Luna barely gets time to freshen up before Connor tells her the plans. To say she's excited is an understatement.
"What is traditional Greek food?" Ben asks as we pull up outside a gorgeous taverna, painted white with blue shutters and lined with planters of pink and red flowers. The tables and chairs outside are crafted from smooth wood with woven straw seats. Grapes hang from the vine that shades half of the space.
The owners have sectioned off part of the outside at our request, pulling our table next to a wall so that we have some privacy. Luna is wearing sunglasses, like practically every other woman in Athens, so there's a chance she won't be spotted. In fact, today, it's us bodyguards who are standing out; Seven huge men out with one tiny woman. It's certainly a sight to behold.
When we take our seats, I find myself at one end with Luna on one side and Hudson on the other. The owner of the restaurant, a short man with a broad black mustache, comes over to welcome us to his restaurant. He obviously has the customer service skills perfected because he immediately tells Luna she looks like a Greek goddess, which seems to please her immensely.
“What would you recommend?” Connor asks, his finger trailing a long and complex menu.
“How about a meze?” he says.
“It’s a mixture of lots of small dishes,” Mo explains. “It’s perfect if you want to try lots of different things.”
At least, that's what it's supposed to be. When the food arrives, there is nothing small about it. The whole table is swamped, and our group is left wide-eyed at the amount of food we have available to consume. Dips made of yogurt and eggplant, soft salty cheese baked in tomato, salad with black olives, and squid fried in batter. It's all delicious. The bread that accompanies the meal is soft and perfect for enjoying with the dips. The final platter contains meat cooked on the grill and is served with home-cooked fries that are sprinkled with oregano.
"Try this," I say, holding out a plate of strange-looking tentacles.
"What the hell is that?" Luna asks.
"Octopus," Mo says. "Most likely cooked in red wine."
Her expression is so comical that Hudson starts laughing. "Octopus?"
"Yeah…you know, the thing with eight legs."
"Ugh," she says, screwing up her face. "I can't eat that! That documentary on Netflix about the octopus… they're so intelligent."
"You'd be fine to eat Ben then," Connor quips.
Ben tosses a piece of bread at Connor's head, but Connor manages to catch it before it makes contact.
"Manners, children," I shout, enjoying how light-hearted everyone is today. It's a rare occasion for us all to feel relaxed enough to step out of our professional roles, just for a time.
I finish eating first, mostly because I'm distracted. The food is awesome, but the setting is what really deserves my concentration. Pulling a pencil from my pocket, I begin to sketch on the back of a paper menu, my eyes flicking across everything in my view, picking out the things that spark my interest. The restaurant is set on a pretty stone square. Old buildings with intricate balconies and blue wooden doors frame the lively area. I try to capture passers-by with lines of movement to show the bustle of the place, but in the foreground, Luna is still and serene. From the side, her profile is almost doll-like, with a high forehead, button nose, and pointed chin. From this angle, I can't reflect the intensity of her soulful eyes, and so in a way, the woman I've drawn doesn't seem to fully reflect the woman she is.
Hudson leans to look at the drawing, his eyes meeting mine with a question. Is it obvious that I think of her more than I should? Maybe. It's certainly obvious to me that Hudson has a crush on Luna. And Connor. And Jax.
It might be all of us, for all I know.
Stupid men, the lot of us.
She's too young for sure. All of us have at least a decade on her and a whole lot of life experience, much of which we'd like to forget. It's an indulgence to think about her as anything other than a client.
But we're away from home, and I haven't fucked anything except my own palm in three months. I can forgive myself for some inappropriate thoughts.
But inappropriate actions are something else.
When Luna finishes her conversation with Connor about the tour, she turns to me, spotting the folded paper of the menu in my hand.
"What are you drawing, Asher?"
"Nothing," I say, turning it over so she can't see and stuffing it into my pocket. "It's no good," I add, hoping she'll accept that as the reason I don't feel comfortable sharing it.
"Let me see." Luna holds out her hand expectantly. When I don't move to retrieve the drawing, she launches off her chair, throwing her arm around my neck and rifling in my pocket. My instinct screams at me to restrain her like I would a threat. In a second, I have my arm around her like a vice, hand gripping her wrist. Her mouth forms a stunned O, and as quickly as I grab hold of her, I drop my arms like the very touch of her skin has scalded me. Seconds tick past, her green eyes staring into my wide-open blue ones. I hope she can see how much I regret shocking her. I hope she knows that sometimes when you're trained in an action, the reflex overrides any other thought process you might have.
Most of all, I hope I didn't hurt her.
As she pulls back, I hold my hands up. "Sorry…Sorry, Luna. You just…you came at me."
"It's okay," she says, flopping back into her chair. I scan the soft skin of her wrist, searching for any sign of a bruise, but there's nothing visible yet. We're both breathing hard, her shoulders rising with each breath in the same rhythm as mine. Around us, the group is silent.
"Asher," Connor warns, but I shoot him a look that tells him I can handle my own shit. I know my mistake. I'm not trying to cover it up or make excuses for it.
"Did I hurt you?"
Luna shakes her head, gazing back at me. "You really are a machine," she says. "Reflexes like a ninja. I'll have to remember that." A smile tugs at her lips, and then, from her clenched fist, she pulls out the drawing, holding it up high so I can't get to it as she quickly unfolds it.
I'm still too shaken to react. Instead, I'm left to watch her open the drawing I did of just her. There's no one else at the table in my sketch. I ignored all of my friends and zoned in on Luna, picturing her alone and serene with a backdrop of busy Athens behind her.
Bringing it close so she can study the scribbled image, her lips part. They look so soft and sweet, and mentally, I wish away everything that surrounds us. I imagine a movie special-effect that could pull us out of this scene into our very own private space. I could tell her that she's beautiful and not have my six friends chastise or ridicule me. I could tug Luna into my arms, and we could dance to soft music played by the unusual-looking Greek guitar, sliding into another time, over two thousand years ago, when this place was filled with art and philosophy. Luna could be my muse, and I could sculpt her beauty into marble that would be preserved in a museum. Years later, people would speculate over which goddess she was – Aphrodite, goddess of love, or maybe Nike, goddess of victory. They'd never guess she was just a flesh-and-blood woman or that I was just a man with a crush on a girl so far out of his league that it's a joke.