Finding You

by Jo Watson

  I looked around the alley once more, still empty. I’d only ever had sex in a bed, maybe a sofa at the most. All my friends had kinky stories about backseats and public beaches at night and airplanes. Now I wanted one of those stories, too! It was time Plain Jane Smith fully let her hair down.

  “Don’t stop.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I woke up the next morning tangled up in Dimitri’s arms. I gazed over at him, still fast asleep. God, he was gorgeous when he slept. I watched him for a while before turning my attention to the ceiling with a smile. I think I must have smiled in my sleep. In fact, I hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d sexually stunned me into a postorgasmic alleyway stupor. Wait until I told my friends that I’d had dirty, kinky back-alley sex! Mind you, they hadn’t exactly been that thrilled with the idea of another Dimitri. Not that I blamed them.

  My thoughts then turned to my birth mother again. I wondered how much of what she had said was true. “A youthful holiday fling.” Perhaps it had been more than a meaningless fling? It was certainly more for me at this stage.

  “Good morning,” a soft, sexy, sleepy voice said. I turned and Dimitri was yawning and stretching in the bed next to me.

  “Morning.” I turned to face him.

  He propped himself up on his elbow. “How did you sleep?”

  “Better than I’ve slept in a long time.” I smiled at him and he returned it. The moment was broken by the sound of Dimitri’s phone ringing, and my heart thumped.

  “Is that the investigator?” I called after him as he went into the living room to retrieve his phone. I jumped up, wrapped the sheet around me, and walked into the living room to watch him talk on the phone in Greek. He finally hung up and turned back to me, naked. But not even his nudity was enough to distract me.

  “So was it the investigator? Does he have any info?” I pressed.

  “Huh?” Dimitri looked at me blankly for a second, as if he was still struggling to wake up. “Uh, yes. It was him. Nothing yet, he says, still waiting on some things.”

  “What things?” I asked, feeling the excitement bubble up again.

  “Sorry, I didn’t ask.”

  “Did he say he was close, though?” I stepped forward.

  “He didn’t really say.” Dimitri turned his back on me and walked over to the kitchen. “Breakfast?” he called out over his shoulder.

  I sighed. “Please can I talk to him next time?” I was frustrated by the lack of any new information pertaining to my father.

  “Sure. His English is not great, but sure. Have you packed yet?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “For what?” I followed him back into the bedroom, where he started pulling on some clothes. There should be a law against this man wearing clothes.

  “Did you forget that I’m taking you island-hopping? We’ll only be away for a few days, so instead of bringing your whole suitcase, you should just grab a few things.”

  “Okay.” I nodded.

  “Great. Then get ready, eat breakfast, and pack. I’m going to go get some supplies for the boat. I’ll be back to fetch you soon.” He kissed me on the forehead before walking out.

  WHATSAPP GROUP: Jane goes to Greece

  Jane: Hi guys. I’m going to be leaving on a tour of the islands now, not sure what reception will be like at sea, so thought I would just let you all know.

  Annie: Are you cross with us?

  Jane: No.

  Annie: Promise?

  Jane: Cross my

  Annie: Good! Are you going with Dimitri?

  Jane: Yes.

  Lilly: What is his full name? Just tell us in case we need to send a search and rescue party.

  Jane: Dimitri Spiros. He runs a company called Dimitri’s Island Tours out of Santorini. Happy?

  There was a slight pause in the conversation and then…

  Annie: OMG!!!! He is so fucking hot!!!!

  Lilly: Where?

  Annie: Google him.

  Val: Holy shit! You had sex with that

  Lilly: H O T

  Val: Bravo

  Lilly: But he can’t look like that in real life?

  Annie: Wait! Is he also a model? Because there’s a guy with the same name that looks like him, only his face is not on a website for a tour company, it’s plastered on a billboard!!?

  Jane:

  Val: You’re having sex with a Greek tour guide model. LOL!!

  Lilly: hahaha. Take a photo of him and send it to us!

  Jane: I’ll try

  Stormy: no hesis not my t.ype

  Lilly: OMG Storm, did you just google something? Did you really just use the evil World Wide Web?

  Annie: Well of course he’s not your type. He doesn’t breathe fire and have a ring through his dick

  Val: LOL Stormy you are never going to live that one down.

  I laughed out loud. Stormy had recently slept with a man who had a ring through his penis and she’d had no idea what to do with the thing.

  Annie: Any news on your dad?

  Jane: Not yet.

  Val: We’re crossing fingers for you.

  Jane: Thanks. I want to meet him so badly. I haven’t wanted anything this badly in a long time.

  The boat was a good size and had the words DIMITRI’S TOURS etched into the side. I climbed onto a small outdoor deck that had built-in seats running its length with a small wooden table attached to them.

  There was a covered cockpit—probably not the right word for a boat—that had a few small chairs in it. Another sofa ran the length of the room, and a small kitchen was built into one of the sideboards. A row of windows gave the room an amazing view of the blue water outside. A tiny staircase at the far end led down into a small room with a double bed. A tiny toilet and shower were closed off in a little cubicle.

  I’d never been on a boat like this, one you could actually sleep in, but…

  One room? Double bed? Used for tours? I stood in the small windowless room and started to wonder how many women Dimitri had shared this bed with. I felt nauseated.

  “I usually use the boat for day cruises only, island-hopping. I never stay over in it with other people,” Dimitri said, walking into the room as if he had been reading my thoughts.

  “Oh!” I swung around and looked at him, feeling ever-so-slightly vulnerable and exposed at the idea that he had just figured out what I was thinking.

  “In case you think I bring all the girls here, or something.”

  “Don’t you?” I asked.

  “No. Just you.” He moved in closer to me and wrapped his arms around me as if we were a real couple. In fact, everything today was feeling very couple-y, from the waking up together in bed to kisses good-bye and now this. On the one hand it felt so right, but on the other I knew it was finite. This had an end. It ended when I found my father and then went back to South Africa. But it wasn’t over yet, and while I was here I wanted to enjoy every moment of it. How Greek of me!

  “So where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “I want to show you something incredible.” He smiled and started walking away but then stopped. “By the way, I bought you some things, they’re in the cupboard.” He gestured before disappearing up the steps.

  I opened the cupboard and couldn’t quite believe my eyes. Hanging inside was a plain black, nonsequined bikini, sans push-up bust padding. This was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me. It might not seem like a lot—it didn’t come with bells and whistles and bright blowup balloons. Rather, it was one of those tiny, subtle gestures that only someone very close to you would know to give you.

  Dimitri was officially the most thoughtful person I had ever met. How was it possible, though? Was he perfect? There had to be a catch. No one could be this perfect, surely.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In one of the brochures I’d read on the plane, a quote had caught my eye. At the time I’d dismissed it, but now I was marveling at how accurate it was.

  “Happy is the man who has the good fortu
ne of sailing the Aegean Sea.”

  The island of Santorini was starting to disappear over the horizon, enveloped in the calm bright-blue waters. A breeze was rushing past me and I stretched out across the sofa on the deck, watching the waves smack against the side of the boat as it sped through the water. The sky was equally blue and totally cloudless; it dipped down to meet the sea in a great expanse of blueness that stretched out in every direction imaginable. A gust of wind sprayed water on me and for the second time in the last few days, I felt totally and utterly alive. Awake.

  I’d always felt like I only had one foot in the world. Not fully knowing who you are makes it difficult to commit to the life you’ve created for yourself. I felt neither here nor there. Sometimes I felt like I stood on the sidelines, just outside my life, looking in and not participating fully in what was going on around me. You could say that I wasn’t really living.

  But right now I felt fully alive.

  We raced across the water for a while before land came into view. Red-and-brown rocky-looking hills rose up out of the water. The color of the water near the shore was quite different from the blue I’d been used to. This time it was a bright-green color punctuated by patches of dark navy.

  As we drew closer and closer, I saw something jutting straight out of the water. Eventually I realized that it was a massive rusted ship propped up in the green water and lying at an angle as if it had been there forever. Some of it had disintegrated into the sea, but the rest—despite the rust—looked intact.

  The sea was quiet, apart from the odd small swell knocking against the sides of the shipwreck. I had never seen anything like it. A kind of ghostly aura hung over this mysterious-looking thing. There was something so haunting and beautiful about this carcass of a ship, washed up on the shore.

  “Some say it was simply an accident, the captain underestimated the weather; some say he was chased by pirates.” Dimitri came up and put a pair of goggles and a snorkel in my hands. “I prefer the pirate story.” He smiled at me, took his shirt off, and positioned himself at the edge of the boat as if he was about to jump into the water. “Come.” He held his hand out for me and I walked toward him.

  We jumped into the water together; it was cool and clear and magical. We swam up to the rusty ship, which now towered above us like a haunted castle. I’d never snorkeled near a shipwreck before and I dipped my head underwater only to be met by an eerie rib cage of rusted metal bones. It was like an underwater graveyard. We swam around the ship for a while and I was struck by how something so broken, derelict, and ugly could be so incredibly beautiful at the same time.

  When we’d finished we walked out of the sea and onto the land. The rocks were sharp under my feet, and I immediately squealed as one pressed into my heel. And then, without any kind of warning, Dimitri came up behind me and lifted me. I screamed in fright as he swung me into his arms.

  “Sorry, I forget how rocky it is,” he said, holding me like I was nothing more than a measly bag of feathers.

  “You’re just trying to show off,” I teased him, squeezing a bulging biceps and laughing.

  “You’re right. I am trying to show off. You see, I’m trying to get this girl to agree to go on a date with me.”

  “A date?”

  “Yes, I’d like to turn the clock back a bit and take her out on a real date.”

  “And what would you do on this date?”

  “The usual. Dinner, champagne, candlelight, some dancing, and then walk her home and if I’m lucky, I get a kiss at the end.”

  “Just a kiss?” I asked.

  Dimitri nodded. “Yes. You see this girl I want to ask out, we’ve kind of gotten to know each other in the wrong order. And I’d like to fix that and go back to the beginning with her. I’d like to date her properly, like I should have done.”

  My heart started pounding in my chest. “I see.” I played along.

  “So do you think she’ll go with me?” he asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “I hope so.” Dimitri paused and looked at me closely. “Because I really, really like her. A lot.”

  “Uh-huh?” I was rendered speechless. No words came to mind at all as I stared into and got stupidly lost in the swirling green of his eyes. I wanted to say it back, that I liked him, too. More than a lot at this stage.

  “So it would be great if she agreed to go on a date with me tonight, so I could spend some time showing her how much I like her. What do you say?”

  “All right. I’ll chat with her and see what she says.”

  Dimitri laughed. “And what do you think she’ll say?”

  “I’m sure she’ll think about it and weigh up the pros and cons and all the various factors.”

  “Shouldn’t she just listen to her heart?”

  “Isn’t that a Bon Jovi song?” I said sarcastically. “Or someone equally cheesy?”

  “Just because Jon Bon Jovi said it, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  We smiled at each other. It was different this time. It felt stupid and giddy and childish—in the best way possible.

  “So what do you say, Jane? A date?”

  I shrugged, trying to act casual. “Sure. Why not? Pick me up at seven?” Dimitri and I both burst out laughing and I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him.

  We spent the rest of the day boating around the islands. There was so much to see. The waters constantly changed color, from dark blues to greens; in some parts they were completely translucent. And then there were all the different islands. We traveled from the sandy beaches of one to the rocky coastline of another. You could never get tired of these views. I could almost imagine the Greek gods roaming these islands in the millennia of old.

  I was very actively trying out the good old Greek philosophy: “Do nothing and relax. Contemplate the sea and sunshine and contemplate contemplating, but without expending too much energy on contemplating your abilities to contemplate.”

  It was early evening by the time Dimitri finally pulled into a port and moored the boat. I glanced down at my phone; it was six p.m. already, one hour until this date of ours, and quite frankly I felt so nervous I could puke. The fact that this had been labeled “a date” felt like it changed everything between us. More so than having sex with someone, twice. Sex was one thing, but candles and romance… that was something completely different.

  I went downstairs to get ready. My options for outfits were limited. The best I could do was a summery navy dress. Not particularly sexy and date-y, it hung to my knees and had little capped sleeves. I didn’t even have lipstick to put on. Not that a smattering of red lipstick is the magic wand for your Cinderella moment.

  As I walked back up the small flight of stairs, I could feel the prickle of nerves even in my toenails. And of course when I reached the top, my date was sitting there waiting for me. His face lit up the second he saw me, and when he extended his arm for me to take I felt a surge of emotion. If happiness could kill you, I was terminally ecstatic.

  We walked arm in arm off the boat and onto the small beach. I could see a restaurant in the distance and presumed that was where our date was happening. The restaurant was right on the beach; intimate little blue tables and chairs were placed on the sand, and the water lapped a foot from the chair legs. The water was almost completely still that night, the moon only a small sliver in the sky, and the stars had not yet appeared. The whole place had a mystical quality to it, like it was frozen in time somehow. Greece was filled with such a sense of history, a subject I didn’t have much experience with, until now. I hadn’t known anything about my own heritage, but this was where I came from.

  Dimitri pulled the chair out for me and I sat down and immediately fidgeted with the napkin on the table nervously. Dimitri sat opposite me and rested his elbows on the table, putting his face between his hands and staring at me. I tried to hold his look, but his gaze was so intense that I felt like I was on the receiving end of a massive wave that threatened to knock me off my feet. There was something
so different happening between us tonight. It was tangible and palpable and lit up the space between us. The air felt electric and it made trying to relax almost impossible. I looked back at him, determined to hold his eye contact this time. I locked eyes with him and allowed all the feelings that I was having to rush over me and ebb and flow through my veins, making my face flush a bright red again.

  “That color suits you,” Dimitri said. “Everything suits you.”

  “That’s not true. I could name a million things that don’t suit me. Skinny jeans, for example.”

  Dimitri leaned across the table, pushed the candle away, and laced his fingers through mine. His thumb trailed across the back of my hand, and my whole body responded to his touch. “You’re beautiful, Jane.”

  I blushed even more and shook my head. “But I’m not.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Lots of people, like bullies from school,” I said as one particularly painful memory came flooding back.

  “What?” Dimitri squeezed my hand.

  “It’s stupid and embarrassing,” I said, trying to push the memory right back down again to where it came from.

  “Tell me.”

  I looked up at Dimitri and he smiled gently, as if urging me on. “Okay, when I was in second grade, the girls and boys were playing a game of kissing catchers. I still remember the exhilaration I felt at the prospect of being caught and kissed, it was so intense. The game started and we all fanned out, running and screaming and giggling across the playground. I ran with such a sense of anticipation and excitement that I was already rather far when I turned and realized that not one of the boys was chasing me. Not one.”

  I felt a little lump rise in my throat at the pain and embarrassment that I experienced so acutely in that moment. I remember how my small, young heart had plummeted into my stomach as if it had been turned to concrete.

  “I would have chased you.” Dimitri finally spoke.

  “Well, you weren’t there,” I said softly and looked out over the sea, trying to avoid eye contact with him because I felt like I was on the verge of tears again.