Maurice’s fist. After a year together, Theo had grown accustomed to Maurice’s mannerisms and reactions.
One of his least favorites: Maurice’s fist’s attraction to Theo’s face.
Growing up a nerd unfortunately resulted in Theo being on the receiving end of more than his fair share of punches, seeming to be the subject of bullies up until he moved schools and became best friends with Eddie.
Or rather, until he became best friends with Dani’s brother.
Dani was taking on thirteen-year-olds when she was ten, eighteen-year-olds when she was fifteen.
Like that time Bobby Thomas and his buddies cornered him behind the school, and Theo threw a book at them while Dani picked up a fistful of dirt and tossed it in their faces so he could get away.
Nobody messed with Dani or those she cared about.
So as he squeezed his eyes tight waiting for a fist-meets-face connection for longer than normal, he eked one eye open, unsurprised to see Dani beating on Maurice from over the headrest.
“Leave him alone,” Dani called out as Theo struggled to break free from his grasp. “Let him go or I’ll poke your eyes out. It was an accident!”
Glad to see she hadn’t lost her spunk.
“Bullshit!” Maurice said, shoving Theo into the back seat and straightening himself in the front.
Theo held his shoulder, trying not to let the pain show on his face.
“I know you did that on purpose, trying to get away. Do I need to break your nose again? Because I’m getting really tired of having to put you in your place. ”
“I stumbled, that’s all,” Theo protested, though he wasn’t sure how convincing he actually was. Stumbled into an entire pyramidic display of olive oil? Please. This wasn’t the Three Stooges.
“And look,” Dani said, holding up a dark glass bottle of oil, “I got it.”
“Let me see that,” Maurice said, snatching it from her hands. He turned the black bottle in his hands, inspecting it. “This is it?” he barked. “How the fuck is this supposed to help us find the eye?”
Theo barely caught the bottle when Maurice tossed it at his stomach, wincing as he lifted his arm to catch it before it hit him in the same spot where he got hit earlier.
He grunted as he cushioned the bottle with his body—that’s gonna bruise—and he rubbed his abdomen with one hand, while bringing the bottle up to inspect it with the other.
Like Maurice, he turned the bottle in his hand. But unlike Maurice, he actually knew what it said.
Δημητρ?ου
And beneath the word, a symbol. An eye with a μ. Okay. Now Theo was beginning to believe it wasn’t a coincidence.
“What does it say?” Dani asked.
“Demetrios’s.”
As in Demetrios Papantonis, perhaps?
Her eyes lit up and a crack of a smile formed on her face, though it was obvious she fought not to appear too excited. Under normal circumstances, Theo would have been excited, too. Right now, though, all he wanted was to figure out what it all meant.
“Is there anything else?” she asked, scooting closer to him to get a better look. Their sides were flush together and her side- boob accidentally grazed his biceps. Or, at least, he assumed it was an accident.
He pushed the thought out of his mind and turned the bottle over to the back and read the short narrative aloud:
“Demetrios’s olives are grown on the slopes of Chania, Crete. There, our olive trees grow out of the soils made fertile by the watchful eye of our ancestors. We pay respect to Demetrios by making the finest, richest olive oil in all of Crete in the hopes that one day, our ancestors will return.”
“Watchful eye?” Dani said. “Do you think that could be a reference to the eye of the Minotaur?”
“Possibly,” Theo said. He had to admit, it was a pretty interesting word choice on a bottle of olive oil.
“One of you better start explaining what you’re up to,” Maurice said.
Theo had almost forgotten he was sitting in the front seat.
“Oh, just looking for somewhere we can find some souvenirs and gifts to take home to our family and friends, right, honey?” she responded, patting Theo on the leg and leaving her hand resting dangerously close to his inner thigh.
His muscles strained, trying to remain still so she wouldn’t notice his tightening adductors and how her touch affected him.
“Think my mom will finally be willing to swap the lard for olive oil if we get her the good stuff?”
God, she was a smart aleck. Though, no, he didn’t think Mrs. Guiterrez would ever willingly give up her lard.
“We’re up to trying to find the eye so we can go home, Einstein,” Dani said to Maurice, who glared at her. Clearly, he didn’t find her so amusing.
“And how, pray tell, is that bottle of oil going to help you to do that? Explain it to me again like I’m an idiot,” Maurice said.
Dani opened her mouth, likely to deliver another wave of insults, but Theo put his hand on hers, the one resting in his lap, to stop her. He knew from experience that Maurice had his limits. “Babe?” he said, tilting his head to the side and raising his eyebrows. “Let me explain this one.”
He then leaned forward and held up the bottle to Maurice.
“See this symbol here?” he asked, using his thumb on the hand holding the bottle to tap on the μ symbol. “She saw this same symbol on some pieces at the archaeological museum. We think that maybe…maybe the secret to the eye’s location has something to do with it.”
Maurice looked back and forth between the two of them. “A symbol? On a bottle of olive oil?”
“And in the museum,” Dani was quick to point out. Though they both left out the part about his necklace.
“So what are you saying? What are we supposed to do with this information?” Maurice asked.
“We need to go to Demetrios’s Olive Mill in Chania,” Theo said.
“First the grocery store and now an olive mill? What is this? A food tour? I thought you were supposed to be some sort of archaeological expert?” Maurice said.
Theo scanned his surroundings, covered in oil, taken hostage, and unable to undertake even the simplest of schemes to get Dani out of this mess.
Yeah, so did I.