I pushed the door open and my heart fell.
Oh, holy fuck.
“Athanasios!”
My eyes scanned over my entire family standing in my apartment.
“Claire, I can’t talk to you right now. I’ll have to call you back.”
Kilyn hit End as we both stood there in shock.
Rushing over to Kilyn was a group of women led by my mother. When they stopped right in front of her, my mother reached for Kilyn’s hand. She gasped and then held it up as everyone yelled out, “Opa!”
Closing my eyes, I silently cursed myself for ever trusting my father to keep a secret.
I STOOD FROZEN as about forty people from Thano’s family stood around me yelling out, “Opa!”
Peeking over to Thano, he had his eyes closed before he opened them and began searching the room. I was sure he was looking for his father.
“Oh, we need to start planning the wedding!” Aunt Maria exclaimed.
“Dress shopping is first! I have the perfect dress shop,” Sophia added.
Katerina held up her hands. “Now, stop this. We are jumping ahead of ourselves.” Taking my hand in hers, she pulled me to the middle of the family. “We need to get our Kilyn baptized in the church first!”
Oh. Shit.
I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for facing this right now.
Lifting up on my toes, I searched for Thano.
“We need to have an engagement party. Just for the family.”
My heart was pounding.
Katerina started to point to people. “Maria, you are in charge of the invitations.”
“For what?” I quickly asked.
Katerina looked at me like I had grown two heads. “The engagement party! Oh, we’ll have to start planning the meals now.”
Conversations started exploding all around me. From decorations, to a band, to who was going to make the baklava.
The word alone made me want to gag. My hand went to my stomach just thinking about the baklava.
Ugh.
I frantically searched for Thano as I tried to make my way through the crowd. When Thano’s cousin Sophia picked up my hand, she gasped. “It’s beautiful. Oh, and look at your cheeks. It’s so cute! They’re flushed.”
I wonder why?
“You look so beautiful.”
And then it happened. Women started coming up to me . . . and spitting on me. Or making the sound of spitting. Little did they know they sucked at pretend spitting.
Pft. Pft. Pft.
Each time they did it, my face jerked back as if I was being mortally wounded.
“Thano!” I called out.
Phoebe came up and pulled my ring up to examine it. “Oh, it’s gorgeous!”
Pft. Pft. Pft.
I was going to need a bath.
Jumping up, I desperately tried to find him.
“Thano!”
“Kilyn, I’d love for you to try on my wedding dress.”
Everything in the room stopped. Including my breathing. Slowly I turned to face Katerina and swallowed hard. “Wh-what?”
Her smile grew bigger. “My wedding dress! I bet all it needs is a few tweaks.”
My eyes grew in horror.
“THANO!” I screamed.
My body relaxed the moment I felt his hand on my back. “Yep, I’m on it.”
Glancing up at him, I noticed the distraught look on his face.
“They ambushed us!” he said as he guided me to the bedroom.
“How did they know?”
With a scowl, Thano hissed. “My father!”
When we finally made it to the bedroom, Thano pushed me and locked the door behind him.
Placing his hands on his knees, he dragged in a few breaths. “I’ve never . . . never seen them this insane.”
I stood there staring at him as I tried to get my heart rate under control. I couldn’t help it. I started laughing as I covered my mouth.
Thano glanced up and gave me an incredulous look. “What in the world do you find funny about any of this?”
Dropping my hands, I laughed harder, causing Thano to start laughing. Soon we were both laughing so hard, we had tears rolling down our cheeks.
The knock at the door quickly snapped us both out of our moment of weakness.
Thano looked at me with a panicked expression. “We need an escape plan.”
“No, you need to change your damn locks!” I said.
He nodded. “That too.”
Pulling out my phone from my back pocket, I hit Claire’s number.
“We need you.”
“Oh, this sounds like fun. I’m not sure Blake would be into that kind of thing, but I’ll ask.”
I jerked the phone away from my ear and looked at it. “What the hell?”
“Kilyn! I’m kidding!”
Rolling my eyes, I made arrangements for us to meet them for dinner.
“How are you going to get away from the family?”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said as I watched Thano go to the window. “It might not be a very good plan, but we’ll figure it out. Got to go. See ya in a few.”
Hitting End, I pushed my phone into my back pocket and gawked at him. “You cannot be serious.”
With a frown, he shrugged.
The knock on the bedroom door had both of us stopping and glaring at it.
It was Katerina. “Athanasios? Kilyn? Now is not the time for celebrating!”