Staying On Top (Whitman University)

by Payne, Lyla

  “Well, since we’re staying at least one extra day, we could always eat there tomorrow.”

  “I know. Sorry. I’m just excited.”

  “It’s equal parts disconcerting and adorable. In case you were wondering.”

  “I really wasn’t.”

  “That is one of the many things that makes you attractive, devil snookums.”

  I made a point of ignoring his hybrid term of endearment, choosing to peer out the taxi window at the spectacular view instead. It would be better in the daylight—the sunset had given us a stunning show on the ferry ride—but even at night the island was nothing short of breathtaking. Santorini, like the majority of the Greek isles, had been formed by volcanoes. White-sided, blue-roofed houses and businesses rose on steep cliffs from the crystalline water, zigzag paths climbing the mountain in haphazard patterns. Boats—some commercial fishing, some pleasure—bobbed lazily against the docks down below, and date and olive trees added spikes of green to the picturesque scene. It was a beautiful place, especially in the winter when there weren’t nearly so many tourists.

  Sam’s eyes were fixed out the window. “It’s gorgeous here.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  “No. I’ve been to mainland Greece but not the islands.”

  The taxi ride was short, which was normal since Santorini wasn’t that big, and I paid the man with coins as we scrambled out. He’d dropped us at Perivolos Beach, which was home to Sea Side and also to a resort where we could buy what we would need to sleep on the beach, if Sam was serious about that.

  “Well, are you hungry?”

  Sam nodded, tearing his fingers away from the back of his neck, where he’d been scratching his bed-bug rash. I hadn’t been brave enough to ask where else the nasty little suckers had gotten him, but I suspected it was a lot like mine—any skin that had been exposed and pressed against the mattress itched like the devil every time the cortisone wore off. I’d done some quick research on his phone while Sam had been driving, just to make sure we weren’t going to contract anything horrible, and had verified what I’d said back in Skopje—the rash should go away within a couple of days. In the meantime, I felt spectacularly unattractive, but at least I wasn’t alone.

  I hadn’t felt alone since we’d boarded the flight to Austria.

  Sea Side was open, thank goodness, and the sign out front said they would be for another couple of hours. Since setting foot back on Santorini, I hated the idea of being indoors, and the thought of having the beauty of this place interrupted by strangers. It was weird to me that Sam no longer counted as such.

  “How about we grab a couple of blankets, and sweatshirts if you want, from the gift shop at Nine Muses and then get the food to go? We’re only going to have a couple of days and I’d really rather spend them on the beach.”

  “We’re really going to sleep on the beach?”

  I cast a pointed look at the back of his neck. “Unless you want to find another hostel?”

  “I’ll try the sand.”

  We gathered two blankets, souvenir candles, a lighter, two resort sweatshirts, and a couple bottles of water from 9 Muses, then ordered enough food from Sea Side to feed half of the pro tour. The sand of Perivolos chilled me even through the blanket we’d spread out, but once Sam’s leg pressed against mine and we were shoveling food into our mouths, the temperature felt as perfect as the rest of the night.

  “This is fucking delicious,” Sam managed around a mouthful of shellfish concoction.

  “I know, I told you.” It might be rude to talk with my mouth full, but no way was I taking a break for talking.

  We scarfed the rest of the food in silence, then Sam poured us each a second glass of wine into the paper cups we’d wrangled from the restaurant. It had taken all of the Greek I knew and then some, but we had managed. The wine was lower quality than Sam was probably used to, but after frat parties at Whitman—even Quinn’s fancy ones—I’d gotten used to cheap alcohol. It seemed even rich college kids still slummed it when it came to getting their girls trashed.

  “What would you do if this worked out? I mean, if we actually found your dad and you actually had the guts to turn him in to Interpol and they actually caught him.”

  We both sat with our legs sticking straight out toward the crashing sea, heels dug into the sand, and leaned back on our hands. Sam’s right thigh pressed against my left, and in the moments before I answered, there was nothing but the winking stars and the sound of the ocean sucking away the sand.

  Like his observation earlier that I seemed happy here, it felt unnatural to respond with honesty—to him or myself. My knee-jerk reaction was to blow him off, give him some pat answer, and it took effort for me to stop and reevaluate in order to find the truth in my own heart.

  I didn’t know if we could find my father, and if we did, I had little faith in my ability to turn him in—and even less faith in the authorities to prosecute him effectively—but that shouldn’t change my answer. Based on the question, Sam didn’t have any illusions that we’d be successful in our quest. He was asking what I would do. What I wanted.

  I didn’t know, and that squeezed my heart into a pancake.

  I’d imagined a world where my father didn’t exist as puppet master. Hoped for one. But even though he’d promised to give me my share when I graduated from college, I didn’t really believe he’d cut me loose. He’d never promised any such thing. Despite the fact that I couldn’t imagine the authorities ever catching up with him, he was recognizable and on several watch lists. Without me, the majority of his schemes would turn out less profitable, or dry up altogether.

  It was a pipe dream—getting out. One I believed because it kept me moving forward, but if I refused to help him today or in two years, he had enough dirt on me to make my life a living hell.

  “Blair.”

  I looked up, startled again at not being alone. Sam had sat up and faced me, concern and confusion darkening his eyes in the moonlight.

  “Sorry. I was thinking about the question.”

  “You’re crying. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  His thumb brushed my cheek. The tears surprised me, but it was the first time I’d accepted, even internally, that that I might never be free of this life. That I would never get to keep a guy such as Sam or a friend such as Audra because if they knew who I truly was, what I did to make the money that kept me in private jets and paid for my Whitman education, they would hate me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you apologizing for crying? You can do whatever you feel like doing. If I was in your position I wouldn’t be handling this thing nearly as well as you are.” He brushed away more tears, the calloused pads of his thumbs scraping my cheeks in a strange and arousing gesture of care. “My parents are greedy assholes, but it took me two years to get up the nerve to file for divorce. Even now, I bring them along to the tournaments. I bought them a house and cars, and they never thank me. Like it’s my duty, even though I’m twenty-three years old and I’ve supported them for almost half my life. And that’s nothing, Blair. Nothing compared to your dad.”

  It felt like a thousand-ton weight lifted off my chest. I felt free, as though I could float after that weight and roll around in the stars as though they were a field of wildflowers.

  No one had ever acknowledged the hardship of my life. To be fair, it was because no one knew the truth. People looked from the outside and saw the pretty girl, the rich girl, the girl doted on by her widowed father. They didn’t know because they couldn’t, but when my dad had forced me into this con with Sam, necessitating my sharing at least a little bit of myself, and there were consequences neither of us had foreseen.

  It was as though a dam had broken. I didn’t know if the connection Sam and I had back in St. Moritz had sped up the process or if it could have happened with anyone, but it felt amazing to stop pretending I had an easy life.

  But I couldn’t tell Sam the whole truth without admitting that I was still und
er my dad’s thumb. That the reason I had come to see him was to work a con, not to find my father and turn him in. As much as I wanted to break down, to blubber about how I’d never be free and see if he’d be willing to help me figure out a way, I couldn’t risk it. I would lose Sam eventually.

  But not tonight.

  “Thank you for saying that, Sam. I don’t mean to be all weepy and girly—”

  “For the record, your being a girl is one of the things I like most about you.”

  I smiled because that’s what he wanted. Still analyzing everything I did and every word that came out of my mouth made me sick. “It’s just that no one knows the truth about my dad. I mean, obviously the government does, and so do the people he’s conned, but the kids at Whitman don’t. Audra doesn’t.”

  “No one? You’ve never had anyone to talk to?”

  “Not since my mom died, no.” He looked as though he was going to ask something about my mother, and that was a place I was not ready to go at all. Maybe I never would be. “In answer to your question, I don’t know. Be able to live without secrets, I guess. Be myself. Make my own way.”

  “It would be hard, don’t you think. Without the money?”

  “Sure. But I’m smart, and in a couple years I’ll have a good education.” I punched his arm. “Maybe I’ll find me a rich husband to make the transition a little easier.”

  He chuckled. “I have a hard time picturing a guy amazing enough to take you on, devil girl.”

  My heart sank. He might feel sorry for me, but the thought of taking me on scared him. It proved that I was far more work than I was worth. “Why do you say that?”

  “You’re special, Blair. You’re strong, and there are a ton of guys threatened by that. You’re hard to crack, and people are lazy. You’re also beautiful enough to intimidate at least seventy percent of the male population right off the bat.”

  “Oh.” I refused to look at Sam, even though his words made my face burn. “I guess you’re pretty glad you decided to pretend not to have any condoms a couple of days ago, huh? You dodged a bullet.”

  “You know, I’m getting a little tired of you assuming that you know everything about me because you watch me chase a ball around a court and give a few interviews afterward.” The anger in his tone snapped my eyes to his face. It swirled in his eyes and tightened his jaw, making the muscles in his neck stand out in a way that turned me on.

  Maybe I just needed to accept that everything about Sam turned me on.

  “I’m not threatened by you, Blair. I’m challenged by you. I love that I didn’t know everything about you after one conversation and it speaks volumes about your character that you refused to go home with me in St. Moritz—I was acting like a shallow doofus. Your beauty … well, it humbles me that you’d have anything to do with me, but I’m not intimidated.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not the seventy percent. It kind of sucks that, as hard as I’ve been working to get to know you this past week, you couldn’t be bothered to see me.”

  It was hard to believe that anyone—never mind Sam Bradford, a guy who could have whomever he wanted—cared so much about what I thought. There had been something between us in Switzerland; I’d felt it even though he had been acting like a shallow doofus, and maybe it spoke more to my lagging self-confidence than anything else that it never occurred to me that it could be something special.

  That I could be something special.

  Since we’d been traveling together, I’d been bitchy and distant, unwilling to keep him in the loop and denying him comforts at every turn. It made no sense that he would like me at all, want me at all, but maybe it didn’t have to.

  “Sam, that’s not it. I don’t think you’re shallow or insecure. I’ve never thought that, actually, even on spring break. You like to have a good time and unwind, and with the pressure of the tour and your injuries, it made sense. You’ve been a saint, putting up with me since we left Melbourne, but honestly … I never thought this thing between us was about more than a conquest for you.”

  “How can you say that? I invited you to sit in my box my first tournament back, that’s not a casual-fuck kind of invitation. Do you not feel that something … more?”

  Sudden shyness overtook me, I’d suspected as much about the tournament invitation, but had been involved with Flynn at the time and, honestly, a little irritated that Sam couldn’t take a hint. I wasn’t looking for anything more than easy and free, and a guy who didn’t ask too many questions. Flynn had fit the bill perfectly. I could admit now that even the prospect of Sam had scared me.

  I took a deep breath, thought through the string of consequences, then decided to ignore them. I was so tired of trying to figure out how one misstep could ruin a con down the road. “I did feel something more, and that’s exactly why I blew you off. I just told you that no one knows about me, about my dad and my life. How could I date someone seriously and expect to be able to keep that kind of distance? And you? You make me want more.”

  He froze, then broke into the grin that charmed women around the world. “I do?”

  “Yes, you idiot. Everything I normally play close to the vest comes spilling out around you, and it makes me crazy. But you’re still here anyway.” For now.

  We watched each other, emotions flashing through his honey eyes as fast as they skittered through my heart. Fear. Wonder. Excitement. Distrust, even after everything, that came from not knowing each other as well as we’d like to, a fact that left us vulnerable.

  All of the little tidbits that we had shared added up to something, enough to hurt if they were rejected, and that was the root of my fear. That I had finally found a friend, someone to open up to, someone to show myself to, and would be forced to watch him walk away.

  “You know, I never think about the future, Blair. My family, the way they are, it doesn’t inspire much faith in the validity of long-term commitments.”

  The piece of information confused me. Not because it didn’t make sense, but because I wasn’t quite sure why he was telling me. “I’m not thinking about next year, Sam. Hell, I’m not even thinking about next week. I’m just … ready to live in the moment. With you.”

  I’d spoken the truth, but it hurt in unexpected places to agree that we had no future.

  Sam stood up, then held a hand out to me. “Grab that bottle of wine. Let’s take a walk.”

  “A walk?” I felt as though my lips weren’t attached to my brain.

  “Yes.” He glanced up toward the resort, which wasn’t full this time of year but wasn’t empty, either. Its lights reached toward us on the empty beach. “I saw someplace on our way to the restaurant that might be better for spending the night. Less out in the open.”

  My heart raced at the suggestion. All of me trembled with desire, even ones that were usually slow to wake, and when my palm slid against his, a shock of anticipation moved through me. Sam held one of my hands and my other gripped the bottle of wine. He grabbed our blankets and led me away from the resort, toward the part of the beach that would be crammed with tourists and vacationers in the summer months, but tonight waited, empty, for the two of us.

  A thousand yards or so away there was a blue-painted wooden rowboat next to an outcropping of jagged rock. It looked like a painting under the moonlight, with one bench and a pair of oars near the bow, the rest hollowed out—a fishing boat.

  I dropped the wine in the sand as Sam stopped next to the hull. He turned, pulling me into his arms and capturing my lips with his in one smooth movement. Our tongues twisted together, hands everywhere, until we were both breathing hard and I was wondering how feasible it would be to have sex standing up.

  “Hand me your sweater,” he panted.

  This had been so long coming that it didn’t occur to me to argue or ask why. My sweater landed next to his sweatshirt in the bottom of the boat, and the sweatshirt hoodies we bought at the gift shop went next. I shivered in the breeze that wafted off the water; it wasn’t freezing, but the temperature
probably hovered somewhere in the mid-sixties.

  Sam caught sight of my shudder as he spread one of our fleece blankets over the clothes. “I promise to warm you up in sec.”

  “You’d better.”

  He puddled the second blanket at one end of the makeshift mattress, then bowed slightly, gesturing to his creation. “M’lady. After you.”

  I took his hand as I stepped into the boat, settling on the bottom. He followed a moment later. It was a tight fit with both of us, but it would be more than enough room.

  The light touch of his fingers on my belly drew a gasp from deep inside me. I held my breath, then blew it out my nose as Sam lifted my tank top over my head. I returned the favor, ridding him of his T-shirt and taking a moment to stare at the hard landscape of his chest and stomach in the Greek moonlight.

  “You are beautiful, you know that?” I breathed, not caring all of the sudden if I sounded like a complete moron. If we weren’t going to get repeats of these moments, it seemed to be a mistake to withhold words that begged to be spoken.

  He smiled. “I think you should get your eyes checked.”

  My fingers trailed downward over his pecs, lingering on his abs, then dipped into the waistband of his jeans. His quick intake of breath shot desire between my legs and brought a smile to my face.

  His hands lifted, framing my face. “You’re beautiful, Blair. I swear, I could watch you for hours and never be anything less than fascinated.”

  “How about you do a little less talking and get to that warming me up that we discussed?” Compliments made me equal parts happy and uncomfortable.

  “As you wish.”

  I smiled, not knowing if he meant to quote The Princess Bride but tickled all the same. Movie references, and thoughts in general, flew out of my head when Sam’s lips landed on my neck. They worked downward, hands pushing me back onto the blankets and clothes in the process, until they had trailed down to the swell of my left breast.

  He lifted his head, concern visible on his face in the darkness. “Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes.”