Finding You

by Jo Watson

  I gasped from the shock of it and the intimacy of this strange, surreal moment. How had this happened? I couldn’t handle all these hushed, husky compliments. I pulled away from him, feeling so unbelievably uncomfortable I thought I was going to crawl out of my prickly skin.

  “I’m not!” I said, backing away from him. “I’m totally tearstained and probably have red eyes and my hair is a complete mess, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it.” I ran my hand through my hair and could feel all the weird strands sticking up. He reached up and took one between his fingers and looked like he was examining it. A smile swept over his face.

  “It’s not funny,” I said.

  “It’s not that bad.” He let the piece go and I could feel it was sticking straight up and not flopping back like it should. I reached and tried to pat it down. And then he said it…

  “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes right now.”

  I stopped mid–hair pat and my hand hovered above my head, unable to move. It was the single sexiest and most downright unnerving thing anyone had ever said to me. I didn’t know how to handle it and my mouth opened. I could feel I wanted to spew out a fact about global warming and melting icecaps or tell him that anatidaephobia is the irrational fear that a duck is watching you. My MIA (Male Induced Awkwardness) often coincided with my UFB (Unnecessary Fact Bingeing) and I didn’t know if I could stop it.

  “Okay! Righty then… wow, look at the time. It’s so late and totally past my bedtime and did you know that lack of sleep puts you at an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease as well as lowering your immune system?” I smiled and made a move toward the staircase. “Eight hours is actually not nearly enough, according to scientific research.”

  Dimitri stood up and followed me. “Really?”

  I scuttled down the stairs and back into the kitchen with him hot on my heels. “So, where should I sleep?” I looked around, feeling panicked now. I really was sleeping over at his house. Again.

  “You can sleep in my room,” he said.

  I glanced at his room. The room where that stuff had happened last night. That mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex stuff. “I’m not sure, I think that would be a little, you know, awkward. Besides, where will you sleep?”

  “I’ll take the spare room,” he said.

  “You have a spare room? I’ll take it.” I jumped.

  Dimitri shook his head. “It’s tiny and messy. Trust me, you don’t want to take it.”

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry. Where is it?” I looked around. I hadn’t seen another door.

  Dimitri pointed to the stairs, and there, tucked under them, was a small door that you would have to duck to get into. I quickly moved across the room and opened it.

  “Be careful of your head,” he said, following me in and flicking the light switch on. I gasped when I saw what was inside.

  “What the…” I looked around. The walls, floor, shelves, tables, and even bed were covered in pictures, maps, and all sorts of strange artifacts. “What is all this stuff?”

  “My room of treasures,” he said from behind me. I walked over to the table and picked up a black rock.

  “What’s this?”

  Dimitri rushed over and took it from my hands excitedly. “This is a piece of volcanic rock. It’s probably a couple of hundred years old.”

  “Wow.”

  “And this…” He put the rock down and went for the next thing. “This might not look like much but it’s a small piece of pottery dating back to the ninth century, I found it on the island of Samos. And this…” He moved on to the next piece, a beautiful green plate. “It’s not old, but I got it from Sifnos, they have a long tradition of pottery making there. And this”—he put the plate down gently and picked up an instrument that resembled a guitar in some ways—“is an oud. I bought it from a man who’s been hand making them for over sixty years. Can you imagine that? Doing the same thing day in and day out for sixty years?” He said it like he sounded impressed. He then handed me the instrument excitedly and moved around the room like that for the next few minutes, showing me everything in it and giving me long explanations to where it had all come from and what its history was. At some stage I sat down on the bed and watched him, mesmerized once more by his passion. I wished I was as passionate about something as he clearly was about this.

  “I try and collect something from every island I go to,” he said, finally coming to a stop and standing in the middle of room.

  “You really do travel a lot,” I said.

  He nodded. “I can never stay in one place for too long. I hardly stay here actually. There’s just so much out there to see and find.”

  “You’re very passionate about all this.” I gestured around the room.

  “I’m Greek, we’re passionate people. Especially when it comes to our heritage. We’re very proud of it… you should be, too.” He looked down at me, and my heart thumped in my chest.

  “Okay, well, it’s getting late.” I turned away from him and started adjusting the cushions on the bed, moving the maps onto the side table next to me.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine.”

  “And you’ll be okay in here?” he asked with a strange tone in his voice, as if he wanted me to say no, I wouldn’t be okay, and then take me to his room and have more sex with me. More sex. Now!

  “I’ll be great. Thanks.”

  “Okay. Well, good night then.” He started walking to the door and then stopped in the entrance and turned around. “Did he really speak in Klingon when he came?”

  “Oh God, I can’t believe I told you that,” I moaned. “Good night, Dimitri.”

  He smiled at me. “Good night, Jane,” he said but didn’t move from the doorway.

  “Uh, was there something else?” I asked, wondering why he wasn’t leaving my room.

  “You’re much prettier than your sisters, by the way,” he said.

  “What? How do you know?”

  “I went onto your Facebook page and stalked you a bit while you were on the phone with your mother. I hope you don’t mind.” His smile was downright devilish again.

  “How can you say they’re not pretty?”

  “I didn’t, I just said you were prettier.”

  “Really?” I said sarcastically. “Well, I think ninety-nine percent of the male population would disagree with you. If you had to line the three of us up together, I bet you every man would choose Twin-tasia.”

  He was laughing again. “What was that?”

  “If my sisters were a porno, that’s what they would be called,” I said, thinking back to the time my friends and I had made that intrepid expedition to a sex shop and rented Ocean’s 11 Inches. My brain gutter-plunged again as I started to remember how many inches Dimitri was hiding under those shorts of his.

  Sex. Have sex with him again. Seven-inch sex (at least).

  My filthy thoughts frightened me. “It’s really time for bed now.” I said it very emphatically this time. “You have tour guiding to do tomorrow,” I added, trying to remind him of our professional arrangement. “And who knows, maybe the private investigator will get back to us tomorrow and I could be meeting my father.”

  Dimitri nodded at me and then walked out, closing the door behind him. I collapsed back onto the bed and held my head in my hands. How had I managed to end up at this man’s house again? Two nights in a row; that wasn’t an accident. I took my clothes off, changed into a pair of pajamas, brushed my teeth for two minutes at the small washbasin in the room, and then climbed into the bed. I closed my eyes and tried to switch my brain off, but it was racing. I looked around the room again; it really did look like it was packed with every Greek item that had ever existed. For someone who was allergic to Greece, this was like drastic exposure therapy. The artifacts all seemed to be staring at me pointedly, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were mocking me. Smearing their Greekness in my face.

  Look how Greek we are.r />
  Aren’t we so, so Greek, Jane? Just like you.

  You can run from it, but you can’t hide…

  I pulled the pillow over my head and was attempting to shut them up when I heard a message buzz on my phone. I stuck my hand into my bag and pulled it out; it was from Dimitri.

  Dimitri: Hi.

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  Jane: Hi.

  Dimitri: What you doing?

  Jane: Trying to sleep. But someone keeps interrupting me.

  Dimitri: Do you want me to have a word with him?

  Jane: Yes.

  Dimitri: OK.

  There was a pause.

  Dimitri: He apologizes. He just finds you so intriguing that he couldn’t help himself.

  My face flushed red. Was he flirting with me? Over texts? I felt like a giddy teenager. I shouldn’t be getting so flustered over this—we’d already had sex!

  Jane: I’m totally boring.

  Dimitri: He says he doubts that.

  Jane: Well, then he clearly doesn’t know me.

  Dimitri: He says he’d like to get to know you.

  I typed What does he want to know and then paused. I’m sure my mother once told me to add dot, dot, dots to conversations because they made them flirty. Left them open-ended and full of connotations. Oh well, what the hell.

  Jane: What does he want to know…

  There was a longish pause and I wondered if my dot, dot, dot approach had tanked like a lead balloon.

  Dimitri: Are you flirting with me again, Jane?

  A stab in my stomach.

  Jane: Again? What do you mean again?

  Dimitri: You were pretty flirty last night.

  Jane: I was not!

  Dimitri: Jane, why do you carry my cardboard head around with you?

  “Oh my God!” I screeched, threw myself off the bed, and ran back into the living room and straight into his bedroom. “It’s not what you think, by the way,” I said, standing in front of his bed, which he was lying in.

  “How do you know what I think?” His smile was so devilish and delicious right now that I wanted to throw myself at him.

  “You probably think that I’m some kind of perverted fan girl or something. That I carry your picture with me and take it to bed and fantasize about you.”

  “Do you?” He raised himself up onto his elbow, revealing a totally bare chest.

  “I… I,” I stammered. “I am not going to answer that!” I finally said indignantly, putting my hands on my hips.

  “Fine.” He smiled at me.

  “Fine,” I repeated.

  We stopped talking and stared at each other. I was trying really hard to hold his gaze in a cool, indignant manner. “Fine,” I echoed in silent panic. “Bedtime!”

  “Good night again, Jane.”

  “Good night again, Dimitri.” I turned and walked out. I crossed the living room and was just about to go into my room when he said something that stopped me dead in my tracks.

  “I could get used to you sleeping over at my place.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When I woke up I had that same feeling as if I’d overslept again. I glanced at my watch. I had: It was already eleven in the morning. Half the day was gone. I leapt out of bed with a panicky feeling. I hated oversleeping. I hated being late. I went into the living room and Dimitri was there.

  “Sorry, sorry, I totally overslept.”

  He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “No you didn’t, it’s only eleven. Nothing in Greece opens before eleven anyway.”

  “Really?”

  “We like to enjoy life. There’s no such thing as running late here.”

  I nodded, although I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. This concept was so foreign that it might as well have been said to me in Latin.

  “Have you heard from the investigator?” I asked.

  Dimitri quickly shook his head. “No, not yet. But he did say that he would call the second he knew something. So let’s go and have some fun in the meantime. I’ve got a whole plan worked out for the day.” Dimitri smiled and pushed a list over to me. I took it and started reading. “I want to show you as much of Santorini as I can today, before we leave tomorrow.”

  “Leave?”

  “Yes, I have a boat I use for tours.” His tone was casual. “And you agreed to let me take you on a tour.”

  “I meant show me some ancient rock on a hill, or a souvenir shop, or something. Not boats and island-hopping.”

  “Jane…” Dimitri walked over to me. “You said I could show you Greece.”

  I glanced back down at the list. “Beach, swim, sunbathe? You put that on the list.”

  “That’s what people come to Greece for? The sun, the sea…”

  “But what do you do on the beach?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I repeated.

  “You lie in the sun, you tan, you—”

  “I don’t tan.”

  His face broke into a smile. “You’re Greek. You’ll tan.”

  “But—” I was trying to think of a legitimate excuse other than “My thighs have cellulite and you have the chiseled body of the statue of David.”

  “I don’t have a bathing suit,” I quickly said.

  He grinned at me. “Yes you do. What about the pink one?”

  “I can’t wear that!”

  “We could go to a nude beach then?” He had a naughty twinkle in his eye that made my heart stop.

  “No! No! The pink thing will be fine.”

  “Good.” He clapped his hands together happily.

  “Are you sure we should be going to the beach just after midday? That’s when the sun is at its hottest. Lots of UV rays.”

  Dimitri laughed. “Jane. Stop trying to control everything. In Greece we have a saying, ‘Go with the flow.’”

  “I think they have that saying everywhere,” I interrupted.

  “So then it must be true.”

  “Just because everyone says it doesn’t mean it’s right!”

  He reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. “Just go with it.”

  I felt my shoulders tense up at the mere thought of relaxing.

  “I dare you to relax,” he said with a challenging tone.

  “I can totally relax and go with it,” I said defensively.

  “Really?” He lifted his brows in a mocking way.

  “You don’t believe me! I can go all the way with it. I am great at going all the way actually!”

  He burst out laughing. “So glad you said that.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, by the way. In case that’s what you were thinking.” I put my hand on a hip and tried to sound like I was scolding him.

  This made him laugh even more. “Oh Jane. Jane, Jane, Jane.”

  “Yes, Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri?”

  “Nothing. Just Jane.”

  Just Jane. What the hell does that even mean?

  “You’re in Greece. Have some fun.”

  Fun. I could do fun. I glanced back down at the list. “What’s the last one? Family dinner?”

  “It’s my sister’s birthday tonight, so you’re coming along.”

  “Oh no! That’s okay. You don’t have to take me to be polite, I’ll be fine on my own. Besides, I hardly think your family wants me to intrude.”

  “In Greece, everyone is invited to dinner. If the neighbors suddenly came around it would be okay. Come, get ready for the beach.”

  “Ready for the beach?” I echoed. It sounded terrifying and I felt wildly uncomfortable with this beach idea. But there was no way of wiggling out of it now. “Fine,” I said and walked back into my room. I rummaged through my bag and found the pink thing, slipped it on, then put a dress over it.

  “Red or black?” Dimitri asked as I stepped out back into the living room.

  “Sorry?”

  “Red or black beach?” he qualified.

  Without thinking I answered, “I guess black, since we’ve already been
to the red one?”

  Dimitri paused and looked at me. “When did we go to the red beach?”

  “Don’t you remember?” I asked flippantly as I did a final check of my handbag to make sure I had enough sunscreen, a hat and my glasses, another pair of sandals in case something happened with these, and some extra hair bands.

  “No,” he replied.

  “I was lying on the beach and you were climbing out of the water holding that—” I froze. Oh God, what a Freudian slip. That had happened in my dream. I flushed a bright shade of red that actually made my cheeks sting.

  “Your face has gone the color of the beach,” Dimitri stated.

  “It has?” I touched my face, pretending to act shocked. “Must be the heat.”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “When exactly did we go to the beach?”

  I started to stutter, which just made the whole thing far more suspicious. “It was when… actually, I’m mistaken. I thought that we went, or something…”

  “You had a dream about me, didn’t you?” He suddenly looked somewhat amused.

  “I had no such thing!” I snapped defensively.

  He continued to eye me suspiciously. “You had another sex dream about me.”

  “I did not. Why would you even think that?”

  “You told me, remember?” He raised an eyebrow playfully.

  “I did not—” I stopped myself halfway through the sentence as the realization came crashing into me. Yep, I had told him. In my dazed and confused crazed confessional state yesterday, I had admitted to having a sex dream about him. Not that that was worse than sleeping with the guy. “I did. Okay. And what’s wrong with that? I am a young virile woman who shouldn’t be ashamed of my perfectly natural human desires. It’s biological. An evolutionary imperative actually. Who am I to fight my innate human nature, I ask you?”

  “I agree, you shouldn’t fight it if you don’t want to, Jane.” Dimitri moved in closer. His eyes crinkled into a smile. “Black beach it is then.” He turned away from me and called over his shoulder, “But first, I’m about to take you on the wildest ride of your life!”