by Sophia Henry
She flinched, and I dropped my hand immediately. I knew I could be too touchy-feely sometimes, but I didn’t intend to be disrespectful.
She gave me a flirty smile, her demeanor flipping back to cool and calm in a split second. “What’s the point in having a suit if it can’t get wet?” she asked, throwing my earlier question back at me.
I smiled, relieved she wasn’t offended by my touch. “Why don’t you like that guy?” I nodded toward the other side of the pool, where the creepy guy sat.
“Spiros is boring and annoying.” She reached for the plastic tray the bartender set in front of us that held the bill for our drinks, but I snatched it out of her hand. She was crazy if she thought she’d pay for anything when she was with me. “I’m not saying I want a guy to play hard to get, but he’s been hounding me since I was four.”
“So young?” I asked while scratching numbers and my signature on the receipt before sliding it back toward the bartender.
“It’s been eighteen years—you’d think he’d get the point by now.” She nodded toward the bill. “Thank you for the drink.”
“He needs to live a little. Find a girl who is interested in him.”
“Right,” Kristen agreed. “But tell that to my parents. They’ve been encouraging him the entire time.”
“Do you get along with them?”
“My parents?” When I nodded, she continued, “Oh, yeah. They’re great. A bit overprotective, but I know it’s because they want me to have a super-fulfilling, amazing life. Too bad our definitions of ‘amazing’ and ‘fulfilling’ don’t match.”
That was something we had in common. My father’s definition of an amazing and fulfilling life had never matched mine, either.
Kristen gathered her thick brown hair in her hands, twisted it to create a long ponytail, then flipped it behind her back.
Without thinking, I reached out and smoothed back the stray strands she’d missed. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted as color flushed her cheeks. “I want to travel and skydive and swim with dolphins. They want me to have a boring desk job and marry a boring lawyer. My motto is: Don’t waste your precious time on earth with someone who makes you miserable.”
If she only knew.
The bartender set our drinks on the bar in the empty space between us. I allowed her to take her drink before I took mine. She pinched the lemon wedges off the rim and squeezed the juice into the cup, then twisted toward me.
I raised my drink. “To avoiding the boring lawyer.”
We clinked cups and I took a long sip.
“You don’t seem boring. I mean, anyone who chooses to be a pilot has to be somewhat adventurous, right?” she asked.
I almost choked, but caught myself. “New city all the time. New people. Nothing to hold me back.” I averted my gaze, staring at the water for a few seconds in order to regain my composure, then focused on her again. “I like this life.”
Technically, it wasn’t a lie. I played for a team called the Aviators and used to play for the Pilots. And travel to different cities was a constant part of my life as a hockey player. Still, I felt like a horrible person.
“Why settle? There’s too much to do before we die.” She pressed her lips together and stared at her drink as if she’d said something wrong.
“Some people, they die before they ever live,” I agreed. I tried to keep my voice light, but I couldn’t. Though my mother had been an internationally acclaimed dancer, I didn’t know if she had ever really lived, because my father held her back.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “So let’s live.” I raised my glass and waited for Kristen to raise hers before downing my drink and slamming the cup on the bar.
“Let’s live.” She smiled and took a breath before tilting her own drink back.
Chapter 3
Talking to guys has never been a problem for me. I’m not shy. I’m not insecure. But for some strange reason, being with Pasha felt too easy, like hanging out with my best friend, Auden. And having that kind of bond with someone so soon gave me a false sense of familiarity and trust.
Unfortunately, I can’t keep my big mouth shut around my friends. It’s what I’m known for.
On a regular basis, my mouth gets me into more trouble than Kanye West’s. Though this time I was the only one who realized it. I didn’t usually blurt out comments about my short life span to hot guys at pools, whether they were pretending to be my boyfriend or not.
We’re all going to die. I just know my time is coming sooner than others.
It’s the reality of life with cystic fibrosis, the genetic disorder I was born with. It affects my lungs and digestive system. CF has no known cure, which sounds super-scary, and it is, especially for people who have more severe symptoms. But in my case, though still serious, it’s not an immediate death sentence. With daily maintenance and healthy lifestyle choices, I should live into my thirties or even forties.
The healthier I keep myself, the longer I live—in theory. In reality, the common cold could take me down. Though I try not to dwell on that.
I hadn’t even realized how much time Pasha and I had spent in the pool together until my stomach started growling. I’d have to eat soon, which meant getting away from my new friend so I could take my medicine with no questions about what and why.
I have no shame about the everyday things I have to do to keep myself healthy. Managing my particular case of CF is fairly easy, since I’ve been doing it for so long. It’s also expensive and grueling. Hotties with Adonis bodies weren’t usually the type to hang around and get involved with everything that goes into keeping me healthy.
Boring lawyers were the type for that.
“My work is done,” Pasha said. He nodded to the pool deck.
I twisted to see Spiros, who had barely crossed my mind while I was hanging at the bar with Pasha, pack up his stuff and throw his towel over his shoulder.
“Well, hot damn!” I rapped my hands against the bar a few times.
Pasha stood up. “I should find Panikos.”
“Oh, yeah. I should go hang out with my friends, too.” I caught my bottom lip with my teeth to stop myself from blurting out how much I wanted him to stay. Because saying things like that to a fake boyfriend is equally as ridiculous as going along with the charade in the first place.
Pasha and I waded to the stairs. I stopped, took off my sunglasses, and lifted my face to the sun. Always take the time, no matter how brief, to stop and enjoy the moment when you’re in it—that’s one of my many self-help-type mantras.
As I slid my sunglasses back on, I caught Pasha’s eyes on me.
“What did you do just then?” he asked while extending his hand to assist me on the stairs. Spiros was already gone, so his sweet gesture wasn’t for show. Maybe he really liked me. Though it was more likely another example of his exceptional manners.
“I stopped to appreciate the moment,” I said.
“You do this often?”
“At least once a day.” I inadvertently squeezed his hand as we walked.
Pasha stopped next to Lena’s chair, grabbed my towel, and handed it to me before pulling his off his seat. He rubbed his shorts and legs quickly.
“Thanks for saving me again,” I said.
“It is fun to piss that guy off.” Pasha smiled. “See you later?”
My heart fluttered inside my chest. I nodded.
“Bye, ladies.” He threw his towel over one shoulder, winked at my friends, and walked away. Water dripped off his swim trunks, leaving a trail of blotches across the ground. My friends and I all stared at him until he was out of sight.
“Where’s your boyfriend going?” Lena asked.
“Probably the weight room. He looks like he needs to lift more,” I deadpanned.
Sia frowned and glanced over her shoulder to check Pasha out again. “He’s not as jacked as Spiros.”
The confused expression on Lena’s face must have mirrored my own.
“What?” Sia asked. “Spiros has a nice body.”
“If you like thick and flabby,” Lena quipped.
“Oh, come on,” I interjected, patting my legs with a towel. “He’s not flabby. He’s just smooth. There’s no cut to define his muscles.”
“Because he doesn’t have any.” Lena adjusted the brim of her floppy hat over her face.
“You’re so mean.” I turned my head to cough into my elbow, then wrapped the towel around my hips and tucked the corner in to secure it at my waist.
The way Spiros’s body had transformed over the years reminded me of what had happened with Anthony Michael Hall, who played the geek in Sixteen Candles. When Spiros left for college, he had been a short, skinny teenager. But when he came back he’d shot up to a six-foot-four hulk, like Anthony Michael Hall in his Edward Scissorhands days. It didn’t make me any more attracted to Spiros, but the change was decidedly better than his geeky phase.
“Lunch?” Lena asked.
Sia and I agreed.
“Come to my room after you drop your stuff off,” I told them. “I have to do a treatment before we eat.”
We gathered up our gear and left the pool for our respective rooms. As much as I wanted to see Pasha again, I hoped it wasn’t during our meal.
One of the major health issues of people with cystic fibrosis is the buildup of mucus. The ducts in my pancreas, the part of the body where enzymes break up food before sending it to the small intestines, get clogged by all the excess mucus. Sometimes this causes blockage in the small intestine, where food is digested. Every time I eat, I have to take enzymes to help my pancreas break down the food. Technically, it’s only popping a few pills, but there was no point in explaining that to Pasha, since I wouldn’t be around him for very long.
Any relationship built around withholding information and deception is a recipe for disaster.
Chapter 4
“That thing creeps me out.” Sia visibly shuddered as she eyed my upper-body gear.
“Dorky and overprotective” would be my first thought if I saw someone sitting in an interior room on a cruise ship wearing a vest that resembled a life jacket. But not creeped out.
My vest, with pink and purple flowers swirling over a teal background, couldn’t have been less scary. It was childish and cutesy because I’d been rocking it since middle school. I had a newer, more sophisticated pattern at home, but I always brought this old one to travel.
“Good thing I’m done, then. I wouldn’t want one of the treatments that keeps me alive to creep you out,” I muttered.
I’d just finished my vest therapy, also called chest wall oscillation. It’s a treatment that helps me breathe better. It doesn’t hurt. It’s not freaky. It’s a bit gross, but I can’t think of many glamorous parts of living with a health disorder.
“Will you two please stop bickering?” Lena demanded. “Kris needs to tell us more about the hot guy she met.”
I pressed the clasps to undo the straps across my chest and shrugged out of the vest. “It’s not that big a deal. He saw how creepy Spiros acts around me and asked if I wanted him to be my fake boyfriend to get Spiros off my back.”
Sia sat on the other bed. “Fake boyfriend? What does that even mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” I hung the vest over my compressor. “Someone to hang out with and prove to Spiros that I don’t want to be with him, I guess. I want to pick my own partner. A guy with a personality.”
“Spiros has a huge—” Sia stopped mid-sentence, catching her bottom lip with her top teeth. “Wallet. He doesn’t need a personality.”
Lena grimaced. “Why would you want to have a fake boyfriend on a singles cruise? The whole point is to get to know all the unattached hotties Detroit’s Greek Orthodox population has to offer.”
“Maybe I don’t want a nice Greek boy.” I mimicked my mother’s accent as I delivered her favorite three words: “nice Greek boy.”
Both my cousin’s and Sia’s eyes widened as if I’d just bitten the head off a kitten.
Nom nom nom.
“Your parents are gonna be so pissed,” Lena said. “You know they knew Spiros would be on this trip. They probably thought it would be a vacation for the two of you alone. Pre-wedding honeymoon planning.”
I stood up and walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth. “You think?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder as I flipped on the light.
Since early childhood, my parents had had this grand plan for me to marry Spiros Loukas, the son of my mother’s best friend. My childhood photo albums overflowed with pictures of Spiros and me as kids, learning to ride bikes, at each other’s birthday parties, on joint family vacations. There were probably as many pictures of Spiros and me as of my older brothers and me.
Because our families hung out so much while we were growing up, some people thought Spiros was one of my brothers. Or at least that I saw him that way.
He wasn’t and I didn’t.
He was a boring, stuffy tool who used to pick his nose. Not my type at all.
It didn’t help my case against him when Stuffy Spiros graduated from an Ivy League law school before moving back to Detroit for a job with one of the city’s top law firms. And it certainly didn’t help that he’d recently been named the newest—and youngest—partner at Manos, Manos, and (now) Loukas.
Why would my parents waste so much money on a cruise just to push me into “falling in love” with Stuffy Spiros? It didn’t make sense when they had the means to do it at home for free.
“Come on, Kris! Don’t play dumb. Of course that’s why they sent you on this cruise. I’m pretty sure your mom would marry Spiros herself if she could.”
I held up a finger, asking for a minute while I finished brushing. Then I turned the light off and joined my friends again. “She can have him. He’s not my type. He’s boring and annoying and there’s no chemistry.”
“He’s cute, stable, and rich. Fuck chemistry,” Lena countered.
Fuck chemistry? That’s something people say about their high school class schedule, not about the person they marry. Chemistry is everything. Well, chemistry and the willingness to understand and support someone with a disorder like cystic fibrosis, with symptoms that could rear their ugly heads at any time.
“Take Spiros out of the equation,” Sia finally piped up. “Why would you want a fake boyfriend? What about all the other guys on this cruise? Don’t you want to have fun?”
“I’ve been thinking of all the fun I could have with that guy since the second I set eyes on him. The kind of fun I wouldn’t have with multiple people on a seven-day cruise.”
“Kristen Katsaros!” Sia exclaimed.
“What?” I asked. “Did you see him at the pool? He oozes sex.”
“Which is another reason to be concerned. He probably works his magic with a lot of girls,” Lena warned.
I shrugged. “My parents sent me on a singles cruise to find a boyfriend, right? I found one.”
“A fake one,” Sia interjected.
“Real, fake—who gives a shit?” I asked. “I’m not going to have Spiros breathing down my neck the entire week. My parents wanted me to meet a single Greek guy to marry and pop out gorgeous Greek babies with. As far as they know, that’s what I found. Everyone’s happy. Especially me. Since he’s funny and hot and has the body of Adonis in the flesh.”
“At least it’s believable.” Lena rolled her eyes. “Because everyone knows all the hottest guys in the world flock to you, no matter where we are.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re such an idiot.” Laughing made me cough.
“What? It’s true!” Lena ignored me and continued with her fish tale. “Anytime we go anywhere, you get the hot guy and we get the wingmen.” She took her sunglasses off the top of her head and held the lenses up to the light.
“A lot of hot guys have hot wingmen,” I said, grabbing my beach bag and peering inside to make sure I had everything I needed.
“That’s true.” Lena
rubbed her glasses against her bathing suit cover-up. “I’ve never gotten the raw end of any wingman deal. Remember Derek? He far surpassed Evan in hotness.”
The hair on my arms stood up, a gut reaction upon hearing my ex-boyfriend’s name, though it had been almost five years since I’d had any contact with him.
“Back to the fake boyfriend in question,” Sia interrupted. “Does he live in Detroit?”
“Nope,” I said. “He lives in Charlotte.”
“Yanni and Helena will never go for that.” She shook her head.
“I think it’s perfect. My parents are too overbearing and involved in my life. A fake long-distance relationship will keep them off my back.”
“Not for long,” Sia chirped. She stretched her long tan legs out and crossed them at the ankles.
“I know, I know. But Pasha’s a pilot. He travels constantly. I’m sure he can swing a trip to Detroit for a quickie.”
Lena jumped up. “Dude! Get ready to join the Mile High Club.”
Joining the Motion on the Ocean Club had already been on my mind; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of doing it in a plane yet. Not while Pasha was at the helm, of course. I’d heard of autopilot, but would that feature really fly the plane with no one paying attention? I should ask.
“Your parents are still going to shove Spiros in your face. They’re hell-bent on the two of you getting together. It’s like they signed the arranged-marriage papers with the Loukas family when you guys were kids,” Lena said.
“Why are they so determined that it has to be Spiros?” Sia asked.
I shrugged, feigning ignorance, though I knew the answer. The Loukases are a well-known, respected family in the community—and they’re wealthy. My parents aren’t gold diggers, nor am I. But they are worried about me. They obsess about the future and who’s going to take care of me. Cystic fibrosis takes a major toll both emotionally and financially. Since Mom and Mrs. Loukas have been best friends for years, she trusts their family. In Mom’s mind, Spiros equals security and stability.
“As long as you two don’t snitch on me, this Pasha thing should buy me a little time. Thank God I’m out of the house.”