I give him a look. “Just for that, I’m not offering to make anything special for you, Dr. Spock. How’s the dating app going?”
“Well, it’s out on the market now.” Jackson brushes some lint off his shirt. “Still testing, but we’ll see. I can give you a code if you’d like to get in on the beta.”
“Oh, Kenna doesn’t need your app,” Isla says, smiling. “Cupid’s arrow has already struck this one.” She grins knowingly, staring at me. Wait, how does she know?
And then I realize that the whole table is staring at me. At my neck. I can see the butterfly-shaped hickey reflected in the coffeepot.
Oh my God.
“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” I say, rushing back toward the kitchen, wondering whether I can use a cloth napkin as a neck kerchief, or if there’s anything else in there I can use to mitigate the situation.
I’m so preoccupied that I barrel right into someone coming in through the back door of the kitchen.
“Kenna!” my uncle Nick calls out. He’s accompanied by Uncle Stavros, and they are both holding suitcases.
* * *
“What are you doing here?” I ask incredulously.
“We got bored,” Uncle Nick shrugs. “This one”—he points at Uncle Stavros—“decided he was the cheese police, the unelected island authority on feta. He started leaving reviews on Tripadvisor, ripping into most of the dockside cafés. I had to get him out of there before he made us both persona non grata.”
“I don’t care if it’s just for the tourists,” Stavros bursts out. “There’s no excuse for serving such low-quality feta. I wouldn’t feed that feta to my donkeys!”
“Stavros, do donkeys eat feta?” Uncle Nick asks.
I fling myself at them. “I missed you both so much!”
“We missed you, too, Kenna. And we’re sorry. We shouldn’t have blindsided you with our plans like we did. And forgetting gotcha day on top of that? I’m ashamed of us,” Uncle Nick says.
“That’s okay,” I say. “You two deserve a break. Nobody’s worked harder than the two of you. But if it’s not too crazy an idea to consider,” I say, taking a deep breath, “I’d like to keep the diner in the family. I’d like to continue to run it after you retire, and of course, you’d still be the majority owners.”
“Well, thank you, Kenna.” Uncle Nick looks at Uncle Stavros. “But that won’t be necessary.”
“What?” I look from one to the other, feeling the icy tendrils of panic coming for me. “Did you receive an offer on the place already? Is that why you came back early?”
“No, Kenna, no! What your uncle Nick is trying to say is that we are not selling the diner.” Stavros hugs me again.
“We don’t need you to run the diner just yet because we are not retiring. We changed our minds,” Uncle Nick says. “This fool was in such a hurry to get back here to his beloved kitchen that he didn’t even want to stop home and drop off the bags.”
Stavros opens the refrigerator and pulls out a tub of locally made feta. “This,” he says, shaking the fluid-filled tub, “is a FETA. Who would have thought I would have to go all the way to Mykonos to get supermarket cheese. Pre-crumbled. Feh!”
“What about the condo you got in Mykonos?” I ask.
“That’s the best part,” Uncle Nick says. “Income property. We can keep it rented out for most of the year, except for when we want to visit. It’ll add to our nest egg for retirement. When we decide we actually do want to retire.”
“Promise you’ll give me a little more notice next time if you do?” I ask, wiping tears from my eyes.
“There’s actually another reason we came to the diner before heading home,” Nick confesses.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“I wanted to bake your gotcha day cake.”
“Oh wow,” I smile. “You don’t have to do that, Uncle Nick.”
“Yes, I do!” he insists.
“But you must be tired from the trip,” I protest.
