Chapter 37
Merritt had hoped to sleep until Niko got there, but after a brief, dreamless nap, she was wide awake.
She went on a long walk around the city, stopping at a cafe to eat an incredible-looking dinner she barely tasted before returning to her hotel and allowing herself to have one single cigarette by the pool, because fuck it, she was in Europe.
Patience had never been her strong suit, especially when she was waiting for the rest of her life to begin.
Finally, the next morning, her phone buzzed with two texts from him:
Just landed
Where are u?
She immediately responded with the name of her hotel and her room number, then got in the shower, mostly just to pass the time. Still, it felt like forever before she heard the knock on her door, and she flung it open, her heart in her throat.
“Hi,” Niko said, and he looked so perfect she thought she was going to cry.
“Hi,” she said, and threw herself at him before he had a chance to walk in the door. Even fresh off an international flight, he somehow still smelled so good, so him, and the feeling of his arms around her made her feel like a missing limb had grown back.
They stumbled their way into the room, him dropping his bag, his hands in her hair, her mouth on his throat. “Wait,” he said. “Let me rinse off first.”
She followed him into the shower, even though her hair was still wet from her own, worried that if she let him out of her sight, he would disappear again.
“Do you want to talk?” Niko asked, once he’d stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around his hips.
“Later,” Merritt said, pouncing on him again, not even bothering with one.
They passed out before they had the chance to communicate anything more complex than exclamations, instructions, and murmured gratitude, but she woke up in the middle of the night with terrible cramps, just like the doctor had warned her.
A sleepy Niko called down to the front desk and asked for a hot water bottle, some painkillers, and pads, which they sent up along with five bars of chocolate.
They were too jet-lagged to fall back asleep, so in that dark, quiet room, her head on his lap as he stroked her hair, they finally had the conversations they were no longer afraid of.
“So you were pregnant?” Niko asked, his voice rumbling softly through her.
Merritt nodded. “Yeah. Only for a few days, though.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
She twined her hand in his, brushing it against her lips. “That’s okay. You’re here now.”
“Did you…did you know what you were going to do if you were?”
“No. But the fact that I didn’t know was how I knew, you know?”
“I think so,” he said, looking so perplexed that she couldn’t help laughing.
He told her about Grey’s post, the sudden rush of interest in his art, how his sister Alex had offered to help him set up his social media and an online platform to run his business.
It would take him a while to figure everything out—how long he would keep taking handyman and small contracting jobs before he could fully support himself that way—but Merritt practically glowed with pride hearing him talk about it.
His hand stilled on her hair. “Is it a problem that I can’t…I don’t know. Provide for you?”
She shifted her head, meeting his eyes. “Like, financially? No, not at all. Is it a problem for you?”
He inhaled, her head gently rising with the movement.
“I don’t want it to be,” he admitted. “But it’s been pretty ingrained in me for most of my life that that’s my job as a man.
Not that I care about traditional roles, or having a traditional relationship, or anything like that.
But…there’s something about the idea of being able to take care of someone, I guess. ”
She tightened her grip on his hand. “You do take care of me, Niko,” she said quietly.
“In every way that matters.” He smiled softly and brushed her hair away from her face, his palm lingering against her cheek.
She leaned into his touch and closed her eyes.
“And I want to take care of you, too. This is all really new for me. Loving someone like this. I don’t…
I’m not…I can’t promise it’ll always be easy.
That I’ll always be easy. But I promise to never stop trying. ”
“I’ve heard that trying is half the battle,” he said, echoing her words from the first night they’d spent together, her body warming at the memory.
“I don’t want it to be a battle.” Her voice was half a whisper.
“Even if it is sometimes,” he said, “we’re fighting on the same side. Always.”
She’d thought she’d already cried out every tear she had, but it turned out she was wrong.
They spent the next two days keeping close to the hotel, but on the third day, Merritt felt well enough to make the drive to see his family, all of whom had gathered in his grandmother’s village.
As they sped down the winding two-lane road through the mountains, Merritt barely took in the scenery, her stomach knotted with nerves.
“Do you think they’ll like me?”
Niko nodded emphatically. “They’ll love you.” He shot her a sideways glance. “You’re not Greek at all, are you? Like, even a little bit? That would go a long way.”
She shook her head. “I think I’m mostly Eastern Europe. Sorry.”
He shrugged. “That’s okay. It’ll probably be fine. Although, sometimes I think my grandparents were more upset that my dad wasn’t Greek than anything else.”
She whipped her head at him. “Wait. Your dad isn’t Greek?”
“Italian.”
“But you have a Greek last name.”
“It’s my mom’s. They never married.”
Merritt’s eyebrows shot to her hairline, her jaw hanging open.
“You’ve only been half-Greek this whole time?
Wow. Sorry, not interested anymore.” She put her hand on the door handle, like she was about to fling it open and barrel-roll into the road.
Niko laughed, sliding his hand to the back of her neck and giving her a light, affectionate squeeze.
When they pulled up to his grandparents’ cottage, Merritt quickly lost count of the number of cousins, aunts, and uncles she was introduced to, all swarming her and Niko, laughing and talking in rapid-fire Greek.
She hugged his mother, a petite woman with the biggest eyes Merritt had ever seen, and his grandmother, who looked almost identical, but twenty years older.
As soon as his grandmother greeted Merritt, she turned and asked Niko a stern-sounding question. In response, he shrugged, saying something evasive.
“She just asked if I was Greek, didn’t she?” Merritt muttered into his ear. He laughed, slinging an arm over her shoulder and kissing her temple.
Niko had filled her in on the situation with his mom and grandparents, warning they might be walking into a war zone, but whatever had transpired between them before they got there seemed to have gone well.
Still, there was a hesitancy between them, a stilted politeness, the deference of relearning one another after so long apart.
Watching them gave Merritt a strange ache. Jealousy, maybe, for an estrangement that could be repaired.
Watching Niko watch them, though, was almost enough to neutralize it.
After several days of what felt like one continuous family party, they departed for Santorini for their last two nights before they headed back.
They spent most of the next thirty-six hours in bed, occasionally throwing clothes back on long enough to swim, sightsee, and eat some of the most unbelievable meals of Merritt’s life.
The night before they left, they had dinner on their balcony overlooking the hillside, cobalt-blue water stretching as far as the eye could see.
“You know,” said Merritt thoughtfully, “it’s kind of funny that you love ABBA so much. Because of the whole Mamma Mia! thing.”
Niko glanced at her, his face blank. “What’s Mamma Mia!?”
She stared at him incredulously until he broke into a grin. “Just kidding. The Crested Peak Community Players did it a few years ago; I helped build the sets. It was pretty fun.”
She laughed, then wrapped her bare ankle around his. “This really is the most incredible place,” she said softly. “Thank you for showing me.”
“I feel lucky I got the chance to.”
“Should we just stay here forever?”
He looked out over the ocean, like he was actually contemplating the idea.
“Nah,” he said, meeting her gaze, the side of his mouth turning up, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Let’s go home.”