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I head straight to the restaurant, knowing Baba will be waiting for me. Checking his watch and shouting at the waiters to hurry up with the orders, as if that’ll make me appear any faster.
The second I get through the door, my mom scoops me up and I’m immediately comforted by the familiar smell of her perfume.
The place isn’t busy yet, so she has time to grill me on what I’ve been eating and ask if I look slimmer.
“Leave him be,” Maria says as she comes flying out of the kitchen with plates loaded up her arms. “You tell him he looks thinner every time you see him. He should be a pile of bones on the floor by now.”
Mama pinches my waist. “He is a pile of bones. Go into the kitchen and see your father, he’ll make you something to eat.”
I kiss Maria on my way to the kitchen, where I find Baba wiping sweat off his brow with a dishcloth and bossing the cooks around. The second he sees me, his face spreads into an easy smile.
“Stef! You’re here.” He holds out the arm he doesn’t need to chop onions, and I practically run into him.
“I missed you.” I say to his chest. I’m sure his stomach grew since the last time I saw him, but heaven forbid I should ever comment ontheirweight.
“Come, sit, eat, you’re too thin.”
“I’ve already had all this from Mama.”
“Well, she’s right. Theo, get Stefanos a stool to sit on.”
Baba’s newest protégée comes out of nowhere with a stool and I do as I’m told and sit.
Baba takes a stool opposite me at the counter and watches me eat after ladling out a bowl of his famous keftedes with some potatoes.
“Good?”
“Mmm.” I close my eyes and moan around the food, immediately transported back to my childhood. I could cry with how much comfort this food brings me. It’s like seeing the Disney castle at the start of a movie. You just know you’re about to O.D on nostalgia.
“So,” he says as he gets back to chopping up some onions and garlic. “How’s school, what do you learn over there?”
I’m used to him shouting orders to people while I talk, and I don’t let it offend me. I know he’s listening. He’s just trying to do ten million things at once while he does.
When I stop speaking, he looks up from a pile of chopped onions – with miraculously dry eyes.
“Anything else?”
“Nope, I think I told you literally everything.”
Except I didn’t mention a word about Alexei. Or Dorian obviously. But Dorian hadn’t even come into my head.
“What about your new roommate? Are you getting along?”
“He’s…” a little prickly, but nice when you get to know him. “He’s coming by to collect those donations later.”
“Finally, a good kid, someone who cares for their community! Unlike your brother, who only cares about his phone and sneakers.”
“Speaking of Ari, where is he?”
Baba shrugs. “We gave him the night off from homework.”
“What!? How come I never got the night off?”
“You did.”
“We didn’t.” Maria says as she comes back in with empty plates.
“I know when I’m outnumbered.” Baba holds his hands up. “Let’s agree to disagree.”