“Which one this time?” Jordan yelled from his bedroom as he broke away from his video game to hurry up front.

“What difference does it make?” Kari yelled back, heading for the front door.

“Ma!”

Kari rolled her eyes and looked out of the front window as she walked past it.  “The Mercedes,” she said.

Jordan was hurrying up the hallway.  “The black G-Wagon or the white S-class Maybach?”

“The Maybach,” Kari said and Jordan balled up his fist, bent his elbow, and shrieked out a “yes!” as he headed for the front door.

“Don’t be so stuck on cars, boy,” Kari said to him.

“Can’t help it.  I like the finer things in life.  Like Maybachs.  Like Jordans you still refuse to buy me.”

“You get an allowance.  Why don’t you buy them yourself?”

“It’ll take every dime I’ve saved!  I wouldn’t be able to take a girl to the movies or go to the arcades for a year if I used my allowance.”

“You want a pair of Air Jordans bad, but not bad enough to sacrifice for them.  But you expect me to use my hard-earned money and make that sacrifice?”

Jordan grinned.  “That’s the idea, yes, ma’am.”

“Uh hun, got it.  Keep waiting on those shoes, boy.  Keep waiting!”

Jordan laughed, and Kari opened the front door.

Alex was stepping up on the front porch when Kari opened the door.  He wore the same suit he wore that morning, and although he looked drained, he was smiling.

Jordan was smiling too.  From ear to ear.  He hadn’t seen Alex since he made it back in town.  “Hello, Mr. Drakos,” he said excitedly as Alex made his way up to the front door.  “Welcome back to Apple Valley!”

“Hello, Jordan.  How are you?”

“I’m great!  How are you?”

“Good.”  Alex felt a surge of emotion seeing Jordan again.  So much so that he wanted to reach out and hug him.

So he did.  He pulled Jordan into his arms.

Jordan was elated.  He had wanted to hug Alex, too, but didn’t know how to just do it.  Alex, to Jordan’s ever-loving appreciation, took the awkwardness out of it.  They had missed each other.

But for Kari, it was far more than just a show of affection.  One of her greatest fears, one she lived when she was with Vito, was falling for a man who didn’t care for her son.  But Alex not only seemed to care for Jordan, he seemed to love Jordan.  For a mother like Kari, that wasn’t the icing on the cake.  That was the cake!

And then Alex looked at Kari.  After what happened to her earlier that day, he had been worried sick about her.  But, to his relief, she looked fine.  Not stressed.  Not worried herself.  She looked as if that craziness at Lucinda’s was just a blimp in the road.  She could handle upheaval.  Alex was pleased to know it.

“Hey, baby,” he said to her as he walked up to her and placed his arms around her.

“Hey,” she responded.  And they kissed.

Jordan felt embarrassed when he saw them kissing, but he didn’t mind it.

But they were already giving the neighbors a peep show.  Alex moved them inside, his aroused penis pressed against Kari’s thigh, as Jordan closed the door behind them.  Jordan never got the chance to know his father, and his grandfather was not the kind of man Kari wanted him to know.  Alex was the closest person to a father he had.

But he was cautious.  He’d read about how Alex’s real son committed suicide.  He had to make sure Alex wanted another kid.

 

They settled in the kitchen, with Alex and Jordan seated side by side at the center island while Kari, her back to them as she worked from the stove, continued to cook her Greek dish.

Alex looked at Kari.  She wore a pair of short-shorts and was braless in a skin tight, Chicago Bulls t-shirt, and her thick hair was in a ponytail.  She looked so adorable to him, and so damned sexy, he wanted to fuck her right then and there.

But he knew he had to wait.

“How was your day?” he asked her.  “Other than this morning,” he added.

“It was okay overall.  I wasn’t able to get much work done.  It was just too much going on.  But I gave it my best try.  Lucinda called, and Benny and Faye once they heard the news.  They all wanted to rush over, but I wasn’t trying to entertain anybody.”

“I’m sure they understood,” Alex said.  “They’re good friends to you.”

Kari was at the stove stirring her pot, with her back to Alex and Jordan, but she turned enough to make sure he saw her nodding.  “Yes, they are,” she said.  “I’m really blessed to have them.”

“I heard about it in school,” Jordan said.  “Some girl told me, but I didn’t believe her.  A car tried to hit my mom, but ran into the diner instead?  That made no sense to me!  Until I called Mom, and she told me it was true.  I wanted to rush over and make sure she was okay, too.  But she wouldn’t let me.”

“Your education is very important to your mother,” Alex said.  “And to me,” he added, which caused Kari to do another half turn at the stove.  “We handled it, Jordan,” Alex added.

“That’s what Ma said.  But I was still worried.  At school the kids were joking about it.  ‘They call your mom Kari,’ they said to me.  ‘If that car would have hit her, they would have been calling her Kari out.’”

Both Alex and Kari laughed.

“It’s not funny!” Jordan said, although he was smiling.

“We know,” Alex said.  “We’re awful people, son, we know.”

But then Jordan’s look turned serious.  And he looked at Alex.  “We’ve got to take care of her better,” he said.

When he said it, Alex’s heart dropped and Kari’s heart squeezed with emotion.  Jordan was an old man in a lot of ways, and way young in a lot of other ways.  He was all feelings and emotions and heart, Kari thought.

Alex thought so, too, as he looked at Jordan.  “It won’t happen again,” he said boldly.

“You promise?” Jordan asked him.

Alex nodded his head.  The responsibility he felt for that young man sometimes scared him.  But he felt it.  “Yes,” he said.  “I promise.”

Jordan smiled.  Kari was equal parts shocked and elated at how easily Jordan believed everything Alex said.  Even she got a drilling many times from that boy, as he questioned what she was saying.  But he never questioned Alex’s word.  They had a bond.

“Set the table, guys,” Kari said.  “Dinner is soon to be served.”

 

And when Kari served that dinner, and after Alex blessed the food, all eyes were on Alex.  He was the authentic Greek at the table, after all.  Kari and Jordan, with their utensils at the ready, watched unblinkingly as Alex took the first bite.

Jordan was doubtful that it would be tasty.  He’d never heard of Bourtheto before, and it looked like fish smushed in with tomatoes and other icky throw-up on a plate to him.  But when Alex took that first bite, and smiled, he was happy for his mother.  The worst thing in the world, he’d heard, was a woman who didn’t know how to cook for her man.  His mother, at least, was winning that battle!

“It’s very good, Karena,” Alex said to her as he nodded and chewed.

Kari beamed.  “You really like it?”

“I love it!  It’s very tasty.  Taste it, Jordan.”

But Jordan wasn’t feeling it.  “No, I’m good,” he said with a smirk on his face.  “You go ‘head on.  Eat to your heart’s content.  You can have mine, too, if you want.”

Alex and Kari laughed.  “You are not getting up from this table,” Alex warned with a grin, “until you clean your plate.”

“Ah, come on, Mr. Drakos!  Cleaning plates is kid stuff.  I’m no kid anymore!”

“You heard him,” Kari said.  “Clean that plate.”

“No fair.  Two against one,” Jordan said.  “No fair!”

But he eventually tasted it, and he liked it too.

 

But after dinner, after Alex excused himself to the living room to make a few business calls and Jordan and Kari were clearing the table, Jordan leaned over to his mother.  “Is he going to take you to his house tonight?” he asked her.

Kari glanced at her son.  “Why?”

“I just don’t see where it’s necessary.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he doesn’t have to take you all the way to his house tonight.  He can sleep with you right here, in our house.”

Kari frowned.  She did all she could, in this new relationship with Alex, to keep their bedroom action away from Jordan.  “Who says he sleeps with me, Jordan?” she asked.

“Come on, Ma.  Why else would every time he comes to town he picks you up and keep you with him all night?  I’m young, but I’m not stupid!”

Kari smiled.  He sometimes, in his insightfulness, wasn’t all that young either.  “I don’t know what he’s going to do,” she said.  She just knew he was definitely going to do something!

“I’m going to shoot hoops with the guys in a few.  Then we’re going to the arcade, so it’ll be late before I get back.”

“Not all that late, Jordan,” Kari said.  “It’s a school night.”

“I won’t be late like that, but I won’t be right back.  That’s what I mean.”

Kari knew exactly what he meant.  He was willing to do his part to make sure his mother didn’t blow the chance for them to keep a man like Alex Drakos in their lives.  That was what he meant!

But Jordan had a deeper meaning too.  “I just want you to be home when I get back,” he said.  “That way, I’ll know for certain you’re okay.”

Kari realized how much that incident at the diner affected her son.  He was still worried about her, even though the lady in the car died.  But the fact that the lady had tried to harm her, and that lady had once been a mistress of Alex’s, was what kept Jordan unnerved.  Kari smiled and ruffled his soft hair.  “I’ll be sure to be home when you get back,” she said.