"Ooh, pretzels," Lottie murmured quietly when they appeared. A jar of jalapeno champagne jelly, that had been in her pantry in Greece just a thought before, appeared in her hand. She opened the lid on the small, wide-mouthed container and set it on the table near the bowl. Then she grabbed a preztel, dipped and munched.
A moment later, she said, "Can I ask something? Why didn't you go through with it? The online dating thing? What kept you from doing it?"
Because if Ninkasi truly thought that they wouldn't have lined up, if she really hadn't considered Kratos as a potential romantic partner, then why wouldn't she try to find him a nice girlfriend? Lottie had thought all along that Kray should have a sweet girl to spend some time with, but every time she'd brought it up, Styx had sort of given her The Look so she'd let it go. Which made her wonder, now, if Styx had suspected what her son was feeling all along. She'd think about that later. Right now, she was dealing with what Ninkasi was feeling.
Or trying to deny that she felt. Breadcrumbs. She was leaving some. Philotes just had to figure out how big those crumbs needed to be in order to get Ninkasi on the right path to a happy ending.