Staying On Top (Whitman University)

by Payne, Lyla

  Chapter 16

  “You’re better than you let on!”

  Blair grinned from the other side of the net, resting her racket on her shoulder and striking a sassy pose. I’d been regretting not asking Head for some clothes, too, because her legs in a tennis skirt would have been a sight.

  “Oh, come on. You’re taking it easy.”

  “Well, yeah, but this is my job. You’re a great hitting partner.” It wasn’t a lie. She was quick on her feet, and had an early read on the ball and a killer backhand that had caught the deuce court sideline more than once.

  “I’m having fun,” she admitted, breathing a little hard. “It feels good to exercise after days of sitting on my ass.”

  “Diving isn’t for slouches, either. I’m going to be sore tomorrow. Can we take the rackets when we leave?”

  “I don’t care. Don’t know if we’ll be able to play again, though.” Blair squinted up at the setting sun, then wandered over to the benches between the courts and checked the time on her cheap cell. “We’d better go. Xander’s expecting us for dinner, and we need to book our flight out of Athens tomorrow.”

  “So, who is this Xander character?” I asked, trying to sound casual as we packed up our gear in the bag that had been at the post office when we returned from diving.

  “Why, are you jealous?”

  “As if.”

  That earned me a snort. “He’s the caretaker for our house here. Has been since I was a kid. I trust him.”

  “You trust him not to tell your dad we were here?”

  “If we convince him we’re on the island for an impulsive romantic getaway? Sure. He’s my dad’s man as far as business stuff, but he supports my flights of fancy.”

  “I have seen no evidence of flights of fancy.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You mean having sex in a boat that smells like fish doesn’t count?”

  The quick response surprised a chuckle out of my gut, and I leaned down, drawing her lips to mine. Even though we were in public, it wasn’t long before she parted her lips for me, inviting my tongue to play with hers, and before we were both sweating again.

  “Are we going back to the boat after this dinner? I mean, we did leave our blankets.”

  “I do like those blankets,” she teased, dropping her arms from around my neck and shouldering her bag. “But I do think we should find somewhere to shower before dinner.”

  “Agreed. How are we going to do that?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  I decided to not answer rather than lie, which made her laugh, which led to more kissing before we finally left the tennis courts and hailed a cab a few minutes later.

  It dropped us off at the base of a narrow path that zigzagged upward. A man kept an eye on a group of five donkeys as people brushed past, some choosing to hike, others continuing on their way. My eyes went up, up, up the side of the volcano, then returned to find Blair watching the donkeys with a wicked grin.

  “You ready, Bradford?”

  “Really?” I wondered how many illnesses had been passed from donkeys to humans, like the bat-born supervirus that wiped out 80 percent of the world in Contagion.

  “Okay, don’t pass out. I did that to freak you out. We’re taking the cable car.” Blair squealed when I smacked her ass, then scooted out of range and led me to the queue for the cable car.

  I swallowed, trying my best not to look super relieved that I wasn’t going to trek up a bajillion stairs on the back of a donkey. “You know, I would have taken the donkey.”

  “I know. You’re surprisingly adaptive, and I kind of love that about you.” Her hand reached out and grabbed mine, the motion smooth and natural and heartbreaking. “But they don’t treat the donkeys very well. I’d rather hike it than support them.”

  The sentiment drenched me with affection for this girl, so hard and soft at the same time. The hardness was like a shell, designed to keep others from squishing her breakable parts, and I felt more than a little honored to be trusted with what was inside that shell.

  We didn’t speak much on the ride to the top. The spectacular view of hillside, water, and sunset distracted me from the thoughts that had plagued me most of the afternoon—all of the worry over what would happen tomorrow—and for the first time in days I settled fully into the moment. With the exception of the time we’d spent naked.

  When we headed toward what appeared to be a residential portion of the village as opposed to the more commercial area, my brain snapped to attention. We stopped at a house that looked pretty much like all of the others—open-air patio, small balcony, cracked white plaster. Instead of using a code to open the door as we had in Belgrade, Blair tipped up a flowerpot and grabbed a key.

  I put my hand over hers before she turned the key in the lock. “Wait. We don’t want a repeat of Belgrade. Are you sure there aren’t alarms?”

  “No. I didn’t think there would be in Serbia, either, but the response time for such a thing would be longer here. Plus, it’s much more remote.” She shrugged. “Let go in and check. If we see anything suspicious we’ll leave, but I could really use a shower.”

  “With me?”

  “Tempting.” The hitch in her breath and the spark in her eyes betrayed her desire. “But we have less than half an hour until dinner, and Xander abhors tardiness. I’d need way more time than that to be done with you.”

  I groaned. “You just had to add the last part, didn’t you?”

  “You’re fun to tease.”

  “I’m going to make you pay for that later,” I murmured, running my fingers down the back of her neck.

  “That had better be a promise.” She stepped away from me with a saucy grin, then stripped off her shirt on her way down the hall. “Check the living room for cameras, will you?”

  She wandered into the other room and my eyes scanned the walls and ceiling, finding nothing that looked out of the ordinary. There weren’t vents in this house, given that there was no central heat or air, and the ceiling fans would be the only place to hide anything like a camera or motion detector. The room appeared clean, too, at least to my untrained eye.

  I heard the shower come on in the other room, and assumed Blair hadn’t uncovered anything suspicious, either. The kitchen was empty, dustier than either of the other places we’d stopped, and smelled like stale air. No refrigerator or microwave. Nothing to suggest Neil or anyone else had been here in some time, though this world was simpler than most to begin with.

  It made me wonder exactly what kind of caretaker this Xander was, since this property didn’t appear to need much support, and my instinctual nerves over meeting him ratcheted up a couple of notches. Anyone who had worked for Neil for twenty years had to know enough about his business to at least suspect criminal activity. Which pretty much ensured Xander was some kind of criminal himself. I was going to shove what was left of my cash into my underwear before we sat down to dinner.

  The shower went off in less than ten minutes, followed by the sound of Blair’s voice hollering that it was my turn and to hurry up. She was gone from the bathroom when I walked in, which disappointed me, but the spray of lukewarm water took my mind off her naked body for the seven or eight minutes I stood underneath it.

  A record since we’d left Melbourne, probably.

  “I have to say, I’m not a fan of the towel.”

  I startled, my heart leaping into my throat, when Blair spoke from the shadows outside the bathroom. “Christ.”

  “You’re jumpy.”

  “I’m sorry, after having to jump off a balcony at our last checkpoint, should I not be?”

  She didn’t answer, just held out a pair of jeans and a yellow button-down. “Here. My dad and you are about the same size. They should fit, and they’re clean.”

  Once my heart rate returned to normal, I noticed she wore a gauzy red sundress that tied at the shoulders with little bows. It dipped low enough in the front to show off the cleavage that had so intrigued me last night, and the sun from
the day had kissed her skin with a golden hue. She’d twisted her wet hair into a braid that hung down her back.

  I stepped forward, snagging her into a hug. “You look like the most beautiful devil in hell.”

  “What kind of devil would I be if I couldn’t seduce you,” she joked, swatting me away. “You’re getting me wet.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “Get dressed, would you? I promise not to ask you to put clothes on for the rest of the trip.”

  “Fine.” I shut the bathroom door after stealing a kiss, because getting naked around her would lead to us being late for dinner, no matter what she said. Her eyes betrayed her.

  The clothes fit fine, and the comb, toothbrush, and toothpaste under the sink combined to make me feel almost human again. The deodorant in my pack took me the rest of the way, and for two people who had been halfway around the world and through most of Europe in a little more than week, we looked damn good.

  “Four minutes to spare. Are we going to make it?”

  “Yep. The restaurant isn’t far. Nothing is really far on Santorini, as a matter of fact.”

  We left the house without incident, Blair locking the door and replacing the key under the pot. The walk to the restaurant, with Blair’s hand in mine, made me forget again that we were merely pretending to be a couple on vacation. Which worked in our favor, given that we were about to try to convince a man who knew her as well as anyone of that very same lie.

  The place was called Fanari, part of another resort hotel type place. A young, bored-looking host led us out onto a stone patio. White-clothed tables with flickering candle centerpieces overlooked the ocean, which had turned a deepening blue in the twilight.

  The sun set early here this time of year, before six, which had come and gone. It had dipped below the horizon a good fifteen minutes ago, spraying a golden halo above the waves and giving the evening a surreal glow that artists of every kind had been attempting to capture for thousands of years.

  I stopped for a moment and took it all in. There were so many things that I loved about technology, but one of the things I hated was that no one ever stood and stared. Off into the distance. At the beauty in front of them. If we were lucky enough to see something amazing, we were reaching for a phone or a camera to photograph it, not just seeing it.

  It occurred to me that neither Blair nor I had reached for our phones for anything other than navigation in days. I should be more vigilant, since Leo wasn’t above sending out an international search party, but life felt good this way. Right. As though it really could be simple.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Blair stood at my side, as still and silent as I had been, her bottomless dark eyes chasing the spot where the ocean met the sky.

  “Yes.”

  She caught me looking at her and whacked my arm. “I meant the view.”

  “So did I.”

  As hard as she tried to keep the smile from twitching up the corners of her mouth, they wouldn’t obey. I slipped an arm around her waist at the same moment a huge, burly man of indeterminate race swaggered up to us with the kind of confidence that only came from being sure you could kick a man’s ass—any man’s.

  “Well, if it isn’t little Blair Paddington.” He gave me a hard look. “How about you take your hands off her.”

  Blair grabbed my hand, trapping it against her waist before I could snatch it away like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Sam, don’t move. Uncle Xander, it’s good to see you.”

  After she’d held on to me long enough to make her point, Blair stepped forward and into the giant oaf’s arms, giving him a squeeze. He lifted her off the ground, making her squeal like a child as I tried to figure out what kind of caretaking he specialized in.

  He set her down and turned his black, beady gaze on me. “And who in the hell are you, other than handsy?”

  “I’m Sam Bradford.”

  “The boyfriend?” He cocked his ear toward Blair, refusing to peel his hard look away from me.

  “Yes. Now stop acting like you’re a father. Not mine, because obviously he doesn’t concern himself with who I date, but someone’s. Is the table ready?”

  The man harrumphed, then stuck out his hand my direction. “Xander.”

  “It’s nice to meet you. For what it’s worth, I promise I’m treating her with as much respect as she’ll allow.”

  He bellowed, laughing until he bent over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Half of the people on the patio were staring without trying to hide it by the time he recovered. The wide set of his shoulders and the thickness of his gut suggested it didn’t take much to wind him.

  Good to know. In case I needed to run.

  The three of us sat at one of the tables closest to the short stone-and-mortar wall that separated the restaurant from the steep drop down to the sea. Single-sheet menus waited on our plates, glasses full of water and ice. Xander ordered what turned out to be a bottle of white wine. He poured for all of us and then drank his glass down in one gulp, refilling it while I tried not to stare.

  Blair paid him no attention, studying her menu even though it was in Greek. I followed her lead, peeking at him while he drank the second glass in two gulps, then refilled and stared at his own menu. Some of the words were familiar enough, and when I looked closer I saw that there were English and Italian translations in lighter print along the sides.

  A waiter appeared, and Xander ordered another bottle of wine along with his dinner. Blair ordered next and I requested what I hoped was fish with a mushroom risotto, or something similar. The waiter wrote everything down on his pad with quick strokes, then left the three of us alone.

  Xander sipped his third glass of wine, which meant it went down in five swallows instead of one or two, then leaned forward on his elbows. “So, what are the two of you doing here?”

  “We’re having a little holiday.”

  “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

  Blair shrugged. “This was the best time for us to get away. Sam’s a tennis player, Uncle Xander.”

  “Tennis?”

  “Yes. Quite a good one, too.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing, I suppose. Except it means he only gets six weeks off a year and they’re right now.”

  “That’s horrible. You work too hard, boyfriend.” The waiter scurried back up to the table, setting down a basket containing an assortment of breads and crackers. “You said in your message that you needed a favor. Oh! And I have your spare phone.”

  He pulled an iPhone identical to the one that Blair had dunked in the Danube from his pocket and tossed it across the table. She caught it, dropping it in her purse without looking at me. It didn’t bother me that she hadn’t mentioned asking for a new phone, but it did bother me that she clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

  Maybe she’d been enjoying life without one, too.

  “Sam and I borrowed a car from a friend in Belgrade. We’re going to leave it at the port in Athens, but we need to get it back to her. Also, I need some cash. Five thousand should do it.”

  A chunk of bread stuck in my throat. She’d asked for five thousand dollars as though it wasn’t any different from asking for a mint after dinner, and Xander hadn’t flinched. My curiosity about him, about her father, about the life they led ramped up every time she let a new bit of information slip, but this encounter had increased it by leaps and bounds.

  The phone rang in her purse. Blair leaned over and peeked at the incoming call. If I hadn’t been looking at her I would have missed the flash of resignation that crossed her face, so sad and poignant that it made it hard to breathe. Our eyes met for the briefest of moments, and in the space of a breath her expression settled back into the contentment we’d enjoyed over the past thirty-six hours—but it didn’t look quite right around the edges. An ill-fitting mask.

  “Okay, so return a car to Belgrade and hand over some cash. Do I get to know details
? What’s the money for?”

  “Nothing in particular. We just aren’t quite ready to go home yet.”

  “You’ve been in Serbia and Santorini.” His eyes narrowed. “Where next?”

  “I’m going to take him sailing.”

  “Hoo-boy, tennis boyfriend, you’re in for a treat. I’ve only ever met one sailor in this whole world better than this girl’s daddy, and that’s this girl. Could sail rings around anyone in the world by the time she was ten.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask where and how we were going sailing, but that was probably the kind of thing actual couples talked about before bringing it up in public.

  Xander took another swig of wine, then winked at me. “Course, our girl learned many things from her daddy, and she keeps them honed, too. Practice makes perfect, and all that.”

  Blair winced as food appeared in front of us, the waiter so quick and quiet that I didn’t hear him come or go. I had a hard time tearing my eyes from her face, trying to see past the mask, to guess what exactly Xander meant by her keeping in practice. Blair’s breathing quickened enough for me to hear it sitting next to her, and I heard her swallow.

  Xander dug into his plate with as much gusto as he’d attacked his wine a few minutes ago, oblivious to the fact that he’d caused a quiet panic attack in his honorary niece. He sounded exactly how I imagined a pig would sound, snorting supper up from its trough.

  I ate on autopilot, my mind a million miles away trying to make sense of the jumble of feelings inside me, the girl beside me, the days ahead. Whether or not I would ever see that money again, whether I even cared anymore. I felt stronger than I had in months. The tennis Blair and I had played had been energetic; I hadn’t pulled many punches, and my abs felt great. This was going to be a good season, and with any luck, it wouldn’t be the last.

  And I would be fine.

  I would be fine without Blair, without the money. So why did it make me so sad to think about walking away, about going back to the world where I belonged—the world I loved?

  We finished the dinner with me adding little to the conversation. Blair snapped out of whatever had set her off, chattering with Xander about tides and the woman from the village, musings about what resorts would be the biggest sellers the coming summer.