Page 75 of Storm Bound
As Paul left the room, a door opened from the other side of the room that connected it to the kitchen, and Summer walked in with Marina carrying two platters each. Mel followed behind with another.
“Sure. You can trust Summer with two, but only one for me,” she mumbled when she set the platter down.
“Mel, enough whining already,” Luke moaned when he came in from the living room.
He sat down next to Charlie and picked up a ladle to serve himself a load of oily, oven-baked potatoes.
“Put that down, young man. Where are your manners?” Marina scolded him when she came back in with another round of plates.
“I’m starving, woman. You didn’t feed us anything all day. Of course I’ve forgotten my manners. You would, too, if you were starving,” he said.
“Oh, shut up, Luke. You’re a grown man. You could have made something for yourself,” Paul said, returning to the room with two bottles of white wine.
“Uhm, tell that to your mother who wouldn’t let me anywhere near the fridge let alone the stove,” Luke said.
“He’s not wrong,” Andy commented as he and Kyle came and joined us. They sat on the other side of the table, Andy next to Summer, and Kyle next to Andy. Melody sat down next to Luke, and soon Summer and Marina joined. Summer returned to her previous seat, and Marina sat at the other end of the table.
Marina crossed herself three times, and I noticed Paul doing the same. The rest of them just did it once with half as much dedication. Maybe it was a Greek Orthodox thing? I didn’t know. Something to ask Charlie later.
“Tuck in everyone,” Marina said, and Luke rushed back to the plate of potatoes.
Charlie walked me through some of the dishes. Some oily oven-baked eggplants with ground beef, pork belly steaks, pork and beef meatballs, chicken skewers with peppers, a lot of roasted vegetables and dips, and a lot of feta cheese. In fact, I didn’t know if I’d seen more feta in all my life.
“How’s the practice going, Adam? How are you adjusting?” Mel asked.
“It’s going well. It’s a good thing I’ve got Ava and Charlie, though, because I think I’d have lost half my uncle’s patients otherwise,” I replied.
“I still can’t believe he upped and left you without warning,” she said.
“That’s my uncle for you. Twenty years ago, he left his wife and decided to do over his life in the middle of nowhere,” I said, then I realized what I’d said. “Not that it’s the middle of nowhere here. But he’d spent all his life in Grand Rapids and Warren. He’d never even gone south of the state border—”
“Don’t worry, honey. Wearethe middle of nowhere. And I didn’t know Dr. Becker was married before,” Melody said.
“I think he kept it that way,” Paul said.
“Yeah, so he could flirt with all the young ladies,” Luke mumbled, and Charlie elbowed him.
I laughed.
“Don’t worry. Everyone knows he was a player. I don’t know what happened to him. My mom doesn’t, either. I guess he kept a lot of it in and it all bubbled up until he exploded? He never explained himself to anyone,” I said.
“And what made you follow in his footsteps?” Paul asked me, and I choked on the wine.
“Paul! That’s rude,” Marina exclaimed.
“What? I meant how come he decided to take over his uncle’s practice,” Charlie’s dad explained, but something told me that was definitely not what he meant.
“Duh,Pappou. He moved here so he can marry Uncle Charlie and live happily ever after,” Summer said with a full mouth and an attempt at a smile.
“Summer,” Charlie said.
Summer looked at the other end of the table at Marina and back at Charlie.
“What did I say? Isn’t it true?”
Oh, Marina was good. I mean, that was obvious before but reinforced now if she’d managed to use Summer’s innocence to drill her point.
Kudos, Marina Karagiannis. Kudos.
