“What happened?” he says.
“Tomas happened.”
“Ah,” Nathan says, understanding completely.
What I don’t know is how to explain to Nathan that I finally understand that Tomas cannot be stopped by any human force—that the best thing I can do for him is to get out of his way. There comes a time when all you can do is accept people for who they are and who they are going to be.
Nathan did change for Grace but he was capable of change. He was ready. She didn’t force it on him, she didn’t even ask him to change. He came out of the shadows for himself first and then for the woman he chose to love.
Tomas is a different animal, a beast really, one to whom change is a form of death, some primal denial against his tough guy code.
“Let’s forget about him,” I say. “We had plans.”
“Oh, honey,” Grace says as she comes up behind me and wraps me in her arms. “Let’s have some drinks and let our hair down.”
“Sure,” I say. “The sun comes up tomorrow. Life goes on.”
Grace and Nathan consider each other with concern.
“Taylor,” Nathan says, “there’s something you should know.”
“What?” I say, as I notice how uncomfortable he gets, avoiding my eyes and putting his hands into his pockets.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “Well, wait, I have to say this. A man would be a fool to let you go. I think even Tomas can figure that out.”
It’s nice of him to try and make me feel better, it really is. But it’s not what I need right now. What I need is a night out, lots of strong, quality booze and a new lease on life.
“Listen,” Nathan says. “From what I’ve pieced together, Tomas is creating this situation to some degree. I think he’s working on the idea that De Luca needs to be taught a lesson. It’s a guess but I know him. He gets these ideas. They’re like strange moral compass issues. He’s a modern Knight out to right the universe. No doubt there is risk and a lot at stake, but you should know there is no one quite like Tomas on Earth. He’s done these things before and he manages to come out squeaky clean and perfectly safe.”
“Tomas is creating this?” I say trying to control my fury. “Nate, let me just say, your friend is not some noble Knight. He’s a fool. And if you mention him again, I will punch you in the face.”
Grace laughs and then covers her mouth. “Yeah, shut up, honey.”
Nathan’s face goes red for a second before he shakes his head at both of us.
“Come on you two,” I say with a deep sigh. “Get me drunk and I’ll forgive everyone not named Tomas.”
Chapter 21
The happiness spilling out of both Nathan and Grace as they quarrel over the last piece of Greek bread is contagious. Maybe that’s what a true sense of belonging feels like. Not being afraid to be totally silly in the other person’s company—even more than that, actually enjoying the silliness and feeling no need to prove anything.
“Quit whining,” Grace says to Nathan. “You can have the bread. This last piece is yours anyway. I had more than you.”
“Are you sure?” he says with a satisfied grin as he picks up the bread.
“You know what?” Grace says, grabbing the bread and putting it in her mouth.
“What the what?” Nathan protests as she chews on the bread.
“That should teach you to be more assertive,” she says, gulping down the delicious piece of baked dough.
The fish tavern in the Marina of Kalloni is almost full as are most of the taverns in the area, even though five in the afternoon is a time between meals. Greeks eat late—lunch at two pm and dinner after eight although it seems that most of them forget to walk away from the table after a heavy meal. They can linger in a tavern or restaurant for hours.
My friends stayed up late with me last night. We played cards and backgammon with some tequila and ouzo, and discussed anything under the sun except for Tomas and his self-destructive behavior. That’s a subject we left untouched for once.
Having Grace and Nathan so close is reassuring and empowering in many ways. Not that I can get rid of the feeling of loss or the melancholy residing deep down in my soul. But I am functional, all thanks to them.
Nathan has put his arm around Grace’s shoulder and is kissing her neck.
“Hey, get a room,” I say when their lips come together in a passionate kiss.
“Our morals are a tad loose,” Grace says, slapping Nathan’s hand. “We watch too much HBO.”
“Let’s go swim one more time before we go back home,” Nathan says standing up, practically pulling Grace off her chair.
“You go ahead,” I say. “I need to drink something cold first. The heat is dehydrating me.”
“Okay, join us when you’re done,” Grace says.
I nod but the truth is they deserve to have some time by themselves. I’m sure they didn’t travel across the world with a mind to being my babysitters. They planned a summer vacation, not a mission to save me from myself.
They splash around in the water, always keeping within each other’s reach. Everything that they do has one objective only: to bring them closer.
The young waiter hands me an iced lemonade. I sigh as I swirl the straw around before I bring it to my lips.
“Hey, Taylor,” Adrian says, materializing out of thin air.
I bend my face at him as I try to decide whether I should kick his ass or try to be friendly to see if I can get him to open up.
“Hey, Adrian,” I say, still undecided.
He gives me a big smile as he takes the seat where Nathan was sitting. Then the smile vanishes and something very close to anger replaces it.
He grabs Nathan’s car keys and sunglasses from the table. I’m totally confused until he looks at me with a sad expression. “You gave him second chance?”
“What are you talking about?” I say even though I’m pretty sure he thinks the keys and glasses belong to Tomas.
“Tomas. You’re giving him a second chance,” he repeats, almost reprimanding me.
I consider his words, trying to take on a face of pure bewilderment. “How do you even know I ever gave him a first chance?”
“He’s not good,” he says. “When will you believe me?”
“Honestly? I’ve known Tomas a lot longer than I know you. Why should I believe you over him? When you came to my house with Sophia to show me those photos, I was not impressed. Not at all.”
“I want to keep you safe. You don’t know what he’s done.”
I can’t play this game anymore. “How about you lying to me about Sophia and Tomas?”
He lets the keys and glasses drop back on the table. “Stay far from him, Taylor. Tomas… He kidnapped a girl.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“Tomas. He goes to rich American’s villa. Tomas put a knife to a girl’s throat and took her. She kicks. She screams. They have a witness.”
For a moment I stare at him, basically unable to understand what he’s saying. Is he describing a scene from a movie? Does he want me to believe Tomas went to De Luca’s villa and kidnapped a girl?
“Adrian,” I say, “I don’t believe you. Enough, okay? It’s too hot.”
“Fine,” he says, acting so offended I get a chill down my spine. “Okay, talk to the man. I can dial the phone.”
He’s going to give me De Luca’s phone number. Is this what he’s suggesting? “Let me get this straight,” I say. “First, you bring some old photos of Tomas beyond drunk, perhaps drugged, stripping with Sophia, while you are very strangely taking photos, and then you tell me they were from last night and Sophia had sex with him while, what? You take photos?”
“That’s something else,” he says.
“And now you just happen to have some mob boss’s phone number on you for me to call and confirm some kidnapping story. How fucking dumb do you think I am, Adrian? You are such a freak.”
He ignores my words. “Ask him about Amelia,” he says and my heart leaps in my che
st.
I grab his hand. “Why would Tomas kidnap Amelia?”
Adrian shakes his head. “For money. It’s always for money. He knows this man loves the girl.”
“First you belittle my intelligence and now you’re saying Tomas is an idiot. Why would he do that and why wouldn’t De Luca go to the police?”
A grin forms on his lips at my mentioning De Luca’s name. Something tells me letting him know I’m aware of the American man’s name was a mistake on my part. “Amelia doesn’t have her papers,” he says. “She’s illegal. For this country she do not exist. They send her straight back.”
“Back where?” I say as I remember the perfect face and figure of the young girl, the expression of boredom on her face. Tomas did say he talked to her once but he didn’t attribute any significance to the meeting.
Adrian tries to take my hand but holds back when Nathan approaches, soaking wet and completely ripped with flexing muscles.
I remember the days when Grace and I were googling Nathan to find all those half-naked pictures of him from his short stint as a model. Who would have thought then he would end up being the love of Grace’s life?
“This guy bothering you?” Nathan says, noticing the expression of alarm on my face.
I grab Adrian’s hand to keep him seated. “This is Adrian,” I say. “One of Tomas’s Greek friends. He has a strange story to tell.”
“Really?” Nathan says, sitting on the chair next to me.
Adrian opens his mouth but I cut him off. “Adrian says that Tomas has kidnapped a young woman, apparently De Luca’s illegal mistress.”
Nathan chuckles. “That’s just stupid. This guy is full of shit. I can see it on his weak-ass face.”
Adrian balls his fist and leans forward in his chair.
“Sit down before I knock your ass back into the Bronze Age,” Nathan says as easily as he would a passing hello.
“Nathan, listen, please,” I plead with him. “Adrian says he did it in exchange for money, not to have the woman to himself.”
“Money? As in ransom?” Nathan says, looking straight at Adrian’s face.
“That’s what the man said,” Adrian repeats.
“Why would this man talk to you?” Nathan says. “You’re irrelevant.”
“I tell you what I hear,” Adrian says, sounding intimidated. How quickly a man with gym muscles bows down to a real tough guy.
“Sounds like you need your ears fixed,” Nathan says.
Adrian shrugs, turning away from Nathan. “News travel fast.”
“It didn’t travel to us,” I say.
“You don’t speak Greek,” he says, dismissively. “The island knows about Tomas.”
“The whole island? Wow,” Nathan says. “My dude doesn’t work that way, Socrates.”
“There is evidence,” Adrian says.
“What evidence?” I say.
“A camera and a witness.”
“And you just happened to hear all that, too?” Nathan says. “You sound like the worst plant in the history of set-ups. Whoever hired you is not getting their money’s worth.”
“No one pay me,” Adrian says.
“Right,” Nathan says. “Leave this table.”
Adrian gets up, quickly moving behind the chair and toward me, putting distance between himself and Nathan. “Talk to the American man,” he says, handing me a piece of paper.
“What’s that?” Nathan says as soon as Adrian’s out of sight.
I roll the piece of paper with my fingers before I answer him. “It’s a phone number and an address. Presumably De Luca’s.”
“Give it to me,” Nathan says.
Something in me wants to keep that piece of paper all to myself. I look up at Nathan but still my fingers won’t open.
“Taylor?” he says.
“What will you do if I give it to you?”
“I don’t know yet,” he says. “What I do know is I’m not letting you get anywhere near De Luca.”
“Don’t even think about it, Nate,” I say as I straighten out the paper, taking a quick look at the written characters on it before I hand it to him. “We’re not putting you at risk, either. No way.”
“Nothing will happen to me,” he says, folding the paper and putting it in the pocket of his shorts. He then places the shorts inside the bag he and Grace have brought along.
His eyes focus on me now. “It’s all B.S., Taylor. You know that, right? That weasel, Adrian, is probably on De Luca’s payroll.”
I shrug. “You have to admit, it could explain why Tomas keeps vanishing, why he wants no one to know what he’s up to or what he’s done.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve seen Tomas at his best and at his worst. He has principles, certain rules he lives by—he won’t judge and he won’t put a woman in harm’s way. It’s not in him.”
“And you don’t think people change?”
“Behind everything, Tomas has principles that will never change. I’d be dead if he didn’t. He can’t walk away. That’s his problem.”
“He’s lucky to have you,” I say, smiling. “Grace is lucky to have you, too.”
“You have me, too, Taylor. I don’t have many friends in this world and you’re among that select few. I won’t let anyone fuck with you, not even Tomas. I got you, little boo.”
“So now she’s your little boo?” Grace says, squeezing the water out of her hair. “How soon they move on,” she says with a roll of her eyes.
“You’d better sit down for this one,” I tell her.
***
The dark sky is filled with sparkling pinholes of light. “I’ve never seen so many stars in my life,” I whisper up at the universe.
“It’s because there’s no moon tonight,” Grace says. “Nor city lights.”
She’s right. Sitting on the porch, we can hear the ocean but we can’t really see it. We have the outdoors lights off, aromatic candles strategically placed all around the porch. Grace did all the work.
The cool sea air fills our lungs and I remember the days and years of Grace and me together at piers and parties and doing homework and talking about boys and dreaming of travel to exotic islands.
Even memories of me lecturing her about the distinct benefits of different essential oils and aromas seem like a different lifetime now.
“I’ve brought the spreadsheets for the shops,” Grace says. “We can go through them whenever. It’s going so good.”
I’m still amazed that Nathan’s parents decided to invest in the little aromatherapy shop I inherited from my grandmother. That place was going under faster than the RMS Titanic. It was bleeding money so steadily I can only describe it as having a heavy flow.
It’s even more amazing that the five new stores are already set up and running. There’s so much work to be done when I return home. Drowning myself with work might be just what the doctor ordered. I wish I could get more excited about it but it will hopefully come back in time.
“Yes, let’s do that,” I tell Grace. It’s the least I can do since she’s the one making my future financial independence a strong possibility.
“Great,” she says and then louder so she can be heard inside the house, “Nathan, bring out the spreadsheets and turn on the porch light.”
Nathan shows up shortly after, holding the spreadsheets like Grace ordered him. Just as he’s about to hand them to Grace, we’re all startled by a loud thud, followed by banging on the front door.
“Stay here,” Nathan says, rushing back indoors.
Both Grace and I follow him instantly. “Men,” Grace says. “They think we’re like helpless children.”
When Nathan opens the door, my heart sinks. Tomas stumbles into the house clutching his left leg. Nathan leans to offer him support immediately. He does this so naturally I realize he’s done it many times before.
“My god,” Grace says, rushing to Tomas’s side. I stay frozen. The left side of his face is caked in blood, his left eye is bruised and swollen. There’s a nas
ty cut on his upper lip, his nose swollen and split. And that’s just what I register during my first heartbeat in the dim hallway.
Grace and Nathan settle Tomas down on the couch in the living room. Nathan turns on the big chandelier which floods the room with light.
Blood everywhere. I stagger down onto a coffee table. Blood on his face and arms and shirt, blood on his knuckles. Blood flooding my heart.
“What happened?” Nathan asks Tomas like a doctor as he slowly examines the damage on his face.
These two have served as each other’s doctor time and again. It’s all clear to me now. This is like seeing into their past together. The dark years.
“A slight miscalculation,” Tomas says, through a severely pained expression. The slightest muscle shift causes him anguish.
“You just missed it by THAT much, huh?” Nathan says, like some old joke they both know, a joke they bring out whenever one of them nearly gets themselves killed from some blown scam or other.
“I’ll go get some clean towels and ice,” Grace says. “Taylor, is there a medical kit here?”
I nod and head for the bathroom. I actually feel nothing. I swear my throat does not take in air. Silence rings in my ears like some ghost is screaming at me, but I can’t hear a thing.
Nathan and Grace are in charge of everything. I have nothing to offer. I am shrinking away from everything. Soon I will disappear completely.
When I return to the living room, Tomas is in nothing but his boxer briefs. There’s so much bruising all over him. I choke on the air I didn’t think I was breathing. He locks his eyes on mine.
The deep hurt in my heart reflects back onto his face. Our last conversation finds its way to my head. He told me I could not handle this. Tomas Keller got that one right.
Nathan slowly begins cleaning the cuts on Tomas’s face with a wet cloth. “There were more than three of them,” Nathan says like some anthropologist trying to decipher ancient clues.
“How can you tell?” Grace asks him.
“See the variety of wound areas,” he says proudly, “but also, no three men could better this man in a fight.”
“I’ll live,” Tomas says, still looking at me.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say suddenly, angrily, to all of them. “If you make him out a hero for this I am going to lose it.”
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