Page 51 of Given Our History

Teddy drags a hand down his face, but by the time he pulls it away, he’s barely containing a smile. “Do we have to do this right now?”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re on a schedule.” She rolls her eyes at the drop ceiling. I get the impression that she’s the sort of woman who operates on her own time. For a commercial kitchen, this whole place is immaculate. And here she is, working alone after hours. “Aprons are hanging over by the walk-in. Let’s put you both to work.”

I wasn’t expecting to help prep the food, but who am I to complain? This is an unexpected window into Teddy’s life. I grab one of the black aprons off the wall next to the walk-in freezer and tie it around my waist, double-knotting for good measure before joining Dimitra over at the prep table. She suggests moussaka and pastitsio for the entrees, both casserole-type dishes that would be easy to store in serving trays and reheat, and instructs me on how to slice and rinse the eggplants before soaking them in a colander.

Teddy’s already prepping ingredients for a vegetarian pastitsio like it’s second nature, and I suppose maybe it is. He wasn’t always forthcoming about his parents. His relationship with his dad was strained at times, I knew, and I always got the impression that his mom was overbearing. But maybe that was a side effect of her circumstance—having so little control over her own life that she felt the need to exert control over the one person she could.

“I was so sorry to hear about your husband’s passing,” I say in the middle of peeling potatoes for the moussaka. I’m not sure what else to say—I wish Teddy would’ve reached out to me. I wish we never had our falling-out, and then maybe I could have been there for him.

She sucks her teeth, a sort of sympathetic tsk, and touches my elbow as she moves around me to grab the colander of sliced eggplant. But she doesn’t say anything, none of the usual platitudes about how she misses him but knows he’s in a better place. I imagine it’s complicated. They weren’t exactly happy, the way Teddy relayed it. But they still shared a life together.

We work in silence for a while, and when we get tired of that, to a soundtrack of eighties synthpop, which Dimitra blasts so loud, the little speaker rattles the stainless steel. “Helps me concentrate,” she shouts over Depeche Mode. I meet Teddy’s eye from across the prep table, both of us chuckling. His eyes crinkle at the corners and even after he looks back down at his work, the smile lingers. And I’m suddenly, acutely aware of just how much I’ve missed him.

How many moments like this, how many late nights and shared laughs have we missed out on? I don’t have to do the math to know that it’s too many. But somewhere between him showing up here at the start of term and now, I’ve started to think of him as a friend again.

Dimitra’s speaker has run out of battery by the time we finish up for the night. I’m not sure how many hours of work we put in, but Teddy promises he’ll come back first thing in the morning to finish up any prep work.

Dimitra serves a small cup of espresso to help me stay awake on the drive home. “Best of luck with your gala.”

“It was really lovely to meet you,” I say again, but it’s less of a formality this time. I didn’t expect to stay up past midnight tonight, but it’s been a delight.

She winks. “I hope I’ll be seeing more of you.”

With that, she slips out the back. Teddy excuses himself to the dining room to lock up for the night. “We’ll leave through the back, too,” he explains, walking backward out of the kitchen. “Front door always sticks when you try to lock it from the outside.”

I nod and watch him go, my hip leaning into a prep table that’s covered in flour, bits of onion skin, and dirty knives, which Teddy insists he’ll clean in the morning. I’m wired enough that I’m not even sure I need the espresso, but I sip it anyway. It’s thick and bitter and a touch tart, nothing like the coffee I brew at home. But I like it.

Teddy returns a moment later. His glasses are hooked on the neck of his black T-shirt, which is dusted in white. “You are covered in flour,” I inform him, brushing off his shoulder with a hand, but it’s a fruitless effort.

He reaches into a measuring cup and pinches out some flour, swiping it across my cheek. I scrunch up my face. “So are you.”

I laugh, setting down my espresso, and swipe my cheek.

“Ready to head out?” he asks.

“Yes,” I lie.

His gaze sweeps over me and he quirks a brow. I look down. I’m still wearing my apron. With a snort, I push off the table and reach behind my back. I fumble trying to undo the double knot. Funny how the simplest tasks are complicated by the smallest shift in perspective. Like reaching for the shifter when you’re seated on the right side of the car, or trying to tie someone else’s shoe.

“Here, let me.”

Teddy steps up behind me, his fingers brushing against mine. I clasp my hands in front of me and stare down at the breast pocket while he works, my cheeks heating. Taverna Eliopoulos is embroidered there in sleek black thread, camouflaged on the dark fabric. “Who is Eliopoulos?” I ask, just to break the silence.

“That’s her maiden name.” His fingers work the knot loose and I duck out from under the apron, turning to face him. We’re standing quite close, but he makes no move to back away. I can feel the warmth radiating from him, see the flour dusting his hair, tinting the brown white.

I fold the apron and set it on the table, my hand resting there. “So you must’ve been raised really Greek.”

“Define ‘really Greek.’”

“I don’t know.” Really, I have no idea what I meant by that. It just came out, something to fill the silence. “Like the family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

He laughs under his breath. “Ah, no.” I peer at him, questioning, and after a few seconds he deigns to elaborate. “My mom was kind of isolated from her family, to be honest. I didn’t meet her sister until I took the trip to Europe that one summer.”

His hand rests on the table next to my apron, fingers splayed wide. His dad’s ring is on his finger, flour and dough packed into the hairline engraving. I wonder why he wears it, what was said before his dad passed. Maybe it’s because he shares his dad’s name; sometimes things are as simple as that.

I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to drive home, suffering through an hour of silence, or cranking up the radio in an attempt to drown out my thoughts.

“This was nice,” I say. “Unexpected, but nice.” I drag my gaze back to his, willing myself to just say it, to get it out in the open, because denying it hasn’t done me any favors. And he did invite me here, tonight. That has to count for something. “I’ve missed you. I think—” I hesitate when he doesn’t immediately say it back, but he doesn’t cut me off, either. His Adam’s apple jumps in his throat. “I think more than I realized, if that makes sense. It was easier to pretend I didn’t miss you when I barely even remembered what it was like having you around.”