Staying On Top (Whitman University) Read online

  I looked down at my leg, suddenly more than a little paranoid myself. A wash of reddened skin, complete with a smattering of bumps, decorated the space between my knee and ankle. “Shit.”

  Sam’s eyes widened when they glimpsed the horror of my leg. “Oh, Christ, what is it? Is it herpes?”

  “Dude, calm down.” I wanted to laugh at him, but the fact was that I wasn’t thrilled about being all itchy after a night in strange sheets, either. “It’s probably bed bugs, or maybe a reaction to cheap sheets or detergent. We’re not exactly used to those things.”

  “Bed bugs? Oh my god.”

  The look on his face, as if someone had told him they’d ground up a turd in his coffee, did make me smile. “Sam, it’s going to be okay. Even if it’s bed bugs, the rash will go away in a few days. We’ll stop and grab some cortisone cream.”

  “I think I’m going to freak out.”

  I took his hand without thinking, tugging until his eyes focused on mine. In them flashed the kind of panic that can’t be faked, and all inclination to poke fun at him fled. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  I made sure to take deep, even breaths and after a moment, his erratic gasps slowed, starting to mimic my calm breathing. My lips moved on their own to find his, and as my tongue found its way inside his mouth Sam’s arms went around me, his bulky frame relaxing against my chest.

  The kiss ended too quickly, his forehead pressed against mine. “Thank you. I feel like a tool.”

  “You don’t have to feel stupid, Sam. You’re afraid of what you’re afraid of. Frankly, germs seem as plausible a possibility to take out the human race as anything else. Maybe more so.”

  “That’s true.” He pulled away and took a deep breath. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  *

  We were out of Skopje within the hour after a quick stop for breakfast, another for anti-itch cream, and a ten-minute detour to an Internet café so I could tell the Vienna police where to find that first boosted Jetta. The trip to Athens would take about five hours, then we’d have to take a ferry or hire a boat to take us to Santorini. Even so, we would be there by dinnertime.

  The Santorini house was the most familiar to me; my mother had loved Greece, so we’d spent a good majority of holidays on the island. It was also the only property situated in close proximity to others, since there wasn’t any place on Santorini not covered by some kind of building. I liked it there, too, even though it had too big a tourist population to be one of my favorites. I’d never admitted my affection for it to my father, since saying something like that would be the fastest way to ensure he’d never invite me again.

  Nonattachment was a way of life, and even though Dad spent more time in the Caymans than anywhere else, it had more to do with convenience than fondness. Me saying I liked something, or that something made me comfortable or happy, meant losing it the next day.

  “I’m not staying in a hostel again, I swear. If you still say no hotels because no credit cards, then we’re going to buy some blankets and sleep on the beach.”

  Sam glanced over at me from the driver’s seat, the expression on his face serious. He’d bathed in so much hand sanitizer that it had almost made me barf up last night’s vodka, but it had made him feel better.

  I kept my mouth shut about all of the studies suggesting people who used too much of the stuff were making themselves more susceptible to germs in the long run, not less.

  “Fine. There are some boardinghouses on Santorini that probably take cash up front, but it’ll be warm enough to stay outside, too, if you want to do that. I’m game.”

  I felt game for anything, honestly, as long as it involved Sam. My dad wouldn’t be in Santorini. He could be anywhere, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t lived anywhere but on the Alessandra—his sailboat—for the past ten years. Since my mother died.

  We passed most of the trip quietly, the person not in the driver’s seat sleeping off more of their hangover. A few silly games passed the rest of the time; we played a round of I Spy, then the Alphabet Game. I hadn’t played road trip games since I was a small child.

  After Mom died I always traveled alone, and always by air.

  “Maybe we could find somewhere to play a game or two of tennis,” I suggested. “You’ve got to be itching to practice.”

  “First of all, please refrain from using the word ‘itching.’ Second, you would practice with me? I thought you weren’t interested.” Curiosity made his words curl up at the end.

  “I play. I follow tennis. I just didn’t want you to see me as some kind of groupie, that’s all.”

  “Blair. You are about as far from a groupie as anyone I’ve ever met. I’m, like, your groupie, with the number of times I’ve asked you out and been shut down.”

  That made me blush. It got a little easier, the being honest with him about my feelings, every time I tried. Maybe it took practice. Maybe it took being with someone who didn’t seem to have any inclination to judge me. For now, anyway.

  “I’ve never had a groupie.” I shot him a smile. “Anything I need to know?”

  “Yes. First off, you need to learn how to act busy even if you’re not. In public places, take a friend and have fake conversations where you’re focused on each other so there’s no chance of making eye contact with someone random. Learn to listen to the crazy meter in your gut—there’s crazy, and there’s special crazy, and the second is the kind that leaves you tied to a bed staring up at a fat lady wielding a giant hammer.”

  “Which kind are you?”

  “What does your gut say?”

  “Special crazy. But I don’t know what brand yet.”

  “You might like it.”

  I was sure that was true. After the scene in the bathroom the other night, there didn’t seem to be any reason to doubt that I would like just about anything he wanted to do to me. I wasn’t feeling quite comfortable enough to share that, though.

  The navigation on Sam’s phone instructed us to make the last turn before our final destination, which was Piraeus, one of the ferry docks in Athens.

  “We could make the one o’clock ferry, or if you want we could change some more cash and buy some tennis rackets?”

  “Sure. Tell me where.”

  “Hold on.”

  It took me a minute to figure out how to search for sporting goods in Athens, then to find a store we could get to and back in less than an hour.

  “You know, I could make one call and have rackets overnighted to Santorini,” Sam commented. “No paper trail, since they’re free.”

  I thought about it in the context of the con I’d set up, then nodded. “I don’t think that would be a problem, but you can’t go through your management. They can’t know where we are.”

  The reasoning was selfish, now. I didn’t want anyone else to catch up with us. I loved that Sam had been ignoring his phone calls and messages. The idea that we could let this beautiful, old city keep the real world at bay for another couple of hours.

  “Great. So, to the docks?”

  “Yep. And if you want to ship the car back to Belgrade, now’s the time. We won’t be driving to our next destination.” My mouth went dry as soon as the words were past my lips.

  Was I really going to take Sam to the Caymans?

  “How can I do that without using a credit card?”

  “We can probably set it up so that they charge your card in a month, and ship it back then. You’ll have to pay more to have them store it until then.”

  We made our way toward Piraeus, the main port in Athens. Cobalt blue water stretched toward the horizon, interrupted by sailboats and cruise ships and industrial boats as far as the eye could see. They were mostly white, and the sun glinted off the paint and the water, blinding me even wearing sunglasses.

  “Who’s going to do that?” Sam threw the car into park in the queue at the port, then twisted to face me.

  I was never going to get used to how handsome he was, or how the way he looked at m
e made me feel naked in the least scary way possible. “I know a guy.”

  “You know a guy. In Athens.”

  “Sure.” Xander was my father’s caretaker at the Santorini house, but it had been clear to me from a young age that he hadn’t been hired for his gardening skills. The guy was six foot seven and had to weigh over three hundred pounds of solid muscle.

  We’d gotten along well, mostly due to a mutual love of chess and science fiction and fantasy. He would help me get the car back to Marija, and keep quiet about it, as long as he didn’t think it had anything to do with my dad’s business. We both knew where his ultimate loyalty lay, but he’d kept secrets for me before, when they were personal. Sam and I would just have to convince him we were what we said we were—lovers.

  “We’ll take the car to Santorini. I have a friend there who can make the arrangements, though we may have to play up the boyfriend-girlfriend gig to convince him it doesn’t involve my father’s business at all.”

  Sam snorted. “Business. Right.”

  “Well, he does have a legitimate side. And he has a law degree.” I didn’t know why Sam’s comment made me defensive, but even though my dad was a con man, it wasn’t all he was.

  “Do I still have to wear this hat?”

  I cocked my head, then reached over and pulled it off, mussing his shaggy hair in the process. It made him look like a little boy. “The hat you can lose, but I’m kind of loving the glasses.”

  “Oh yeah?” He winked. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Okay, lover boy. Let’s go get some tickets and get this bucket on the boat. There will be plenty of time for playacting later.”

  We strolled over to the ticket office hand in hand. The warm salty breeze ruffled Sam’s hair and tickled my cheeks. The green-blue of the ocean, the bright white of the sailboats, the ancient backdrop all filled me with peace and happiness, and I banished the worries of tomorrow from my mind. Tonight, I wanted to pretend. Sam clicked away on his phone, then stuffed it in his pocket.

  “Honey, do you think we could go diving tomorrow?” I asked sweetly, looking up into Sam’s face as we waited in line behind two other couples and a businessman.

  Sam looked down at me, his expression delighted. His carefree attitude was just too adorable, when it wasn’t getting us into trouble. “Sure, snookums. Did you bring your certification?”

  “Yes. You know I always carry it on me as a second photo ID. You?”

  He nodded. “Ditto.”

  We were speaking off-the-cuff, and it pleased me that we could pick it up without discussing it beforehand. I hoped the exchange meant we actually both had diving certifications and that he wanted to go. It would be a shame to take a five-hour boat ride just to tour another empty mansion and taking a meeting with Xander.

  Once we had tickets and made it back to the car, I gave him a look.

  “What? Did I say something wrong? Was I not quick enough on the uptake?”

  “Snookums? Who the fuck says that anymore?”

  “Well, I like it. Do you prefer snookums or devil girl as a term of endearment?”

  “Those are my only choices? Like, I can’t choose no term of endearment?”

  “Nope. Not at the moment. All sappy couples on vacations call each other something. And apparently I’m honey, so …”

  “Just drive the car, smart-ass.”

  He grinned and shifted Marija’s Passat into drive, navigating the crowded parking lot and steering us onto the ferry.

  We climbed out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition, then wandered up a slippery, narrow set of metal stairs to the top deck in unspoken agreement. Since hardly anyone else had boarded we had our choice of seats, and Sam settled us near the starboard railing. It felt nice to be aboard a boat again, with the salt air in my nose and the afternoon sun on my face. We’d chosen an express ferry, which would get us to Santorini in a little over five hours instead of eight or nine. It might seem like a long time to some people, but I’d inherited a love of boating and water from my dad, and it had been too long since I’d been able to enjoy it.

  “You look happy.”

  “What?” I’d almost forgotten Sam was here. A hazard of spending so much time alone.

  “I’ve been watching you for over a week now. This whole trip, whenever you think I’m not looking, you have this kind of conflicted expression. You chew the inside of your lips and cheeks, and your eyes get really far away.”

  “That’s not creepy at all.”

  “Well, you don’t talk to me, so I have to resort to creepy stalker tactics to try to understand what’s going on in that pretty head.” He smiled. “Anyway, just now you looked happy. Your mouth was relaxed, your eyes were on the horizon, and it was like nothing bothered you.”

  I paused, because that’s what I always did. I stopped myself before words came out of my mouth. Analyzed them. What they could tell someone else, what they might reveal that I wanted to keep hidden. Whether or not it was information that would come back to bite me in the ass later.

  The old Blair, the one determined to keep everyone out of her fucked-up inner world, would have smiled and shrugged. This one wanted to help Sam learn, because for some reason it didn’t feel bad when he inched a little bit closer.

  “I love the water. Sailing is one of my father’s favorite things—he’s really good at it, too—and he started taking me out before I could walk. It was our thing even before my mother died. She never went because she got seasick.”

  “Yeah, I remember Leo telling me your dad is a world-class sailor. One reason that it’s been hard for the authorities to track him down.” He paused, looking out across the water. More people wandered up onto the deck, milling around and chatting in low voices. An array of languages, mostly romance, swirled on the light breeze. They were mostly couples and the majority appeared to be non-Greek tourists, but the ferry wasn’t anywhere near as crowded as it got during the summer months.

  A moment later, the engines rumbled to life. “It’s your home. The water. That’s why you’ve never been anywhere you’d want to settle down.”

  A calm washed over me at the idea of living on the water. Now that he’d said it out loud, it made sense.

  “You really want to go diving tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, I do. Are you really certified?”

  “Sure. When I was quite a bit younger. Even when I have the time now, I’m not really allowed to go because of the potential danger. Same with skiing, which I also love.”

  I recalled that he hadn’t been able to go out on the slopes in St. Moritz, but that he had said more than once how jealous he was of the rest of us. Still, a few years of not doing those things was nothing compared with the kind of tennis career he was building. That would crest and start to fall off, probably by the time he turned thirty. He had the rest of his life to scuba dive and ski, or do whatever life-threatening activity he wanted.

  “We don’t have to go diving if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  “No, I want to do something you love. Then later, once my rackets get here, we’ll do something I love.”

  “Did you get ahold of your rep at Head?”

  “Yep. Answered my e-mail while we were in line buying tickets. Six new rackets will be delivered to the post office on Santorini tomorrow.”

  “Bet it’s the first time your rackets will be delivered by donkey.”

  “That would be a yes.” He paused. “I am surprised that you want to spend some extra time here if we don’t turn up anything at your dad’s house. I mean … don’t you have classes to get back to? Or your life at Whitman in general? Break has got to be over.”

  Break ended several days ago, but my teachers were under the impression that my father had had a mild stroke. My dad’s staff would back up the story if anyone called looking for me. He thought I was out getting Sam to trust me enough to sign over his bank accounts.

  Until sometime in the past forty-eight hours, that’s what I had been doing.

&
nbsp; “It’s okay. I worked it out with my teachers. The only requirement is that I turn in projects and be there to take a couple of finals before Christmas break. If my dad isn’t here or the next place, I’m out of options, anyway. I’ll go back to Whitman and regroup, but still work on your specific loss if you’ll let me.”

  The con was harder to step away from than I expected, and I hated that. Hated that maybe all this time I had believed it was something I did, not who I was, and that maybe I had been wrong. Clinging to the familiar was easier than admitting that the real reason I wasn’t in a rush to return to Florida sat next to me. Something had started between us, had grown quickly in a few short days, and I didn’t want to live the rest of my life and not know what it might turn into.

  Sam moved closer, slipping an arm around my waist and tugging me against him. We listened to the waves splash against the ferry’s hull in silence. For the first time in maybe my entire life, it felt okay to sit next to someone else and not worry that they would hear a million confessions in the silence.

  Chapter 14

  It was after eight when the ferry docked at Santorini, and my stomach felt hollow. We hadn’t eaten since lunch on the road, and Sam’s belly had been making noises that had him blushing and me laughing for the last two hours.

  Unlike Jesenice or Skopje, I felt comfortable in Santorini. I didn’t speak a ton of Greek, but I understood enough to communicate. My parents had favorite restaurants, coffee shops they loved, and bars they’d snuck out to after they thought I’d fallen asleep. I had my own favorite—Sea Side. They served the most delicious dish of olives, tomatoes, and shellfish, but I worried they would be closed by this time during the off-season.

  I dragged Sam away from the car, which we left in the port’s parking lot after a quick disagreement about whether or not it would be safe there overnight. I shoved him into a taxi—not onto a donkey, thank goodness—before he could get a word out.

  “Where are we going? And why are you in such a hurry?”

  “I’m hungry, and the place I really want to eat might close early.”