Page 32 of Holding Out for a Gyro
She sighed. “I’ve never been to Paris.”
I took a sip of coffee, hoping to relax into a normal conversation and get her to drop her guard. Maybe my confessions would encourage her to share some of her secrets. “When I first decided to study French, it pissed off my parents. Especially when I chose to go abroad to Paris for a summer instead of visiting family in Greece.”
“So, what? You dropped out of school and became a chef?”
My lips pursed, and I forced myself to smile. This was just small talk, not a lecture. “Pretty much.”
“Bas was also a world-class fencer,” Evan said around bites of pumpkin muffin. I wanted to tell him to shut up, but he rattled on. “That’s how we first met, actually. In the fencing club.”
Elizabeth choked on her cider. “Fencing?”
Evan shook his head. “I know. Everyone expected me to play lacrosse, but I’d never been very good at it, and I wanted to try something new. I never won any big tournaments, but Bas could have gone Olympic.”
I shuttered my eyes. I’d hoped he wouldn’t go there.
Fortunately, Elizabeth assumed Evan was fucking with her, maybe getting even for pranking him that first night. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You must think I’m the most gullible person on the planet.”
It was too late. Chelsea was all over this news. “You’d make an excellent swashbuckler. What made you start fencing?”
“There’s a club in Richmond. A friend of mine was going, and he took me along. He quit, but my parents signed me up for three months, and by God, I wasn’t going to waste that money.”
Evan was too generous. I could have gone Olympic if I hadn’t lacked discipline or follow-through. Ask my coaches. Ask my dad. They could have written a dissertation on how disappointing I turned out. There was no success high enough to appease my dad and make it worth the trouble, so I quit and joined an amateur club because I enjoyed the sport but not the competition. My dad had a harder time letting it go.
I tried to consider every angle I could pursue that would impress Chelsea further, but I didn’t want to end up explaining why I’d quit fencing, why I’d quit school, why I’d quit everything I ever started. But after all, maybe a quitter was an ideal candidate for Chelsea’s war on romance. At least I couldn’t let her down, since she expected nothing from me.
I didn’t want to talk about it. “Did you ever take up any sports?”
“Not really. I learned karate from YouTube.”
“Maybe you can show me some of those moves later on.”
She laughed. “In your dreams, Stavros.”
“Exactly.” I took a chance and reached for her hand. She didn’t pull it away. Touché. Another point for Bas. Intent on keeping her laughing, I cataloged the various positions I wanted to try out with her. “I think I could start with a sleeper choke, right? Then later, maybe I’ll flip you?”
She squeezed my hand. “You know I could take you down right here, right now.”
I cut my eyes over. “Promises, promises.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’ll let you take me anytime, anywhere.”
“Let me?” she objected. “You won’t see it coming.”
She had no idea how true that already was. Now on top of every other image I’d formed, I had superimposed visions of her topping me, controlling me, forcing me to the ground, and then using me.
“This was nice,” Chelsea said, and I saw the time slipping away.
Searching for a way to see her again, I asked, “What do you do around here for fun?”
“Shop for wine. Eat dinner in grocery store kitchens. Picnic with strange men.”
“Funny.” I tried again. “And what about the places I haven’t yet seen you?”
Chelsea twisted her mouth, like it was a tough question. “If the weather’s nice, we walk around town. Sometimes I hike.”
Something we shared in common. “Where do you like to hike?”
