Page 6 of Love on the Rocks
“Are you allowed to fly?” Liv was expecting a baby, and the last time I’d seen her she’d already looked about ready to pop.
“Yes, I can fly. I’m not due for three more months.” She laughed. “I’ll just have to convince Jake that we need a Greek vacation.”
“Tell him there’s amazing wine on the island.”
“Is there?”
“I don’t know. Probably? Doesn’t every Mediterranean country have some sort of ancient winemaking tradition?” It was frightening how little I knew about Lyra. After a quick internet search, I’d discovered that it was a tiny island with around four hundred inhabitants, and it wasn’t on any of the main ferry routes. Closer to Turkey than mainland Greece, it was part of a chain of islands in the Dodecanese prone to seismic activity; apparently there’d been an earthquake a few decades ago that had nearly decimated the main port. Knock on wood that the ground wouldn’t tremble beneath me while I was there.
“What time do you land?” Olivia asked.
“My flight gets into Athens at noon. Oh my God!” I stared at the space in my suitcase. “I might have enough time to goto that boutique I told you about. The one that sells those gorgeous dresses.” I’d gone to Athens once as a teenager with my grandmother. We’d stumbled on this small store with the most beautiful handmade clothes—boho chic before it was chic. I still religiously wore the beaded chiffon kimono that I’d bought there whenever I thought up recipes late at night. I’d dreamed of going back there one day. And—dammit—I deserved a treat for uprooting my life for the Greystones again.
I removed a pair of jeans and an old sweater from my suitcase to make room for future purchases. “One pair of jeans should be fine, right?”
Liv laughed. “I can already see you prancing through the prickly pear in a ball gown and heels. Seriously, Cal, will you please call me as soon as you get in?”
“Yes, little mama, I will call you. Kiss Daddy Jake for me.”
“Why does that sound so dirty coming from you?” she asked, annoyed that I still loved to tease her for shacking up with an older man.
“That’s your mind, poulette, not mine. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Okay, bye, love ya.”
After I hung up, I went back to trying to pare my packing down to the bare essentials. But who was I kidding? There was no way I was going to take just one suitcase. I lugged a second one down from the crawl space in the attic, reasoning that I had no idea how long I’d be there and there were my books to think of. I had to take books!
A lifelong reader, I always had a book—usually a romance—stuffed away in my bag. That’s how Liv and I met back at the University of Michigan. I’d had the idea for a Books and Cooks club for weirdos like me who got inspired by descriptions of food in fiction. Turns out Liv was the only other weirdo with the same passion for inventing recipes based on stories she read.
When she showed up at the first meeting, we hit it off immediately. We’d lived together for a couple years before I went to culinary school. She’d followed me to Paris, and we’d roomed together again before I took off for London and she’d gotten hitched to Jake.
At least Liv had gotten her HEA, I mused as I thumbed through an old romance novel that I revisited annually—my grandmother’s copy ofOne Week with the Greek. It was one of those old-school category romances from the ’90s that had imprinted on my adolescent brain, and that I’d devoured while playing sick from school. In eighth grade, I’d developed a case of chronic stomachache that kept me home from school; and only Nana knew that I wasn’t really sick, I’d just developed Greek Tycoon fever. Like any good codependent, she’d fed my addiction. When my mom, a high school French teacher, had discovered what I was reading and threatened to take my books away, Nana came to my defense.
“She should be reading books where female pleasure is celebrated and comes before a man’s.” I still use that argument when I defend romance books today.
“You’re coming with me,” I said, setting the book on my bed. It seemed right to take something that had belonged to my Greek-obsessed grandmother back to the country she loved.
After my bags were packed, I made the mistake of going on to Instagram, and who popped into my feed but Gazzer himself at the opening of a new restaurant in Islington. It reminded me of the last opening I’d attended a few months ago when Gaz and I were still a thing—just what that thing was was up to debate. I’d been so pleased that he’d invited me and had actually believed it would be a turning point in our relationship. But then when we got there, he asked me to pretend like we weren’t together.
“It’s too much, Cal. You know I’m mad for you, but I have to keep up a certain aura of unattainability.” His excuse had hurt then, and my stomach cramped thinking about it now.
The subtext wasn’t lost on me. Once again, I was too much. Our relationship was too much for him. And that had been that. I told myself I wouldn’t go back again.
Now here he was at the opening, his lean arm draped casually over the shoulder of some thin, gorgeous brunette. I looked at the caption—an influencer with half a million followers. He held the camera up as he leaned in and kissed her.
I knew I shouldn’t have felt anything. Things were long over between us, but my stomach cramped again. Not because I still wanted him, but from the hurt that came with that old familiar feeling of being too much, not right.
Overcome by a mix of anger and anxiety, I ran to the bathroom and heaved. After splashing water on my face, I was more determined than ever to make this gamble work for me.
I sent a quick text message to Anne-Sophie Granger:Hi, Anne-So. Great news! I’m opening a restaurant in Greece. Any chance your offer still stands?
She fired back a response immediately.Fabulous! Let me know when you’ve got it up and running.
Yes! And now, I was going to pack another damn suitcase of self-care items that included my vibrators and the stack of romance novels by my bed. At least my book boyfriends didn’t let me down.
When I’d finished packing, I curled up in bed with my OG book boyfriend, Angelos Mavromatis.
Mia’s eyes snagged on a tall man leaning against a marble column. His hair was inky black, his eyes as dark as Kalamata olives. She imagined how his firm lips would feel against hers and without noticing, tracedher bottom lip. His eyes tracked the movement like a predator. Her pulse quickened under the heat of his lustful gaze.
