Reckless

awesome? Or was bad news brewing and I was going to be the last to know?

I needed a change of subject.

“Any more calls from your parents?” Christos asked.

Not the subject I was looking for.

“No,” I said. “I mean, they’ve left a bunch of voicemails I haven’t listened to and emails I haven’t read. They’re probably all death-threats. knowing my parents.”

“Sorry to hear that. Maybe you need to call them and clear the air. Let them know you’re okay. They’re probably worried about you.”

I huffed a laugh, “Yeah, they’re worried I’m not following orders.”

“Was it that bad?” Christos said while dipping tuna sashimi in soy sauce and wasabi with his chopsticks. He popped the raw tuna in his mouth and chewed.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I told you they’re evil.”

Christos set down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Look, agapi mou, I know it’s the last thing you want to hear from me, but maybe you just need to call them and set things straight. I’ll be right here for support, like when you told them you changed majors. What do you say?”

I wanted to say that last time my parents had thrown me to the lions with their decision to stop paying for my apartment and this time they might throw me to the tigers, bears, sharks, and carnivorous dinosaurs, oh my!

Which led me to my real concern. Now that I’d given a 30-day notice to my apartment manager, I needed to make absolutely sure I wasn’t walking a high wire without a net. “Christos, before I call them,” I said tentatively, “I have to ask you one thing.”

“Anything, agapi mou,” he said before drinking some water.

I looked into his eyes. They were so sincere, it gave me the courage to press forward. “I feel silly for asking this, and please don’t hate me, but…are we moving in together?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

Was I sensing doubt? Screw it, I needed to get this over with. “I mean, are you totally sure it’s cool for me to move in with you and Spiridon? Cuz if it’s not, I totally—”

He put a reassuring hand on my thigh. “Agapi mou, I meant what I said. And so did my grandpa. You can move into the house for as long as you want.”

“You’re sure?” I asked hopefully. It really did seem too good an offer to be true.

“Yes.”

I was wrong. It was true. “Okay, good. I just needed to make sure. My mom said some nasty things that made me, I don’t know, nervous about the whole thing.”

“Like what?”

“You don’t want to know,” I chuckled nervously.

“Sounds to me like you need to call them, agapi mou. I can tell them myself that you have a place to live for as long as you want. I mean, I spent two weeks at their house. Why wouldn’t my family extend the same courtesy to you?”

“That’s right!” I smiled. “But, it’s for more than two weeks,” I winced.

“So what?” He’d said it with such confidence, I couldn’t possibly doubt him.

“Okay, I’ll call them!” I cleared our dinner plates from the table, wiped it down with a damp sponge, and washed my hands in the sink.

I was drying my hands on a dish towel when Christos grinned at me.

“Ready to rip that Band-Aid off?” he asked.

“Do you have to make it sound like this situation is a bloody wound?”

He chuckled. “Okay. Uh, are you ready to call your parents and tell them what they’ve won?”

“What, like a sweepstakes? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah it does. They have an awesome daughter who’s taking charge of her own life in admirable ways. Sounds like the big win to me.”

I giggled. “You always know the right things to say, agapi mou,” I said.

“You keep talking with that sexy Greek accent you’ve picked up, and we won’t make it to the phone call,” he said suggestively.

“Fine by me!”

He laughed. “I knew you were trying to distract me. Call them, Samantha. Let’s get this over with. How bad can they be?”

I took a shaky breath. I didn’t want to make any predictions lest they come true. “Fine,” I said and grabbed my phone. I plopped down on the couch and Christos sat next to me.

 “Here goes nothing,” I said as I dialed and set the phone to speaker.

“Hello?” my mom said.

I sighed, wishing my dad had answered. He would’ve given me a slight buffer before everything went nuts. “Hey, Mom.”

“To what do we owe this honor?” she said sarcastically. “Considering you didn’t bother to answer any of our previous messages.”

I rolled my eyes at Christos. He took my hand and held it.

“Sam?” my mom asked.

“I’m here,” I said rolling my eyes, already sounding whinier than I’d planned.

“What do you want?” she snapped bluntly. She was never this bad.

“You might want to get Dad on the phone.”

“Why,” my mom chuckled, “are you eloping with that Christos? Getting married in Las Vegas? Or have you already gotten hitched and dropped out of school?”

Wow, she sure knew how to set me at ease. I wondered if the State Department needed any more diplomats to bridge gaps between warring nations and rekindle world peace. I’d totally recommend my mom. Not. “No, Mom,” I sighed. “Just get Dad. Please?”

“Fine.” She put the phone down. A minute later the other phone line clicked on.

“Hello?” my dad said. “Sam?”

“Hey, Dad,” I sighed. Would he be as bad as Mom?

“Is everything all right?” he asked. “Your mother and I were worrying about you.”

More like yelling about me, would be my guess.

My mom was back on the phone, “So what was your big announcement?” she grated.

Here went nothing. Or everything. “I’m moving in with Christos. I gave my 30-day notice to the manager at my apartment.”

“You what?!” Mom shouted.

Christos squeezed my hand supportively.

“I’m moving in with Christos,” I said confidently. Ironically, my mom’s sudden anger strengthened my resolve.

My dad started nervously, “Sam, are you sure this is a guh—“

Like she’d been on a time-delay fuse, my mom blew up again, “Over my dead body you will!! ”

Maybe I shouldn’t have told them?

“You will NOT move into that young man’s house! I will not have you throw your life away on a whim for some two-bit tough!”

I goggled at Christos. He raised his eyebrows sympathetically and winced. So it wasn’t just me. My mom was a lunatic, like I’d always suspected.

“I’m not throwing my life away, Mom!” I pleaded. Why did I have to plead at a moment like this? I didn’t know, but that’s what I was doing. “Christos is a good person! I’m going to live with him and his grandfather. Both of them are working artists! They make their livings selling art. They’re showing me how to do it too!”

“I don’t know what kind of a hippie commune this Christos and his grandfather have,” my mom said acidly, having calmed from stark raving lunacy to simmering insanity, “but I’m sure it sounds much better than it actually