Wooing The Wedding Planner

Byron went another route, a sincere one. “Hey, Ma? I love ya.”

Vera sighed. “I love you, too. You’re my only son.”

“I know,” Byron replied. “And I mean it—happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Call me later.”

“Will do. Bye.” Byron hung up the phone. He eyed his coffee. Cold now. With a frown, he turned toward his computer monitor to switch it on. “Hey, Kath,” he called. “Can you bring me another cup of coffee, please?”

No sooner had the computer hummed to life than the sunny voice of Constantine Strong filled the room. “No need, darlin’. I got what our boy needs right here.”

“Jiminy Christmas,” Byron muttered, exasperated.

“Christmas was a month and a half ago,” Constantine stated as he folded his tall, skinny frame into one of the guest chairs on the other side of the desk. With his too-long legs spread wide in a comfortable slouch, the effect was very praying mantis. “Wake up, son. It’s nearly Mardi Gras.”

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Byron asked suspiciously as his father set one of the go cups he carried onto the desk.

“Oh, just a little rocket fuel for my space pirate.” Constantine grinned, a reminiscent gleam in his eye that took Byron back to his childhood obsession with the final frontier.

He eyed the cup. Great. Now they were going after his weakness for controlled substances. This put last year’s cheese basket to shame. “I’m fine, damn it.”

The mantis eyed Byron through rose-tinted lenses. There weren’t too many lines in Constantine’s face, although his long hair, pulled back into his typical man bun, had gone gray a decade before. He sported snug mustard-hued pants, a red shirt and a navy blue peacoat, and had a silver loop on his left lobe, where a black shark’s tooth dangled. He looked absurd, off-the-wall and somehow together and completely at ease—one with the earth. An aging hippie who refused to be anything but himself. “Go on,” he said finally, gesturing to the go cup. “You know you want it.”

Byron reached for it. Hot. Mm, yeah. Just the way he liked it... “Only if we play a round of ‘Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner.’”

Constantine’s face fell. “How did you know?”

“Your offerings are well-placed but transparent,” Byron told him.

“Your mother called.” Constantine checked his wristwatch. “Should’ve known. She starts earlier than Christ and she’s always twelve steps ahead of me.”

“You both should really start texting,” Byron suggested as he logged in to the office system. “It’ll save time and confusion. Plus, you two would tear up some sexting. Not that you’re hearing it from me.” He took a sip from the go cup and his brows came together as he swallowed. He eyed the logo on the front. “What the—”

“Ah.” Constantine quickly lifted the cup from his knee and switched it for Byron’s. “I believe that’s mine.”

“Sprinkles and whipped cream?” Byron asked. “You’re approaching sixty.”

“What do I always say to you kids about aging?” Constantine asked, his eyes sage behind wire frames. “‘We don’t grow older, we grow riper.’”

“That was Picasso, not you, pappou. And if by riper you mean the charred remains of those chickens you were going to roast me and Ma tonight, for once I’ll agree with you.”

Constantine barked a laugh. He slapped his knee and leaned forward, his natural geniality flowing warmly into the room. It sieved its merry way through the defensive pall Byron had donned automatically that morning. A true smile spread across Byron’s face. For a moment, the two men just looked at one another. Byron heard the silent message his father transmuted with a softened grin—you’re okay. Gratitude filled Byron until he nearly swelled at the seams. He lifted the coffee and took a long sip. The dark roast slid down his throat, enlivening. “That’s the stuff,” he muttered appreciatively.

“Told you,” Constantine said, crossing his ankle over his knee. Now he looked like a dandied-up cricket ready to break into a toe-tapping reel. “I’ve always got what my boy needs. And speaking of...” He pulled something from the breast pocket of his jacket and, with a flick of his wrist, tossed it Byron’s way.

Byron swiped the key ring out of the air. “What’s this?” he asked, studying the two silver keys dangling from the hoop. He frowned at the address written on both in permanent ink.

77 Serendipity.

His heart skipped a beat and hit the next hard. “Pop. What is this?”

“I ran by the retirement village yesterday morning to see our girl,” Constantine informed him.

Byron beamed at the mention of his great-aunt, Athena. “How’s she doing?”

“Yapped my ear off for three hours straight, so I’d say she’s doing pretty fine,” Constantine considered. “Had lots to say about you. And the house.”

“The house,” Byron breathed, tightening his grip on the keys.

“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” Constantine asked with a knowing smile. “At least it seems that’s what you told her not too long ago. She’s got it set in her head that the place is yours. She even says there’s no use waiting for the will...what with the rest of your life ahead of you. Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind...”

Changed his mind? Was his father crazy? Byron had been in love a few times in his life. But his first love had been and always would be his great-aunt Athena’s old Victorian house. The secret cupboards. The creaky walnut floors. The odd pitch of the upper-floor ceilings. The gingerbread trim. The old-timey wood-burning stove that had been replaced by a newer model fifteen years ago, but still retained the original stone surround. One of Byron’s first memories was of lying on the second-floor landing, watching the light wash through the stained-glass window his great-uncle Ari had bought in Greece to remind his wife of the homeland she’d left behind for him.

Byron and his sisters had chased ghosts and dreams in that house. He’d pushed Priscilla out of the Japanese magnolia in the backyard, resulting in a broken arm for her and a month at the mercy of Ari’s hard-labor tutelage for him. He’d replaced the treads on the stairs, put up crown molding, and helped Ari build a detached two-car garage with a comfortable space above it where Athena could host her sewing circle.

When Ari passed, Byron had nixed plans for summer courses in order to help Athena adjust, living in the garage apartment for a time. When he decided to live on the Eastern Shore for good, Athena—by that point in assisted living—offered him the use of the loft again, since the house was under long-term lease to an elderly couple, the Goodchilds. The Goodchilds seemed to like having a built-in handyman and yard boy. They let him keep his Camaro in the garage next to their El Camino and invited him to use the basement as a place for his exercise equipment.

Byron knew the Goodchilds hadn’t renewed their lease on the Victorian. Mrs. Goodchild could no longer manage the stairs. However, he had assumed that interest in the house would be sky-high. It was a prize. Sure, it had its quirks. All old houses did. However, the Victorian had historic, architectural and—for Byron—extreme sentimental value. Who wouldn’t bribe the Almighty Himself to live there?

He closed his fist around the keys. “When?” he asked.

Constantine lifted his shoulders. “Why not tomorrow?”

Byron’s brows drew together. “Didn’t Ma crack down on you for verbal contracts?”

“This is different,” Constantine said. He was serious. Byron rarely saw his father so serious. He had to swallow a few times to digest it. “It’s family. Athena. You. The house. It’s all in the family. I’m sure Athena would gift it to you outright—”

“No, I’m buying it outright,” Byron argued.

“Even if the loan goes toward your inheritance anyway?” Constantine asked.

“I want my name on it. I also want the appraisal estimate. Nothing lowball.”

Constantine knew better than to argue the point. As the family real estate business was shared between him and Vera, he usually found houses to renovate and flip into lease homes, while Vera handled the actual leasing and brokerage part of the equation.

Constantine did have a point, however. With its claim to family heritage and Byron’s long-held interest, the Victorian perhaps called for a more casual approach.

“Take some of your things over tonight and see how you adjust,” Constantine was saying. “If you don’t have any second thoughts over the next forty-eight hours, I’ll bring the papers Wednesday.” He lifted the go cup to punctuate the question.

Byron felt another smile, big and true, on his lips, and he liked it there. He raised his own cup. “I’ll drink to that.”

A knock on the door prevented him from raising the coffee to his mouth. Kath peered inside the office, her silver hair gathered on top of her head in a twist that pulled the corners of her eyes into a slant. “Good. You’re already in.” She spotted Constantine, stopped midspeech and smiled. “Oh. Sorry, Mr. Strong. I didn’t see you arrive.”

“I snuck in,” Constantine said with a wink. “How’re you, Kathleen?”

Byron sipped his coffee as his father worked the charm on the older woman, bringing a pretty blush to her cheeks. Both his parents were compulsive flirts. They were also two of the happiest compulsive flirts he’d ever seen.

Strongs are like Magellanic, gentoo and royal penguins all wrapped up in one very Greek, very reformed package, Constantine had told his three children all their lives. We’re crazy enough to mate once, for life, and the male and female are equals.