One Summer in Santorini
SANDY BARKER

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Copyright © Sandy Barker 2019

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover illustration © Shutterstock

Sandy Barker asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008354343

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008354336

Version: 2019-05-28

For Ben, my very own someone

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

I woke suddenly, and even though I was forty thousand feet in the air, I already felt jet-lagged. You know that unique mix of queasiness and exhaustion? That.

I hate long-haul flying. Wait, let me correct that, I hate long-haul flying in economy. Flying across the world when I’ve been upgraded to business class is awesome – I highly recommend it. But this wasn’t one of those times.

I checked my watch. I had slept for five hours – if we’re calling it ‘sleeping’ – more like ‘dozing upright’. Either way, I felt achy and groggy. I yawned a big, ugly yawn, the kind I usually reserved for solitary moments – one of the few benefits of sitting in a cabin full of people I’d never see again.

I stretched my neck from side to side and pushed my palms into my eye sockets. My eyes wanted to be anywhere else, and I didn’t blame them. I dug around in the seat pocket for my eye drops, tipped my head back, and irrigated my eyes with soothing coolness. Resting my head against the seat, I longed for a bed – any bed. I just wanted to lie flat so I could stretch out my stiff muscles. I certainly didn’t want to be cooped up with all those strangers, sitting in a ridiculously uncomfortable seat, breathing that stale, nasty air.

Yup, I’d definitely woken up on the wrong side of the plane.

Still, irritable was better than anxious. For weeks, I’d been fighting mini panic attacks about the trip, and that wasn’t like me. I’d travelled quite a lot and was more than capable of handling whatever catastrophe came my way. In fact, catastrophes had become such a regular part of my travels, I was starting to wonder what I’d done in a past life to piss off the travel gods.

One flight to Melbourne was cancelled outright. A flight out of Chile was delayed for so long I had to sleep on the airport floor. There was a hotel reservation in Florence that disappeared, and while I was arguing with the manager, my iPad was stolen from my bag. Not forgetting the time my whole suitcase somehow vanished between Sydney and Auckland. On the next trip, my new suitcase emerged a mangled mess on the baggage carousel – hello LA and, yes, fellow passengers, those are my knickers, thank you very much. And I barely recovered from a raging case of malaria in Peru. Okay, so it wasn’t actually malaria. It was salmonella, but it still knocked me on my bum for five days when I was supposed to be hiking the Inca Trail.

I looked out the window at the passing clouds. Maybe all the panic was because I hadn’t travelled in more than a year; I’d lost my mojo. Still, I should have been excited. After one night in London, I was flying to Santorini. Yes, the Santorini – of Greek Island fame.

Even though it was only for a night, I was really looking forward to London, as I was seeing my little sis and I’d missed her like crazy. Catherine – Cat – had moved to England years before. Actually, we’d moved there together, but she stayed and I moved back to Australia. We only saw each other in the flesh every couple of years when she came to Sydney or I went to London. I knew she’d ease my worries – real or imagined – with a firm dose of tough love. It was one of the many, many reasons she was my best friend.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. I had a breakfast of rubbery eggs and something that resembled a sausage, washed my face with a moist towelette, and watched three episodes of FRIENDS back to back. Finally back on terra firma, I disembarked and shuffled along the hallways of Heathrow, cleared immigration, and before long, I was waiting at baggage claim for my backpack. I was normally a suitcase kind of a girl, but the brochure had said to pack light. Apparently, there wasn’t much space inside the yacht.

Oh, did I forget to mention that? My trip started in Santorini and then I’d be sailing around the Greek Islands for ten days. Not by myself – I don’t know how to sail. The skipper would be doing the sailing, and there’d be some other people with us, but most importantly there would be me – on a yacht!

As I watched bag after bag pop out of the baggage chute and tumble down onto the carousel, I finally started to feel it, the excitement. There you are, you elusive little minx! It bubbled up inside me, and I had a sort of ‘baggage claim epiphany’. I was going to Santorini! In Greece! And then to a bunch of other Greek Islands!

I could picture myself on the bow of the yacht wearing my new tangerine bikini and duty-free Prada sunglasses, which both looked fantastic on me by the way, the wind whipping through my hair like Kate Winslet in Titanic. Only before the iceberg. And about a hundred years later. Oh, and sans Leo.

Finally, after what felt like a millennium, my bag appeared. Good thing too, as my yacht fantasy was degenerating into an 80s music video. I grabbed for the handle, fumbled with it a bit, then lugged it off the carousel. It wasn’t big, but it was filled to the brim with the perfect Greek Island trousseau: the obligatory summer dresses, bikinis, shorts, flowing skirts, cute tops, and a sunhat. I was a travelling cliché and I didn’t care. Did I mention I was going to Greece?

I dragged the backpack over to one of the airport trolleys, swung it aboard, plopped my beautiful new leather handbag on top, and headed for the ‘Nothing to Declare’ exit. The only thing I had to declare was that I was going sailing on the Aegean, and I didn’t think the Customs agents gave a crap about that.

Cat was waiting behind the silver railing on the other side of the security door. We look almost identical, except I am five-foot-six and she’s five-foot-nothing. She says she’s five-foot-one-and-three-quarters, but she’s not. She did get the good hair, though – cow. It’s the only thing I hate about her. While I’m stuck with masses of curls – the really curly ones that do whatever the hell they like – she has thick cascading, chestnut waves. Like I said, cow.

‘You’re here!’ she declared, ducking under the railing and throwing her little arms around my neck. I stopped pushing the trolley and returned the hug. We stepped back and regarded each other.

‘You look fab!’ I squeaked, tears in my eyes.

‘You too!’ she lied.

‘I just got off a twenty-eight-hour flight. I look like crap.’

‘You’re right, but it’s nothing a shower and a good night’s sleep won’t cure. Come on.’ She took over pushing my trolley, and I followed obediently as she parted the crowd with a series of slightly rude ‘excuse mes’.

*

Back in her Docklands flat, my hair wet from the best shower I’d ever had, I sat on her couch, a cup of tea in one hand and a chocolate biscuit in the other. We emailed and FaceTimed regularly – we weren’t estranged or anything – but nothing was the same as actually being together, and we chatted non-stop, catching up on all the things that sisters chat about.

‘So, tomorrow you fly to Athens and then what?’

‘I pretty much fly straight to Santorini. The stopover in Athens is only four hours. I thought about sightseeing but knowing me, I’d get caught in a traffic jam on the way back to the airport and miss my island-hopper.’

‘You probably would.’

‘Thank you. No really, I mean it,’ I replied, my voice thick with sisterly sarcasm.

‘What? You do tend to have shitty luck when you travel.’ See? But impending bad luck aside, I happily realised that excitement was thrashing anxiety’s ass.

‘Cat, I’m going to Santorini tomorrow!’

‘So, that’s where you’re going,’ she said, giving me crap. Jealous. I ignored her.

‘It’s just … It feels like I booked this trip ages ago. And, yeah, I was excited at the time, but it’s been months. After a while it stopped feeling real.’ I grinned at her. ‘Until now. I can’t believe I’m really going!’ Then I stopped grinning. ‘I’m not being too obnoxious, am I?’

She smiled. ‘No, I’m happy for you. Really, I am.’ So not jealous, then.

‘I wish you could come.’

‘So do I, but there’s no way I could.’ Cat was a teacher like me, but while I was on holidays, her school year had just started.

‘Probably for the best. It could be a huge disaster of a trip.’ My inner pessimist was back, the lurker.

‘Don’t say that. It won’t be a disaster.’

‘You don’t know that. You just said I have shitty luck. And I do! Every time I travel somewhere, things go wrong. Look at last time in Peru! Plus, I won’t know anyone, and …’

‘Sarah, it’s not every time. I was only teasing. And Peru was ages ago. It’s a little bad luck now and then …’ She trailed off, shrugging. ‘Besides, you used to run tours for weeks at a time – for fifty people! You’re an experienced traveller.’

‘I know, but …’

‘But nothing. Random bad luck aside, you’re you. You know how to make friends with strangers. And you’ve been around.’ I threw her a stern look. ‘You know what I mean. I mean you’ve literally been around. You’ll be fine.’

See? Tough love. Everything she said made sense, but …

‘But what if it’s completely horrible?’ She laughed at me. I probably deserved it. No, I definitely did.

‘It’s not going to be horrible. It’s going to be amazing, and you’ll probably meet some really cool people.’ Then she hit me with the one thing I didn’t want to hear. ‘You know, you might meet someone.’ And then she gave me that look – you know the one.

And in an instant, my sister, my best friend in the entire world, joined the ‘poor Sarah’ pity party.

‘Did you really say that?’ I asked, shooting fiery daggers from my eyes.

‘What?’ She feigned innocence, her eyes widening.

‘You know exactly what!’ I didn’t think it was possible, but her eyes got even bigger. ‘Do you know how many people have said that to me since I booked this bloody trip?’

She shook her head, giant eyes fixed to mine.

‘A bazillion!’ Okay, so sometimes I tend towards the hyperbole. It was probably more like twelve, but in my world, that’s a lot of people.

‘Fine!’ she retaliated. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise it was such a sore point.’

‘Well, it is. I’ve been single for, what, a few months? Right now, I just want to be on my own.’

‘Great!’

‘I mean, can’t I go on this trip, and have it be about me? Seeing somewhere new and hanging out and sailing and shit?’ I was whipping myself into quite the little frenzy.

‘All right. Yes. I’m sorry. I hope you don’t meet anyone.’

‘Thank you.’ It came out angry.

‘And, especially not someone cute, who makes you laugh, and is an all-round great guy. Actually, I hope all the men you meet are old and mean and ugly. No! Better yet, I hope there are no men. I hope you sail around the Greek Islands with a bunch of lesbians! I hope you go to Lesbos and are surrounded by lesbians!’ She pinned me down with a ‘so there’ stare, and after a beat, we both fell about laughing. My laughter quickly turned into a yawn. ‘How are you doing over there?’ she asked.

‘Good!’ I replied with more enthusiasm than I felt. She looked dubious. ‘Okay, I’m shattered, but I need to stay up and get on European time. I’ll be fine. The tea’s kicking in.’

‘How about a top-up then?’

‘Yes! Definitely more tea.’ I drained the last of my mug and handed it to her. She took it into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

With her back to me, she asked, ‘So, as long as you’re staying up for a while, do you want to talk about it?’

‘It?’ She turned to face me, looking mildly uncomfortable, like she was holding in a fart or something. ‘What?’ I asked, knowing exactly what she meant.

‘Neil.’ My break-up with Neil was literally the last thing I wanted to talk about. I would have put a lively conversation about Trump’s presidency, or the Syrian crisis, or even Brexit ahead of talking about the pile of shit I’d called my boyfriend for almost a year.

‘Not really.’ I feigned what I hoped looked like indifference.

‘Oh. All right.’ I could see the disappointment on her face. I could also see her mind working. ‘It’s just … well, we never really talked about it. Properly, I mean.’

She was right. I hadn’t wanted to talk to anybody about what happened with Neil – not my girlfriends, not my Sydney bestie, Lindsey – not even Cat. It was too humiliating.

‘True, but …’ I hesitated. Please don’t make me relive it all now when I am so exhausted. I’d rather stick a fork in my eye. I thought that, but what I said was: ‘Okay, you’re right.’

She brought fresh cups of tea back to the couch and pushed the chocolate biscuits towards me. She knew me so well. ‘So, what happened?’ She folded her legs under her and looked at me expectantly.

‘Well, Neil was a dickhead, and it took me far too long to get rid of him.’ I took a bite of a chocolate biscuit.

‘But I don’t get it. If he was so bad, why did you stay with him for so long?’ It was a question I’d asked myself a thousand times. I swallowed the hard lump of biscuit.

‘I really don’t know. I mean, almost immediately there were all these alarm bells going off. And I kept dismissing them – time and again. I told myself it wasn’t weird that he wouldn’t meet my friends, or that he never wanted to go anywhere or do anything. You know, I realised after we broke up that I stopped travelling when I met him. He wouldn’t even go away for the weekend with me. That’s why this trip … well, it’s not just the chance to return to Greece. It’s more. I knew as soon as we broke up, I had to go somewhere – anywhere.’

I looked over at my sister, and she was nodding sympathetically like she got it. It felt great to be ‘got’.

‘Oh, and he hated it when something good happened to me.’ Cat’s brow furrowed, questioning me. ‘You know when I got promoted to head of department?’ She nodded. ‘Well, I told him, and he said – and I quote – “Well, thanks for rubbing it in. Right after I got passed over for that promotion. Now I feel like shit. Nice one, Sarah.”’

‘He did not!’

‘He bloody did. And even then, I didn’t end it.’

‘Jesus. So, who was this slapper he cheated with?’

‘A friend.’

‘Hardly,’ she scoffed. ‘Do I know her?’

‘No, she was a new friend – from yoga – or at least, I thought she was my friend.’

‘But, how did they meet?’

‘At my place, would you believe it? I’d invited her over for a barbecue and I didn’t think anything of them talking for most of the night. I was just happy he was finally meeting my friends. Apparently, it started right after that.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘Well, he started acting way weirder than usual, so I figured something was up. Then I did something I never thought I would do – something truly awful.’

‘What?’ I could see the suspense was killing her, but I had never revealed this detail to anyone before. I sucked in my breath through my teeth.

‘I still can’t believe I did this. I hacked into his email account.’

‘Oh my god! That’s brilliant. How?’ I laughed with relief, loving her for saying it was ‘brilliant’, rather than ‘stupid and illegal’.

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly hacking. I guessed his password, and I got in.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yep. Second try. It was his footy team.’

‘What an idiot.’

‘Yep. And there was an email trail of the whole thing. Months it had been going on – and get this, the whole time she was telling me to my face about this great new guy she was seeing.’

‘Utter bitch!’

‘I know!’ I bit into the biscuit and chewed furiously. Cat was perched on the edge of her seat. ‘So, I confronted him about it, and he lied to my face and told me not to be ridiculous. I looked at him – straight in the eye – and said, “I know for a fact you’ve been fucking her, you lying cheat. That cow can’t keep her legs or her mouth shut. So, we’re done. Never contact me again. Oh, and I hope you catch her chlamydia.” Then I left his place, and that was it.’ I shoved the rest of the biscuit in my mouth.

‘That’s like a scene from a movie.’

I nodded and swallowed. ‘Well, I did practise it a few times before I went over there. I knew he would deny it. In the emails, they were always saying how dumb I was for not knowing what was going on.’

‘Oh, Sez.’

I started to tear up. When I glanced up at Cat, she was looking at me as though I was a wounded puppy. I looked away and blinked the tears from my eyes. I wasn’t shedding any more tears for fucking Neil.

‘He’s a stupid bastard!’ she declared.

‘Yes, he is. But I haven’t told you the best part. After I broke up with him, I kept logging into his email so I could watch the aftermath.’ Cat peeped with glee. ‘Boy did it get ugly. He accused her of telling me, and she denied it. He asked if she had chlamydia, and she was outraged. He called her names, she called him names back, and eventually, she told him to fuck right off. So, in the end, he lost both of us.’

‘And you were with him for what, a year?’

‘Nearly – a few weeks shy. God, a year of my life, Cat. At least I didn’t have to buy him an anniversary present.’ I spat out a bitter laugh. Cat was quiet, and sadness took over. ‘I can’t believe I stayed as long as I did.’ The words came out as a whisper, and the tears threatened to return.

‘You thought he loved you.’ I nodded. ‘But, fuck him. His loss!’

I love my sister. She doesn’t mince her words. ‘You know, I booked this trip the day after I broke up with him. It was my ‘escape real life’ plan.’

‘Well, I’m glad you booked this trip – no matter why you did it. It’s going to be amazing.’ She paused. ‘And, Sez, you deserve way better than that fuckhead. You know that, right?’

I did know that, yes. I knew I deserved more than to be cheated on by every man I’d ever called my boyfriend, starting with my high school sweetheart and ending with Neil the fuckhead.

‘Anyway, I just want to be on my own for a while. I’m not sure how long ‘a while’ is, but for right now, I think it’s best.’

‘Oh.’ She looked surprised, which after everything I’d told her, surprised me.

‘I’m happily single.’ I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince her or me.

‘In that case, I’m sorry about what I said before – about you meeting someone on the trip.’

‘It’s cool. I know you’re just looking out for me.’

‘And your lady parts.’

‘Well, that’s disturbing.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t need my sister worrying about my ‘lady parts’. I may have sworn off men, but they’re just fine – thank you very much.’

‘So, you’ve totally sworn off men?’

‘Well, not forever, but until …’ Until what, Sarah?

‘Until what?’ Even Cat wanted to know.

The thing was, I didn’t know myself what I was waiting for. I only knew I wasn’t interested in meeting anyone. Actually, the thought of meeting someone new was utterly unappealing – exhausting even. I couldn’t imagine throwing all my energy into getting to know someone new. I had no idea when I’d be ready for that – or if I ever would.

A wave of fatigue hit me, sucking up my last ounce of energy. ‘Hey, would you hate me if I went and lay down for a bit? I can barely keep my eyes open.’ I could see Cat mentally noting that I’d dodged her question.

‘Of course not,’ she said, letting me off the hook for the second time in as many minutes. ‘I changed the sheets in Alex’s room, so you’re all set. What time’s your flight in the morning?’

‘Pft. Stupid o’clock. Six, I think.’

‘Well, I’m a hundred per cent sure I’ll still be asleep when you take off, so it’s highly unlikely I’ll be up when you have to leave for the airport. Want me to book you a taxi to Heathrow?’

‘Sure. If I leave here at four, will that give me enough time?’

‘Should do. I’ll book it. Fuck, I’m so glad it’s not me.’

‘You know, I’m only going to lie down for an hour or so. I still want to meet Jane and have dinner with you guys.’

She looked at me with a knowing smile. ‘Sure, Sez.’

The next thing I remembered was the hideous bleat of my travel alarm intruding on my coma-like sleep at 3:30am. I’d set it – just in case – when I went for my nap the evening before. I lay there for a moment and tried to figure out how long I had slept, but it didn’t matter. I felt even worse than when I’d woken up on the plane the morning before. I needed a hot shower and a bucket of tea, and I only had thirty – make that twenty-nine – minutes until my taxi arrived. Crap.

The minutes flew by, but I only made the taxi driver wait for five minutes, which I thought was pretty good considering how disoriented and horrendous I felt. We made it to Heathrow in record time – sometimes London does sleep and it’s at 4:15am.

The sun was lightening the sky as I handed over a small fortune to the driver. Then it was just me and my backpack and the behemoth of Heathrow’s Terminal Five. The nerves were back. I don’t know why on earth people refer to them as butterflies. They felt more like baby elephants to me.

Chapter Two

On the flight to Athens, I was stuck in the middle seat between a husband and wife, one who wanted to sit by the window, the other by the aisle. They spent the entire flight talking across me in their thick Birmingham accents, as though I was some sort of aeronautical soft furnishing. When I politely asked if they wanted to sit together, they scoffed. ‘Oh no, love, we’re perfectly fine sitting apart.’ I wasn’t perfectly fine. I was developing a tension headache, but they didn’t seem to care about that.

I figured if I was going to survive the flight without having some sort of mid-air meltdown, I was going to need more tea. Tea calms me, tea revitalises me, tea is a miracle drink – tea drinkers will understand what I mean. Thank goodness it was a British Airways flight, because I knew they’d have the good stuff – proper English tea. I rang my call button three times during a four-hour flight and every time was to ask for more tea. This, of course, meant I had to pee twice, but I considered those few moments of silence a reprieve from Douglas and Sharon’s non-stop and not-so-sparkling repartee.

I made a point of losing them as soon as we were inside the terminal. I leapfrogged around other English tourists, striding purposefully towards immigration where I discovered two things: a massive queue and a slew of ridiculously handsome Greek men in uniforms. Apparently, the Greek government had hired a flock of Adonises – or is it Adoni? – to staff the immigration booths. This discovery made the first one much less annoying, and I waited patiently in line while appreciating some of Greece’s natural wonders. When it was my turn, I handed over my passport and endured the handsome man’s scrutiny as he weighed up the Sarah in my photograph – slicked-back hair, no makeup and glasses – with the Sarah in front of him.

As I met his gaze, I was glad I’d kept the London taxi driver waiting a few minutes so I could tame my wayward curls into some semblance of a style and put on some blush and mascara. It’s not like I thought the immigration guy and I were going to run away together, but at least I didn’t look like a complete hag. My heart jumped a little at the sound of the Greek entry stamp being added to my passport. Then it jumped again when the Adonis smiled and welcomed me to his country. Moments in and I was back in love with Greece.

After being so warmly welcomed, I headed off to find the gate for my next flight. Right as I started wondering if it would be quicker to swim to Santorini, I finally found it at the far end of the airport and on the other side of a security check. As I was collecting my things from the tray on the conveyor belt, a giant man who smelled like he’d been steeped in nicotine hacked a wet cough down the back of my neck. Really? I turned and gave him a hard stare, but he was oblivious.

My stuff gathered, I looked around for somewhere in the small transit lounge to wait for the connecting flight. Spying an empty seat in a far corner, I made a beeline to stake my claim, but I was too late. A different middle-aged British couple sat their duty-free bags down on what should have been my seat, then stood next to it complaining about the long walk to the gate.

Clearly, this couple was as clueless as Douglas and Sharon, so I found the nearest empty patch of floor and plonked myself down. I was beyond exhausted, and I still had a couple of hours to kill. I spent the first eight minutes calculating what time it was in Sydney, how many hours it was since I’d left there, and how much sleep I’d had. I came up with such a depressingly low number, I promised myself never to think of it again. I could sleep as soon as I got to my hotel in Santorini.

Instead, I opted to read. I’d preloaded my Kindle with such a broad variety of reading materials, I could match any reading mood I found myself in. And right then, my mood dictated a gloomy crime drama where lots of people got stabbed. I reached inside my handbag to retrieve the Kindle. Unlike the borrowed monstrosity that held all my clothes – and was hopefully being moved from plane to plane at that very moment – the handbag had been a splurge right before I left for my trip, along with my Prada sunglasses.

It was a compact leather backpack – stylish enough to be my handbag, and practical enough to be my daypack. It really was a thing of beauty. And, importantly, a handbag wouldn’t cheat on me with a slut from yoga class.

Three and a half hours later – why did I think a Greek island-hopper would depart on time? – I was seated in a very small plane next to a very large man who was turning greener than Kermit the Frog before my eyes.

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said. Texan, I thought, identifying his origin right away – I’m talented like that. ‘I don’t usually fly on such small planes. I’m afraid I may need to get up to use the restroom.’ Even in the throes of air sickness, he was using his manners. Texans are so polite.

‘Of course!’ I unbuckled my seatbelt and stood up in the tiny aisle. ‘How about I sit near the window – in case you need to get up again?’

He nodded and rushed up the aisle to the only bathroom on board. Poor man – at least it was a short flight. As I strapped myself into the window seat, I heard a chorus of ‘Ooohs’ from the other passengers. I looked out my window as the plane banked and there it was, Santorini, a crescent of rusty land in a sea of deep blue. It was stunning.

‘Sorry ’bout that, ma’am,’ I heard over my shoulder as the Texan sat down.

‘Look,’ I said, leaning back so he could see past me.

‘That’s mighty pretty.’

I nodded in reply.

As we approached the tiny airport, I could barely wrap my mind around how beautiful the island was. The rugged red land contrasted with the brilliant blue of the sky and the stark white and creamy pastels of the buildings. It was so striking, it took my breath away. By the time we landed, I was practically hyperventilating.

Santorini’s airport terminal was kind of kitschy, looking more like a Las Vegas hotel from the 70s than an airport. We disembarked via a rickety metal staircase and as we walked across the tarmac, a warm breeze tickled my face. Divine.

Inside the terminal, I noticed that everyone moved at a more leisurely pace than they did in the constant chaos of Sydney, as though someone had slowed a video playback ever so slightly. I liked it.

My bag arrived on the baggage carousel after only a short wait, but it seemed to have gained weight in transit. I hefted it from the carousel and said goodbye to the nice Texan. Stepping back into the sunshine, I crossed the road, almost dragging my backpack, and stood in line for a taxi. And I didn’t mind – the waiting, that is. The island was already having a calming effect on me. While I waited, I breathed in deep breaths of Santorini’s clean, briny air. It was the exact opposite of Athens’ air – or London’s, for that matter.

Before I knew it, the taxi pulled up, the taxi driver got out and took my bag, stashing it in the boot, and I gave him the name of my hotel as I climbed into the back seat – all very normal. But then, two strangers climbed into the taxi, one in the front seat and one next to me.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked as several bags were shoved towards me. I soon found myself squashed against my door, while two voices apologised.

‘Apparently we have to share. I’m so sorry,’ said a young woman from the front seat. What? I’ve been in taxis in so many places in the world I’ve lost count; I’ve never had to share one. The driver got in.

‘Excuse me. I would rather not share my taxi – no offence,’ I added to the young couple. They didn’t seem offended. They probably didn’t want to share either.

‘If you want a private taxi you need to arrange it,’ said the taxi driver. What the fuck was he talking about?

‘Where in the world is a taxi not private?’ I asked incredulously. ‘What are you even talking about?’

‘Look this is Santorini. We have thirty-six taxis on the whole island.’ He seemed undaunted by the rising tension in the car. Then we took off.

I fumed from the back seat and mumbled under my breath, ‘Welcome to fucking Santorini.’ Really, it wasn’t that bad. The young couple were nice enough – she was English, and he was a Kiwi – and we chatted through the awkward tension. We also seemed to be collectively trying to ignore that the drive itself was a harrowing exploration of Santorini’s narrow, winding roads, which our driver tackled by driving very fast with one hand riding the horn.

We pulled up at my hotel, and I offered thanks to Zeus that I’d arrived in one piece. I begrudgingly paid the driver what was obviously the same fare I would have paid if I was travelling by myself in a private taxi, and climbed out of the car. He retrieved my bag from the boot, dropped it on the ground, and before I knew it, he was speeding off to the couple’s hotel, likely to gouge them for another thirty euros. A cloud of dust followed in his wake. I stood for a moment, taking in my surroundings and catching my breath.

I was standing in the heart of Fira, Santorini’s main town. With the amount of whitewash and brilliant blue I could see, there was no mistaking I was in Greece. Despite the shared taxi and the fact that my backpack was sitting in the dirt, joy bubbled up inside me. Around me people ambled along the road, stopping to have leisurely and lively conversations with their neighbours. Scooters, trucks and cars whizzed past, stirring up dust. The air was hot and dry and smelled of petrol fumes mixed with something herbaceous.

Across the road from my hotel were congregations of people – mostly locals – at a handful of tavernas, each indistinguishable from the next to my uneducated eye. They sat at tables playing chess or cards – many of them smoking. Some drank coffee, some sipped clear liquid from tiny glasses. Ouzo, most likely. Laughter and chatter filled the air around me.

It occurred to me that it was a Thursday afternoon, which took some realising given my jet lag. Didn’t these people have jobs? Maybe the whole town was on holiday. Like I was. I was on holiday! The realisation hit me again in a wave of wonderfulness. Greece!

I picked up my backpack from the dusty kerb and walked up the path of my hotel. Inside, the small lobby was cool, and the scent of bougainvillaea wafted in from an open window. A lovely woman, who spoke little English and had a warm smile, greeted me at the front desk. After a simple check-in – I showed her my passport, and she gave me a room key – she led me to my small, neat room. It was basic, but I didn’t need anything more. I was only staying for one night.

It did smell slightly, but I’d travelled to Greece enough times to expect it. The Greeks don’t flush toilet paper; it goes into the little bin next to the toilet. I know what you’re thinking – I’m thinking it too – the Greeks invented civilisation, but they haven’t worked out how to make a sewerage system that can handle toilet paper. It meant that many hotel rooms smelled just like mine did. It was a minor blip. I’d survive.

I wouldn’t, however, survive much longer if I didn’t eat; two packets of airline biscuits, a muesli bar I’d discovered at the bottom of my handbag, and a gallon of tea did not a balanced diet make. And especially not when there was Greek food all around me waiting to be eaten. I decided that sleep could wait.

I stashed some valuables in my room safe and packed my handbag for an early dinner followed by an evening of exploring. Leaving the hotel, I eyed the tavernas I’d seen across the road on arrival. The crowds in two of them were thinning out, as though the jobless folks suddenly had somewhere to be. At the third one, chess sets and ashtrays were being replaced with platters of food, and it looked like it was filling up with local diners. I consider this a good sign whenever I travel, because locals tend not to go out for crappy food.

I crossed the road and took a seat in the taverna at a table for two near the kitchen, where the aromas were unbelievable. My stomach grumbled with appreciation. A waiter appeared and stood patiently while I tortured him with my terrible Greek. I started with, ‘Kalimera’ – good morning – before correcting myself. ‘No, sorry, kalispera.’ He smiled and spoke to me in English.

‘Good evening. I am Demetri.’

‘Hello, Demetri. I need horiatiki,’ I said, not even looking at the menu. I knew it would be on there, because it’s what we non-Greeks call a Greek salad. ‘And lamb, do you have lamb?’ He gave me a funny look. Of course they had lamb. ‘And giant beans.’ I love giant beans. It’s a dish, by the way. I mean, the beans are big, but it’s essentially a stew made with beans. It’s the second-best thing in the world after horiatiki.

Demetri gave me a smile and a nod, and then he offered me some retsina to go with my dinner. It’s Greek wine, of sorts. I declined. I am what you might call a wine lover and as a wine lover, I can’t really abide retsina. ‘I’ll have a Mythos, parakalo.’ Greek beer – much more drinkable.

The salad came to the table within minutes and it was a thing of beauty. It looked like it belonged on the cover of a foodie magazine and it smelled incredible. I piled up my fork with the optimal first bite. As soon as it hit my mouth I groaned with pleasure, half-expecting to hear, ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ from the next table.

I need to explain something important.

The Greeks grow the best tomatoes in the world. And I know I exaggerate sometimes, but I mean IN THE WORLD. Add to the best tomatoes in the world some freshly made feta, Greek-grown and pressed extra virgin olive oil, fresh fragrant oregano, Kalamata olives grown in luscious Greek sunshine, and all the other bits of goodness that go into a horiatiki, and you have the one thing I could eat every day for the rest of eternity.

The lamb and beans arrived next, and the lamb was so tender I could have cut it just by staring at it. The giant beans were particularly huge and the sauce was rich and tangy. I glanced around me as I finished off all three plates. The taverna was now full – I spotted a few travellers like me, but it was mostly locals who obviously knew where the good stuff was.

When the bill arrived, I thought it was wrong, but Demetri assured me that eighteen euros was correct – for three plates of food and a beer. I wished I was staying on Santorini longer; I’d have happily eaten at that taverna every night for weeks.

When I’d planned the trip, everything I read about Santorini mentioned the sunset to end all sunsets at Oia, which is a tiny town perched on the northern point of Santorini’s crescent. With only twenty-four hours on the island, I’d added the Oia sunset to my list, and when I mentioned it to Demetri, he kindly wrote down directions – in Greek and English. Smart.

Armed with my mud map and a full belly, I set off from the taverna to find the local bus station and the bus to Oia. It wasn’t difficult – Demetri’s instructions were spot-on – but to call it a bus station would have been generous. It was basically a square filled with dusty buses.

I bought a ticket – by holding up one finger and saying ‘Oia’ – from a man who sat inside a grubby booth. He had a cigarette dangling precariously from his mouth, which he managed to inhale from without using his hands. Talented. I picked my bus out of the line-up – using Demetri’s directions again – and climbed aboard.

As I waited for the bus to leave, I watched the stream of people passing through the square. I noticed a tall guy in a baseball cap hefting a large duffel bag and trying to get directions from the passing locals. American. I could pick an American out at a hundred paces. He was a pretty cute American too.

He was tall – over six foot, I guessed – and dressed in long shorts and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was fitted just enough that I could see he had a lean, muscular body. Dark brown curls peeked out from the cap, and although he was wearing sunglasses and I couldn’t see his eyes, he had a general ‘good-looking’ thing going on. I would have stepped off the bus to help him, but I’d already bought a bus ticket to take in the sunset to end all sunsets. Not that I knew my way around any better than he seemed to, but he looked like he could use a friendly face. No one was stopping, and he seemed to be getting increasingly frustrated.

As I was contemplating my next move, the bus lurched forward – I hadn’t even noticed the driver get on – and my last glimpse of the tall, cute American was him throwing his duffel on the ground and sitting on it dejectedly. Poor guy. I promised myself that if he was still there when I got back, I’d go talk to him.

The bus stopped in the centre of Oia, where the smooth, curved walls of whitewashed houses contrasted with the rugged stone walls of others. Walkways and steps separated the homes, and the yards were marked with either rock walls or white picket fences. In the warm milky light, whitewash took on the colour of cream. It was a quaint and quintessentially Greek town.

I found a little spot to sit on one of the steps and gazed westward, taking it all in. The cooling evening air was deliciously fragrant, floral notes mixed with the sea. I took a slow, deep breath. Around me were hundreds of people, and the atmosphere was abuzz with chatter while we waited for the sun to set. Then in a single unspoken moment, the crowd quietened – it was time. The spectacle changed second by second, gold slipping into amber, then crimson, then inky purples and blues.

I could almost feel my heartbeat slowing down.

When the sun disappeared completely, and the last rays of light retreated, the crowd applauded as though we were at the symphony and the concerto had just ended. I clapped along with those around me. When in Santorini …

I wonder if Neil would have liked that, I thought.

Where the hell did that come from? All of the serenity I had felt as I watched the sun seep below the horizon vanished instantly. Bloody Neil. I got up, dusted myself off and followed the others up the steps and onto the road back to Santorini.

Thankfully, a bus was waiting at the same place we’d been dropped off, and I climbed aboard along with about eighty other people. No seat for me this time – it was standing room only – but the tightly packed group was in good spirits. As we jostled along the bumpy road back into Fira, I held on tightly to a handrail and tried to shake residual thoughts of Neil from my mind. To distract myself, I trained my ears to the conversations around me, listening to the various languages and accents.

I was glad when the bus depot appeared in the glow from the headlights. Exhaustion had set in – both physical and emotional – and I desperately wanted sleep. I stepped off the bus, oriented myself and set off for my hotel. And yes, I forgot all about the cute American.

Back in my room, I locked the door behind me, slipped off my already travel-worn clothes and put on my pyjamas. To shake off the lingering thoughts of Neil, I focused instead on the next day, the day I’d start the sailing trip, and damn it if those wretched nerves didn’t come flooding back.

What if I don’t like anyone on the trip? What if they don’t like me? What if this whole thing is a complete disaster?

‘Shut up, Sarah,’ I said aloud. I was annoyed with myself. I’d had a good dinner, seen a nice sunset, and suddenly random thoughts of doom and gloom were sending me into a spiral. I had to change tack.

‘You need to get organised,’ I told myself. I knew if I put things in order, I’d exorcise the demon nerves. It was my tried and tested method of crisis management, particularly if the crisis was all in my head.

Except that when I emptied my handbag out onto my bed, I made a sickening discovery. My wallet was gone. I frantically ran my hand around the inside of the bag, but it was definitely empty. I sifted through all the things on the bed – hat, notebook, pen, camera, lip balm. No wallet. It was gone.

I took myself back through the previous couple of hours. I had it at the taverna, because I paid for dinner. Maybe I left it there? No, because I also paid for the bus ticket and that was after dinner. Did I remember putting my wallet back in my bag? Yes. Did I have it when I took my camera out of my bag in Oia? I think I remember seeing it then.

That meant I’d lost it on the bus ride back. But I hadn’t taken it out of my bag. I hadn’t even opened my bag. Oh my god! Someone stole my wallet from my handbag. While it was on my back! The panic kicked in, and I burst into tears. ‘Fuck!’

Realising I was wringing my hands, I stopped and shook them out. ‘Okay, think, Sarah. What was in the wallet? What do you need to do?’ I willed myself to breathe, slowly, consciously, in and out. I stood in the middle of my room and closed my eyes. The safe! Of course, I had put valuables in the safe before I went out. I rushed to open it.

I took out a credit card, a wad of cash and – thank god – my passport. So, I’d lost my other credit card, about twenty euros and my driver’s licence. ‘Shit.’ I was going to need my driver’s licence to rent scooters on the islands. Well, maybe they would let me rent one with my passport. It was Greece after all, and they weren’t exactly sticklers for that sort of thing. At least the thief hadn’t got my passport.

I tried to remember who was around me on the bus, but I hadn’t registered any faces. We’d been packed in there so tightly, and I’d watched out the front window most of the trip. I sighed and sat on the bed. I needed to call my bank in Australia and cancel the credit card. Even though my room smelled like a toilet, at least it had a phone.

After two aborted attempts to get the international operator to put through a collect call to my bank, I finally spoke to a person who could cancel the card and send me a replacement – to London, where I wouldn’t be until most of my travelling was over. At least that was something, I supposed. I did have my back-up credit card, the one with the ridiculously exorbitant fees for taking out cash and spending in foreign currencies, but at least I wasn’t completely stranded.

I hung up the phone and stretched out on my bed. Exhaustion had devolved into full-blown fatigue. I flicked off the lamp, but my mind was on high alert. I wanted to sleep, but instead I lay there for a long time wondering what else could go wrong. The travel curse had struck again.

*

I woke with a start, not knowing where I was, and smacked the crap out of my travel alarm to shut it up. I looked around the room and recognition seeped into my fuzzy mind – I was in Santorini. I smiled. Then I remembered I had been robbed the night before. The smile vanished.

It had been a restless night. Falling asleep had taken forever. And then there was the nightmare. I was lying in my bed in Sydney in the middle of the night and backpackers were robbing my flat while I pretended to be asleep. No prizes for guessing why I dreamed that.

Dread washed over me as I recalled the moment I’d emptied my bag onto my bed the night before. ‘Oh, Sarah!’ I admonished myself, again out loud. ‘Put your big-girl knickers on and get over it. Everything is going to be fine!’

Surprisingly, giving myself a good talking-to was actually effective. Ignoring the fact that I was now talking to myself on a regular basis, I threw back the covers, showered in my smelly bathroom, and got dressed in a flowery blue and white skirt and a white cotton top with spaghetti straps. I had a big day ahead of me and some bad luck to turn around, and I wanted to look good. And, the better I looked, the better I felt. What is it they say? Fake it ’til you make it?

I tried to make some sense of the mass of curls on my head, but they refused to behave. Sometimes my curls want their own way, and sometimes I have to let them have it. I opted for what I hoped was a sexy-messy ponytail, then looked in the mirror and told myself everything was going to be fine. I’d spend the morning sightseeing, have something to eat, and then meet up with the people from the sailing trip in the afternoon.

An hour later, I was deep in the heart of Fira’s labyrinth of walkways, exploring. Okay truth be told, I was shopping. Not that I’m one of those women who lives to shop or anything, but there was something comforting about buying myself a new wallet. I also found a beautiful beaded bracelet for Cat. Wanting to see a bit more of Fira than the insides of shops, I stowed my purchases in my handbag and escaped the rabbit warren of stores.

There is a walkway running along the ridge of Fira like a spine, and I followed it south. A whitewashed campanile e cupola soon stood out high above the tops of other buildings, and I headed towards it. In a few minutes, I was standing in front of an enormous church. Its imposing façade comprised a dozen archways either side of a long, covered walkway.

From my days as a tour manager, I knew not to enter a church in Greece with bare arms, as it’s considered disrespectful. I didn’t have anything with me, so I had to settle for admiring it from the outside. It was impressive, but given that I was in Greece, I was bound to see another hundred churches before I left the country. Time to move on.

Even more spectacular than Fira’s architecture was the view of the caldera. I walked over and cautiously perched on a low, whitewashed stone wall. As I peered out over the town, I marvelled at how it clung fearlessly to the cliff face. It was an exquisite sight.

The town below was dotted with several bright blue pools, each surrounded by beach umbrellas. White-clad waiters were attending to holiday makers on sun-loungers, delivering cocktails. Rich people, I thought.

At the bottom of the cliff, I could make out the old port. From there, a stream of donkeys ferried people back up to the top of the zigzag staircase. For a moment, I considered a donkey ride, but then I looked down at my outfit and decided against it.

‘Where are you from?’ I heard from behind me.

I turned and saw an extremely handsome man in his late forties, sitting on a bench about five metres away. He was wearing beige linen pants and a white linen collared shirt, open to the third button, and he was smoking a slim cigar. His whole look, including his salt and pepper hair and deep tan, was a throwback to a more elegant era. He regarded me while he drew from the cigar, smiling, and for some reason, I felt compelled to answer him. Maybe it was because of his eyes, which crinkled at the corners as he smiled. I like crinkling eyes.

‘Australia – Sydney.’

‘Of Greek ancestry?’ I couldn’t place his accent, and I could always place an accent, but I guessed it was somewhere in Western Europe. His head tilted slightly and I felt a twinge in my stomach – the good kind – as he watched me.

‘No.’ It wasn’t the first time I had been asked that. Greek, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Lebanese. I took it as a compliment whenever someone asked. I couldn’t imagine anyone asking about my family background to insult me, but rather to pinpoint the origin of my looks. And even though I’m not, I look Mediterranean.

He smiled and the crinkles intensified. So did the twinge.

‘Sorry,’ he said, seeming to laugh at himself, ‘I don’t mean to intrude on your day.’

Intrude away, handsome man. I shrugged as though I was used to good-looking strangers engaging me in conversation. ‘It’s an exquisite view,’ he added, gazing past me.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,’ I replied.

‘So, not of Greek descent? Do you mind me asking what your heritage is? You’ve piqued my curiosity.’

‘Actually, my dad’s English and I look like him. He says he’s proof that the Romans were in England for hundreds of years.’

He smiled at that. ‘Well, you’re very beautiful,’ he said matter-of-factly.

I tossed my ponytail and allowed a smile to dance across my lips. ‘Thank you,’ I replied, not flinching under his fixed stare. I silently congratulated myself on such advanced flirting skills.

‘Have lunch with me.’ It was a statement, not a question. Smooth.

‘Maybe,’ I said, as though I was actually considering it.

‘I know a very nice place around the corner. Excellent seafood. Ellis, it’s called. We’ll eat, have some wine. And you’ll tell me what brings you to Santorini.’

My mind had a quick-fire discussion with itself. Stay? Go? Skip lunch altogether and spend the afternoon making love with this beautiful stranger? I was flattered – of course I was – I’m a human woman with a pulse and he was gorgeous. Reason won out, however. It would be time to meet my tour group soon. Or maybe I was hiding behind reason, my confidence merely bravado.

I started to walk away, but called over my shoulder, ‘Perhaps.’ I wanted to leave it open in case I got around the corner and changed my mind. He was super sexy.

‘Two o’clock. See you there.’

And then I did something incredibly cool. I faced him and as I walked slowly backwards, I blew him a kiss. Then I turned and walked away. How awesome was that? I’d never done anything like that – well, not for a long time, not since my touring days, but that was a whole different Sarah. It was fun to bust out the sassy girl who once got up to no good. I hoped he had watched me go. There was a little pep in my step as I continued my meandering exploration of the town.

When two o’clock came, I was not having a leisurely seafood lunch with a silver fox dressed in linen – and I wasn’t off somewhere making love with him either. Instead, I was back at Fira’s not-so-charming bus depot. This time, however, I had my backpack as well as my handbag, and no instructions written in Greek. All I knew was that I needed to get to Vlychada Marina within the next couple of hours to meet my sailing group.

After a false start – I got on the wrong bus and only realised when I heard all the tourists around me talking about Red Beach – I sat on what I hoped was the right bus, awaiting a departure that would be sometime in the next forty-five minutes. Apparently, in Fira, bus timetables are merely a loose approximation of a schedule, a suggestion. ‘Greek time’, it was called.

While I waited, I thought back over my day. It had already made up for the previous night’s theft. After my encounter with the silver fox, I had walked down the wide zigzag stairs to the old port. It was a tricky exercise, because of the donkeys. When they’re not taking people to the top of the island, they are lined up along the stairs, with their asses out. I don’t trust any equine creatures I don’t know, especially when I have to navigate around their behinds. Fortunately, I made it to the bottom without getting kicked in the ass by an ass with its ass out.

The old port was bustling with activity, and I spent some time watching people arriving on little wave-jumpers from the cruise ships. Right before 1:00pm, I took the funicular to the top of the island and set off for my little taverna. I had a quick lunch, then collected my backpack from the hotel and lugged it to the bus depot.

My attention was drawn back to the bus when a skinny older man wearing a tweed cap climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. I heard a cry of ‘Wait!’ and as the bus started pulling away, on jumped the tall, cute American in the baseball cap – out of breath and looking just as frazzled as he’d been the day before.

Chapter Three

As the bus lurched along the dusty, winding roads of Santorini, I watched the cute American with considerable interest from behind my Prada sunglasses. He seemed anxious, as though he might be on the wrong bus or something.

For all I knew, I was on the wrong bus. I realised my usual MO would be to panic all the way to Vlychada – or wherever we were going – but there was something about handling the stolen wallet ordeal that put the whole ‘wrong bus’ thing into a more realistic perspective. And if the bus didn’t go to the marina, I’d ride it back to Fira and start again.

I focused my attention back on the American, who was even better-looking up close than he’d seemed from across the square the day before. He was also far younger than he’d initially seemed – like, maybe twenty-two. Twenty-two was way too young for anyone I would get involved with, or even have a fleeting holiday flirtation with. And besides, I wasn’t looking.

I wondered if the cute American would be joining my sailing trip. We were the only two non-Greek people on the bus, and it didn’t seem as though Vlychada was somewhere frequented by tourists, so it was looking possible, if not likely.

If he was going to be on the trip, that led to an important question. Would we become friends? I decided that if we were sailing together for the next ten days, then yes, there was a good chance we would become friends – unless he was a dickhead. He didn’t look like a dickhead, but you can never be too sure until you actually meet a person. And even if you did meet someone and decided they weren’t a dickhead, they still might be, and it might take you eleven and a half months to figure it out. I knew this from experience. By the way, Neil is the dickhead in this scenario.

I dismissed the thoughts of Neil the fuckhead – I was getting much better at that. Instead, I let it wander to happier places as I imagined a lifetime of friendship with the cute American. After the trip, we would become pen pals writing actual letters back and forth for years. Then we would go to each other’s weddings and, over the next few decades, share all our major life events via letters and phone calls. During our widowed twilight years, we would live in the same city, in side-by-side houses, all the while denying we were more than ‘just friends’.

The bus groaned to a stop at a marina. I stopped daydreaming and looked out the dirty bus window, seeing a sign that made me smile: ‘Vlychada’. I was in the right place. See? No need to worry.

I gathered up my stuff and got off the bus via the back door, and the cute American got off via the front door, swinging his duffel bag over his shoulder. The bus pulled away, and we were the only two people standing on the pier. We looked at each other for a moment, then I walked towards him – awkwardly, because my wretched backpack was swinging heavily against my legs.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hi,’ he replied. So far it was an excellent conversation.

It seemed my witty repartee from a few hours before had completely dried up, so I figured I’d get straight to the point. ‘Are you on the sailing trip?’

‘Oh, thank god, I’m in the right place,’ he blurted. Then he seemed to chastise himself. He walked over to meet me with his hand outstretched. ‘Hi, sorry – I was a little worried I was on the wrong bus.’ I shook his hand. Firm handshake. Nice.

‘No worries. I was too, to be honest,’ I lied. ‘I’m Sarah.’

‘Josh.’ I was right, by the way – American. I picked his accent as mid-western, but I didn’t ask. We had ten days to learn about each other. I was sure we’d get there eventually.

‘Shall we try to find the boat?’ he suggested.

‘Good plan.’ My backpack was getting heavier the longer we stood there.

We walked towards the rows of moored boats, discussing how we would know which one was ours, when Josh spotted a flag fluttering from one of the masts and pointed to it. ‘That must be us.’ It had the tour company’s logo on it, so we headed in that direction.

‘Hang on,’ I said, stopping short. ‘There’s two. Look.’ He followed the line of my arm to another of the company’s flags waving at us from a mast.

‘Huh. Well, let’s go to one and if it’s not right, then we’ll go to the other.’

‘Okay.’ By this stage I didn’t care what boat I was on, I wanted to put my cumbersome backpack down – stupid bloody thing.

We came to the first of the two yachts, which was docked parallel to the pier. It was about fifteen metres long and, like most boats, the bulk of it was white. It struck me how little I knew about sailing and boats, as I couldn’t really point out any distinguishing features – it looked like a sailboat.

We both dropped our bags onto the pier, and Josh called out, ‘Hello!’

A head popped out of the hatch, followed by some shoulders, then a torso and the rest of a man’s body. ‘Hello,’ he said back. He was handsome in the way that Harrison Ford was handsome when he played Indiana Jones – the first couple of times. I couldn’t help making a note of how many good-looking men I was running into on Santorini.

‘Hi, I’m Gary.’

‘Hi, Gary. Sarah. And this is Josh.’

Gary turned around and called down into the boat, ‘Duncan. The last two are here!’ To us, he said, ‘I’m not the skipper. I’m on the tour like you – although I do know quite a bit about sailing.’

‘Good to know that if the skipper falls overboard, we can keep on going,’ quipped Josh. Funny.

Gary offered an unsure smile in response and joined us on deck as another head popped up out of the hatch. ‘Josh and Sarah?’ said the head.

‘Yes,’ we said in unison.

‘Great.’ The second man, who I presumed was Duncan, leapt into action. He climbed out of the hatch, jumped off the boat and onto the pier, and grabbed both of our bags as though they weighed nothing. He climbed back onto the boat and said, ‘Come aboard! Oh, and shoes off please.’ Then he disappeared back below deck with our bags.

He was spry, I’d give him that. In fact, the whole exchange happened so quickly I caught myself standing and staring at the black hole where he had disappeared. ‘Well, I guess we found the right boat,’ Josh said to me quietly.

‘Absolutely,’ I replied. I slipped off my sandals and climbed over the railing onto the boat. It was a little trickier than I would have liked because I was wearing a short skirt. I hoped I wasn’t flashing my knickers to all and sundry. I noticed an amused smile on Josh’s face as he reached out to help. Was it smugness or chivalry? I took his hand, regardless. I didn’t want to fall into the water on my first day – or ever, for that matter.

Gary spoke up. ‘There’s actually two boats leaving from here tomorrow morning. That’s the other one, there.’ He pointed to the second boat Josh and I had seen from the end of the pier.

‘Oh, will we be sailing with them?’ I asked.

‘No, not really, but we’ll likely run into them from time to time. All women apparently.’ He laughed to himself. ‘I think our mix of people will be far better, hey Josh?’ He gave Josh what looked like a knowing grin.

What was this? The menfolk conspiring already? And how were Josh and I to know what the mix was? We had only met Gary and Duncan. Oh god, I hope I’m not the only woman! Josh, to his credit, answered Gary with a non-committal shrug.

I went below deck, and Josh followed. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything, and then I remembered I was wearing my sunglasses, so I flipped them on top of my head. I could see better, but only marginally. It was pretty dark below deck.

Duncan emerged from one of the cabins and soon after, two women appeared from two other cabins – I was not the only woman, then. Gary had also climbed down below, so there were six of us standing in the cramped dining nook, looking at each other.

‘Oh!’ said the man, breaking the awkward silence. ‘I didn’t introduce myself. Sorry. I’m Duncan. I’m your skipper.’ Australian – Queenslander.

I waved at him from two metres away. ‘And this is Hannah and Marie. And you’ve met Gary, Marie’s husband.’ So, the Harrison Ford guy was married. I wasn’t particularly disappointed, as he wasn’t really my type – a bit too blokeish – and besides, I wasn’t looking.

I smiled at the strangers I would be living with for the next ten days.

‘And these two are Josh and Sarah,’ added Duncan to finish the round of introductions.

‘I’m Sarah, he’s Josh,’ I added, in an attempt to break the ice, and thankfully everyone laughed.

Then the tiny space erupted into activity. Hannah came forward and said hello. ‘You’re sharing with me,’ she said. ‘In there,’ and she pointed to the left rear cabin. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’ She sounded Canadian – Vancouver, I guessed.

I followed her the extremely short distance to our cabin, and she showed me the highlights. It was a tight space, but at least we had our own bathroom. There were two bunks, one very narrow and about a metre from the ceiling and the lower one, which took up the width of the cabin. Whoever slept on the top bunk would have to climb onto it from the bottom bunk. Some of Hannah’s things were on that bunk, so I guessed the lower one was mine.

We also had a hatch in the ceiling and a porthole for fresh air. The cabin was tiny but clean and it would be fine. I doubted I would be spending much time in there, anyway. It was really just for sleeping and showering, so who cared if it was compact?

‘Sarah, can I ask you a question?’

‘Sure,’ I said as I unzipped my backpack and started pulling stuff out.

‘How come you’re not sleeping with your boyfriend?’

‘What?’ I looked at her in surprise. What on earth was she talking about?

‘Josh. How come you two aren’t sharing a cabin?’

‘Oooh!’ I said, probably too loudly for the confined space of a boat. I’d seen Josh disappear into the cabin next door and realised he could be listening. I lowered my voice. ‘He’s not my boyfriend. I just met him, like, five minutes ago on the pier. We were on the same bus to the marina, that’s all. So, yeah …’ I finished, feebly.

‘Oh. I thought you guys were a couple.’

‘Nope. And believe me, if he was my boyfriend, I would want to sleep with him.’ Great. I sounded desperate, or sex-starved. Or both.

She gave me a funny look, confirming it was both. ‘I’m going to head up top. Duncan’s making another round of cocktails, and then he’s going over the trip information with us. I’ll see you up there.’

What the hell was the thing I’d said about wanting to sleep with Josh? I didn’t want to sleep with him. He was a baby. No, an infant. And I wasn’t going anywhere near him, even if he was cute. I wasn’t going near any men. At most, I might admire them – and only from afar. I had to get it together. I didn’t want Hannah thinking she was sharing a cabin with a nymphomaniac weirdo.

I spent the next few minutes nesting. Whenever I arrive somewhere new, I like to unpack the essentials and stash my luggage. Both tasks were a little awkward in the tiny cabin, but at least I found a nook in the bathroom for my toiletries. Out of necessity, I stuffed my backpack, still full of clothes, at the end of the lower bunk. It would have to do.

‘Hey,’ said a voice behind me as I gave my backpack a final shove. I looked over my shoulder. Wonderful. Josh was standing in the doorway and had an excellent view of my bum sticking up in the air.

I flipped over and scooched off the end of the bed, trying to keep my skirt from riding up my thighs. I was going to need to rethink my wardrobe for this trip. Of course, with the super tight quarters, as soon as I stood up, I was practically on top of the poor guy. He backed up a little. That was when I got a proper look at his eyes without the sunglasses.

They were incredible. Large, almond-shaped dark grey eyes with thick lashes – lashes any woman would kill to have. I wanted him to put his sunglasses back on. Those eyes were far too much power for one man to wield. He was talking, so I told myself to pay attention.

‘So, apparently I’m sharing with a woman called Patricia. She was here, but she went back into town to do something. Duncan says she’ll be back later.’

‘Oh. Are you okay with that, sharing with a woman?’

He shrugged. ‘Sure. It’ll be fine. Want to go up on deck?’

‘Okay.’ I put on my sunglasses and followed him up the ladder. Cute bum. Yeah, I was really going to have to stop that. Nowhere on the boat could be mistaken for ‘afar’.

Josh sat on one side of the boat, and I sat on the other, perhaps more than anything to show Hannah that he and I were definitely not a couple. It was only after I sat down that I realised there was another woman in the group – an incredibly beautiful woman. This must have been the elusive Patricia who Josh was sharing a cabin with.

‘Sarah, Josh, this is Geraldine – Gerry – my girlfriend.’ Wait. What? Our skipper had brought his girlfriend on the trip? Was he even allowed to do that? Before I could list all the reasons why it was a terrible idea, she turned to me with the biggest smile and said, ‘Sarah, so nice to meet you. Your hair is beautiful! I love it!’ There was no sarcasm or cattiness in her voice. In a whisper of a moment, she had disarmed me, my reticence at her very existence on the boat vanishing in the glow of her compliment.

‘That is so sweet, Gerry. Thank you. It’s lovely to meet you too.’ She went on to greet Josh in an equally enthusiastic and authentic way. Had he not already put his sunglasses back on, I am sure I would have seen his gorgeous eyes light up. At least she wasn’t Patricia, and he would not be sharing a cabin with the beautiful buxom woman. Not that I actually cared who he shared a cabin with.

Her accent stumped me – the second time that day. Was I losing my gift? Gerry’s was from somewhere in South America, but where? ‘Sarah, you need a drink!’ Duncan declared. Truer words had never been spoken, and I was grateful when Duncan poured me a generous serving from a pitcher. He passed the plastic cup across the circle and then poured one for Josh. I sniffed it. Definitely rum, but I couldn’t make out what else.

‘So, now we’ve all met – first names, at least – I’d like to propose a toast.’ I was really starting to like this Duncan chap. ‘To new adventures with new friends.’ Good toast. Yep, I liked Duncan.

We all tapped our plastic cups against each other’s and took sips of his concoction. Holy crap. My throat was on fire. ‘Uh, Duncan, what’s in this?’ I asked, my voice straining.

‘What’s not in it is more to the point,’ replied Gary. I looked at Duncan, who was smiling mysteriously and then back to Gary. ‘We got here about two hours ago. This is our third. You’ll get used to it.’ I nodded and took another cautious sip. And then another.

As I moved closer and closer to inebriation, Duncan pulled out a large nautical map and pointed to a crescent-shaped blob somewhere in the middle. ‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘Santorini.’ He pointed to a cornflake-shaped blob north of Santorini. ‘We’re going here – Mykonos – and it takes about twelve hours to sail there.’ He paused, probably for effect. Duncan seemed like a pro. ‘We’re going to take ten days to sail there.’

I found myself breathing out a deep sigh of pure pleasure.

‘So, I’ll pick the islands we’ll go to, ’cause I know this part of the world really well. I’ll also keep an eye on the sea and the weather, that sort of thing. When we get somewhere, if we all like it and want to stay another night, we’ll decide together. Sound good?’ Five of us nodded our responses, and I noticed mine wasn’t the only peaceful smile in the group. I also saw Gerry grinning proudly at Duncan. Cute couple.

That was the moment Patricia decided to make her entrance.

‘Welll, helllooo, everyone. Isn’t this cosy?’ We all looked up at the woman standing on the pier next to our boat. She had close-cropped red hair and wore layers and layers of flowing batik cloth. She also wore big Jackie O-style sunglasses.

Duncan, possibly the most gracious host ever, leapt up and offered her a hand so she could climb aboard. She seemed drunk. I caught myself frowning at her and consciously set my expression to a more welcoming one. ‘Everyone, this is Patricia.’ The hellos from the group were far less effusive than the ones Josh and I had received.

Duncan did a whip-around of everyone’s names and we lifted our hands unenthusiastically in response. She didn’t seem to absorb them anyway. She pushed in next to Josh and turned to Duncan. ‘What does a woman have to do to get a drink around here?’ she said. Perhaps it was an attempt to be funny. It wasn’t.

‘Right, yes,’ said Duncan as he looked around for a clean cup. Gerry handed one over, and he poured a drink and handed it to Patricia. She grabbed it and took a loud gulp. I tried to catch Josh’s eye, but as we were both still wearing sunglasses, that was a little tricky.

‘Anyway, Patricia, I was just going through a few things about our trip.’

‘Don’t mind me.’ She waved her hand as though she didn’t want to be a bother. Yeah, right. As quickly as I had decided I liked Duncan, I decided I did not care for Patricia.

Duncan moved on to formal introductions. He asked us to go around the circle and tell each other a little bit about ourselves. I always hate this part; I’ve never liked giving a dust-cover blurb about myself. I worry too much about how I’ll come across. As a result, I get all self-conscious, and then I end up sounding like an idiot.

Hannah put her hand up. ‘I’ll start.’ Hannah was one of those well-put-together women – basically the opposite of me. Her hair was in an actual style, her nails were done – hands and feet – and even sitting on a boat in the middle of the Aegean, she looked polished to perfection.

‘I’m Hannah, and I’m from Vancouver.’ So, I had nailed at least one accent that day. ‘I’m in financial management, and I work crazy long hours – this is actually my first vacation in three years.’ Three years? Geez. ‘I’m thirty-three. And recently single.’ She flashed a slightly sad smile around the circle. ‘I’ve never been to Greece before, and I’m really excited to be here.’

I figured we’d probably bond over the whole ‘break-up’ thing. Yes, it had been months since Neil and I had parted ways, but the humiliation of his cheating still rose its head on occasion.

Marie went next. She told us that she Gary were in Greece celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary, and the sailing trip was the end of a one-month stay. They’d rented a place on Crete for two weeks, before spending a few days in Santorini ahead of the trip. It sounded incredible, and I was starting to realise I should have arrived earlier and spent more time on the island. I’d barely scratched the surface, but I had to fit the entire trip – including a week in London with Cat after the sailing trip – into three weeks. I was already taking an extra week’s leave, and I’d had to do some pretty serious begging to get my principal to agree to it.

I’ll have to come back, I decided.

I turned my attention back to Marie and Gary. They both worked in tourism, which is how they met, and were from California wine country. Travel and wine? We were going to get along great. We’d drink crappy Greek wine and commiserate while we longed for a delicious Californian pinot. They were a super sweet couple too, holding hands and sneaking cute little glances at each other. Ten years. That was certainly something to be proud of.

Josh went next, taking his sunglasses off and revealing those eyes again. ‘Hi, I’m Josh. I’m from Chicago. This is my first time leaving the US.’ Whoa. Really? I held my breath as I waited for any snippet that would reveal how old he was. ‘Uh, I work in software development, and I’m twenty-eight.’ Did he say he was twenty-eight? So not an infant. Not way off limits. Crap. No, double crap.

‘Oh,’ he said, as though remembering something, ‘and I came here because I was watching a Rick Steves episode on Santorini, and I suddenly thought, I have to go there. So, I researched trips for a couple of days and booked this one.’ He smiled, and I could see the excitement in his eyes. So, he’d booked an international trip – his first international trip – practically on a whim. It was as good a reason as any. I’d pretty much done the same thing, only my whim took hold after a sad and lonely night that included a bottle and a half of expensive wine and an entire box of tissues.

No one said anything after Josh finished, so I put my hand up to go next. ‘Hi, I’m Sarah from Sydney – easy enough to remember, I guess – I teach high school English, which I love – mostly. Sometimes the kids are ratbags, and sometimes there’s too much pointless paperwork, but I like the actual teaching part. I have been to Greece before, but not this part, and not for a really long time. I’m mostly looking forward to the food.’ And then for some reason, I added, ‘And I’m thirty-six.’ I glanced over at Josh. Did he bite his lip when I said that?

Duncan looked at Patricia, who had fallen asleep, and he artfully skipped over the drunk lady. ‘I’ll be quick. I’m Duncan, and I’m from Townsville in Queensland. I’ve sailed my whole life, and I’ve been working at this job for the past five seasons – which works out well for you lot, ’cause I know my way around the islands, and I know the locals – we’re gonna have an awesome trip.

‘Gerry and I met online last year.’ She waved at us all, and I found myself waving back. ‘She’s studying in the UK, and we meet up whenever we can and go travelling together. This trip lined up with the end of her summer break, so I invited her to come along.’ Wow. They were dating long-distance? ‘And, I promise that this –’ he signalled to himself and Gerry ‘– won’t get in the way of this.’ He then signalled to the boat and to us. So apparently my concerns were expected, but I felt like Duncan addressing it head-on was a good thing. Not only a pro, but a proactive pro.

Then he went on to tell us all the stuff about the boat we needed to know – like what to do if we fell overboard, which was good to know even though I planned not to do that. He saved the toilet talk for last. ‘You can flush the toilet paper down these toilets – it just goes into the water.’ Gross. ‘But, uh, if we’re moored and you need to use the toilet, and it’s heavy and technical, then I’d recommend going ashore and finding a café who’ll let you use theirs. Otherwise, it’s gonna float next to the boat until we leave.’

The rest of us were stunned into silence. Heavy and technical? So, if I needed to poop while we were docked, I had to go ashore? Great. ‘See you in a few minutes, everyone. Just going for my morning poop!’ Duncan seemed to sense the embarrassed tension – I’m sure it wasn’t the first time he’d experienced it – and broke it with, ‘More cocktails?’

There was a resounding chorus of ‘Yes, please,’ as the group laughed nervously. Patricia started at the noise. ‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t get to do my introduction.’

‘How about I make another pitcher of drinks and then we do your intro?’ asked Duncan. That seemed to satisfy her and she sat back regarding the rest of us, almost aggressively. I wondered how much of our introductions she’d heard.

When we all had fresh drinks in hand, she stood up, albeit a little shakily. ‘I am Patricia,’ she said with more dramatic flourish than the intimate setting called for. ‘I am originally from New York, but now I am a citizen of the world.’ And then she sat down. The rest of us looked at each other, while she sipped her drink and squinted out at the marina. I’d taken my sunglasses off, as the sun was going down, and so had the others. We conveyed a lot to each other without speaking, and I knew we were all onside against Patricia. I even saw Duncan frowning at her.

I glanced at Josh and he winked at me. I wondered if he was still happy to share a cabin with her. Poor guy. I would have offered to swap with him, but I really didn’t want to.

‘I thought we’d head up to the restaurant there for dinner,’ said Duncan, pointing to a café at the top of a giant set of stairs. ‘How does that sound? Early dinner, come back, maybe have some more drinks, then your first night’s sleep on the boat.’

We all showed our agreement by leaping into action – all of us except Patricia. She stayed put while the rest of us went below for jumpers and jackets and to get money for dinner. Less than ten minutes later, seven of us stood on the pier as Duncan tried one more time to get her to join us. ‘I’m going to stay here and soak it all in,’ she said, dismissing us with a wave of her hand. Soak it all up was probably more like it.

Gary led the way, and we all followed without a glance back to the boat. The climb left all of us breathing heavily, except Duncan who looked like he ran steep flights of stairs for fun, and we stood at the top catching our respective breaths while he went to get us a table. Without much fuss from the waiter, we were soon seated outside with an incredible view of the sun setting over the marina. There was a lively discussion about what to order, but we left most of it up to Duncan.

The food came and then kept coming – plates and plates of fresh seafood, horiatiki and tzatziki. We drank watery retsina – actually, I stuck to Mythos, the Greek beer. As we ate, we talked, learning more than the snippets we’d shared a couple of hours before. And we laughed – a lot.

After I piled another helping of fried calamari onto my plate, I settled back in my chair and looked around the group. All those fears, all those concerns about who they would be and how I would get along with them, had gone. This little group was going to be my floating family for the next week and a half and I already liked them. It felt good being part of this group. It was going to be a great trip.

And then I remembered Patricia.

Chapter Four

Around three the following morning, the snoring from the cabin next door woke me from a restless sleep for the thousandth time. I guessed it was Patricia, because I could hear the melodic undertones of drunkenness. I whispered to Hannah to see if she was awake too.

‘Oh my god,’ she whispered back. ‘I’ve been lying here wondering if I could climb down and get into the bathroom without waking you. I’ve got sleeping pills.’

Sleeping pills? I never thought I would be so excited to hear those two words.

‘You sharing?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then I’ll get ’em. Where are they?’

‘In my toiletry bag.’

I climbed out of my bunk and rooted around in the bathroom in the dark, finally finding both the toiletry bag and the Ambien. Ahh, Ambien. You can’t buy a Kinder Surprise egg in America – choking hazard, apparently – but you can buy a blissful little over-the-counter sleep aid called Ambien.

It kicked in fast, and when I eventually emerged from a hazy, drug-induced sleep the next morning, it was after nine. I was now properly exhausted; it had been my fourth night in a row of bad sleep and I made a mental note to nap sometime that afternoon – maybe for all of it.

Hannah was still very much out of it, her face buried in her tiny boat pillow, so I showered as quietly and as quickly as I could, then got dressed in the tiny bathroom. It was quite the feat, as water covered every surface, including the floor. I’d tucked my clean clothes inside a cubby to keep them dry during my shower, but I couldn’t outsmart the bathroom design completely.

It required some rather impressive yoga-like moves to get my clothes onto my body without them getting soaked. And it was a little too early in the trip for a wet T-shirt competition.

Between the lack of sleep and the rudimentary ablution situation, the whole ‘I’m on holiday’ feeling was quickly becoming a distant memory. Finally dressed, I stepped back into our tiny cabin. I thought about putting my pyjamas and dirty knickers away, but I couldn’t see how to without waking Hannah. I was going to have to get used to being messy – along with tired and a little bit damp.

When I climbed up on deck, it turned out that Hannah wasn’t the only one still asleep. Gerry was too. Marie was up, but still getting dressed. And Patricia was still sleeping it off. That left me alone with the three men, and it took me about two seconds to realise that no one was eating yet – no one was even having a cup of tea!

Maybe they thought getting breakfast was women’s work and were waiting for the women to emerge and serve it to them. Perhaps they weren’t sexist at all, just lazy. Either way, I was starving, so I did what anyone who knew her way around a kitchen would do. I offered to make breakfast for everyone.

‘Uh, yeah, I bought some basics for brekkie before we left Santorini,’ said Duncan, ‘but we’ll need to stock the pantry when we get to Ios.’ Duncan had told us during our orientation talk that we would all put money into a kitty to share food for breakfast and lunches, and we could buy stuff for ourselves if we wanted anything different.

Below deck – that’s boat lingo by the way – I hunted through the kitchen, or rather the galley – also boat lingo – and soon realised Duncan had understated ‘some basics’. All I found was two loaves of bread, butter, milk, sugar and teabags – not even instant coffee.

I had been hankering for Greek yoghurt – would it just be called ‘yoghurt’ in Greece? I made a mental note to add it to the list. I also hoped the shop on our next island stop of Ios sold muesli. I know I was travelling, and I probably should have been thinking about adopting some of the local customs, but I also knew what the Greeks had for breakfast. I wasn’t too keen about starting each day with Nescafé and a cigarette.

Toast and tea would have to do. I put the kettle on and put two slices of bread into the toaster. While I waited, I looked through all the cubbies for plates, mugs, spoons – the usual kitchen stuff. It wasn’t a large galley, so it didn’t take long to learn my way around.

‘Need some help?’ said a sexy American voice from behind me. Josh. I smiled over my shoulder and nodded. Not sexist and not lazy.

He took over toasting duties while I set about making mugs of tea. I hadn’t bothered asking if everyone wanted toast and tea for breakfast, because that’s all there was. Fifteen minutes later, we carefully climbed the ladder to the deck, him carrying a mountainous plate of buttered toast and me balancing a tray with mugs of tea, milk, and sugar. I was going to get nimble moving around this boat.

Marie had joined our breakfast club, emerging from her cabin a few minutes after Josh had come down. Everyone gratefully took a mug of tea and a piece of toast. It was quiet in the marina, and I could hear the gentle lapping of the water against boat hulls as we ate and drank in companionable silence. After we decimated the mountain of toast, the conversation turned to the day’s journey to Ios.

Duncan said it would take about four hours and then we’d have the rest of the day to chillax – his word, not mine – but I was all about some ‘chillaxing’ after that crappy night’s sleep. I was also looking forward to a nap, which I guessed fell under the whole chillaxing umbrella.

We wouldn’t see Gerry or Hannah until much later that morning, and Patricia wouldn’t emerge from her alcohol-induced coma until the afternoon.

*

‘Wanna steer?’ I looked up from my Kindle, which is sealed in a Ziploc bag for waterproofing, to see that Duncan was talking to me.

‘Really?’ I hadn’t known I’d get to steer the boat.

‘For sure.’ I looked over at Gary who nodded at me encouragingly.

‘Okay, yeah!’

‘Stand here.’ I put my Kindle down and stood in front of Duncan. ‘Hold the wheel here and here.’ I held my hands at ten and two like he showed me. ‘It’s not like a car; it takes subtle adjustments. We want to head to the right of that island in the middle of the caldera. You got it?’ I nodded. ‘If we start to go too far in one direction, correct our course, but gently. Okay? And I’ll be here if you need help, or if you get sick of it.’

‘Me too,’ added Gary.

‘I got it.’ A grin spread across my face. I was sailing! In truth, I was only steering, but it was one of those cool things I could check off my endless bucket list. Some people have a finite bucket list, but I keep adding to mine. I figure it’s the best way to make sure I keep going out and doing things. Imagine saying, ‘I’m done,’ and then staying home for the rest of your life. That would do my head in. So, sailing (okay, steering) a boat through Santorini’s caldera – check!

It was incredible to feel the responsiveness of the yacht as it sliced through the water. We were sailing under power, as the winds were not cooperating that morning, but it wasn’t like I knew the difference between steering with wind power and engine power. Did I mention I was sailing?

As we passed to the right of the small island, I could see the town of Fira far above us. It was just as spectacular from the water as it was from within. The contrast between the stark white of the buildings and the craggy, reddish cliffs was incredible. I was definitely regretting not spending more time on Santorini. I promised myself I would return someday, adding to the bucket list again.

The sun was already hot, even at ten in the morning, and I tipped my heavily sun-screened face towards it. I inhaled deeply and felt the warm, salty air in my lungs. I’d abandoned my hat as soon as we left the marina, because it kept blowing off, and my unfettered hair whipped around my face. I must have looked quite alluring, because it wasn’t long before Josh came and sat close by, anchoring his feet against the boat and gripping the railing with one hand. ‘Having fun?’

‘Yes!’ I grinned at him. ‘Did you want to have a go?’ I asked, hopeful he’d say no and I could keep my sailing gig a little longer. He may have picked up on that because he waved off my offer.

‘Plenty of time for that. You’re doing a good job.’

‘So, how did you sleep?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, not that well. That’s some pretty loud snoring. I ended up putting in earplugs. They helped a bit.’

‘I thought about you last night.’ Oh crap, not like that. ‘I mean, because of the snoring. Hannah and I were up for most of the night – we took Ambien at around three. I was out after that. She’s probably got more – you should ask her for some.’ Quit rambling, Sarah.

He shrugged. ‘I guess I can always go sleep in the dining nook if it gets too much.’

‘And how is Patricia otherwise? Did you talk to her much?’

‘A little when we got back from dinner. She seems pretty interesting. She’s travelled a lot.’ I felt like I’d been rebuked.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that.’

‘It’s cool. I didn’t think you did.’

I hoped not. I didn’t want him thinking I was bitchy. I wasn’t – well, not really. I decided I would talk to Patricia when she eventually woke up – she couldn’t be that bad.

Several hours later, Patricia emerged wearing a voluminous kaftan and a sour expression. She squinted at us, then sashayed over and plonked down next to Josh. I got a waft of sweat and stale alcohol and tried unsuccessfully to stop my nose from scrunching.

She can’t be that bad, I reminded myself, but it didn’t take long to regret my decision to engage her in conversation.

‘Well, there’s your problem right there,’ she said. I hate when people say that, as though it’s soooo obvious why you’re soooo stupid.

‘Sorry? What do you mean?’

‘You went all the way to Lake Titicaca, but you didn’t cross the border into Bolivia? Rookie mistake. You missed the best part!’

We were talking about my trip to Peru. Her being a citizen of the world, I’d decided that travel would be a safe topic on which we’d find some common ground. I was wrong. Apparently having world citizen status gives you carte blanche to be a superior twat about everywhere you’ve been that other people haven’t.

‘Well, I couldn’t really cross the border considering we were on an organised trip.’ She scoffed at this with what sounded like a ‘huff’. I thought it was somewhat hypocritical considering she was currently on an organised trip. ‘Well, anyway, I really enjoyed Peru.’

I’d given Patricia nearly half-an-hour of my time, and most of it was spent defending myself. I figured that was enough of an effort and decided I was done with her for the duration of the trip.

And poor Josh was sleeping with her, so to speak.

‘Hey, guys, check this out,’ Gary called from the bow of the boat. Grateful for a reason to extricate myself from Patricia’s snarly glare, I climbed up onto the side of the boat and made my way up to join Gary. This may sound easier than it was, because the boat was moving and there wasn’t a lot to hold on to. I had to be very careful I didn’t get pitched over the side into the raging sea. Well, gently rolling sea. Hannah and Marie followed closely behind me, also carefully.

The boat was rounding the tip of an inlet on Ios and at its mouth was a stunning white church, an island sentry of sorts. Unlike most churches I’d seen on Santorini, it didn’t have blue or gold embellishments – it was stark white, gleaming against the green scrub and red earth of the surrounding hills. Its spire rose from the curve of the roof like three tiers of a wedding cake.

‘Whoa,’ said Hannah behind me. ‘Whoa’ was right.

Gary turned to grin at us. ‘Yeah, pretty nice, huh?’

As we sailed into the inlet, the port of Ios sat directly ahead of us. While Gary and Josh darted about the boat following Duncan’s orders, I searched for signs of life along the waterfront. The grocery store was open, so that was good. And it looked like there was at least one café open – we wouldn’t starve. I got called away to buoy duty and joined the others to secure the large rubber bumpers along the length of the boat on both sides. I was going to have to get better at tying knots.

As we neared the dock, Duncan turned the boat around and manoeuvred it into a slip next to a slightly longer yacht bearing an Italian flag. As we approached, an older man wearing a straw porkpie hat ran up his gangplank to the dock and signalled to Gary to throw him our tow rope.

There was some reverse throttling of the engine and some more quick footwork by Gary – he really did know his way around a boat – and with the Italian skipper’s help, we were soon secured to the dock. We called our thanks to our new neighbour, and he waved it off modestly and tipped his hat at us. I adore Italians.

A flash of red hair and swish of flowing fabric pushed past me. ‘Don’t wait up!’

‘As if we would,’ I muttered as Patricia swayed her way along our gangplank and staggered off into the town. Hannah, who was now in the land of the semi-living and was standing next to me, smirked in solidarity.

‘Off to find the nearest bar, is my guess,’ said Gary. I heard murmured agreement from the others. I obviously wasn’t the only one who’d decided to steer a wide berth from our citizen of the world.

After Duncan secured the boat cabin, the seven of us headed to the only open café for a late lunch.

‘Hey, I’m going over to the supermarket after we eat,’ I said to Josh who sat next to me. ‘Wanna come? Stock up on some essentials – like food?’ He was up for it, and we agreed to leave as soon as we’d finished eating.

We were sitting outside on plastic garden furniture so tired, it should have been sent to the dump years before. We did have a gorgeous view of the port and its neighbouring beach, and it was a much prettier port than Vlychada, but we were the only patrons at the only open café. Where was everyone?

I asked Duncan. ‘Gone,’ he replied. Okay, Captain Obvious.

‘Where? Why?’

‘This is actually one of the most touristy islands – lots of kids – but they’re usually gone by mid-August – back to uni, most of them.’ It was the tail-end of August, so that explained why the town was deserted. I hoped when we got to other ports, they’d be a little livelier. I was all for relaxation, but I also wanted to get amongst the Greeks and experience some local flavour.

Speaking of which, a Greek woman appeared like an apparition and threw laminated menus onto the table. Starving after our pauper’s breakfast, I practically snatched one up. It was sticky to the touch, but at least it matched the table, which was dotted with unidentifiable splotches of goop. I flicked through it, reading the bastardised English, and the others did the same. The woman hovered impatiently while we turned its many pages.

I was craving something, but couldn’t find it on the menu. I caught her eye by waving at her, ‘Kalispera – hello – do you have dolmades, efharisto?’ A look of utter puzzlement crossed her face. I said it more slowly, ‘Dol-ma-deez?’ The puzzlement remained, and she turned to the others to signal they should order something – as in, she didn’t understand me and the best way to deal with me, was to ignore me altogether.

Duncan stepped in and ordered enough food for all of us, plus seven beers. He was so charming in the way he spoke to her that I even saw the corner of her mouth twitch into the semblance of a smile. But what about the dolmades? I love dolmades, and I was in Greece. Could I not get some dolmades? PLEASE!

She came back out a few minutes later with our beers and Marie, the goddess that she was, tried to support my dolmadic efforts. ‘Excuse me, we’d really like an order of dolmades if you have them,’ she said in her most-enunciated North American accent.

The frown returned to the woman’s face, and she left without saying or doing anything to indicate that dolmades were on their way. But it turns out they were! A few minutes later again, she pretty much tossed a plate of them onto the table. Dolmades!

But I was wrong.

‘Doll-mah-dezzz,’ she said at me slowly. Then she turned on her heels and huffed away. Right then, I guess I’d been told.

The doll-mah-dezzz were delicious, by the way.

After we finished eating, Josh and I told the others we were heading to the supermarket. We asked if anyone wanted to come, but the others seemed happy to linger and have more beer. Duncan had everyone put twenty euros each into a pile on the table – our kitty for the shared food. By default, I was now in charge of said kitty for breakfasts, snacks and lunches on the boat. I was also under strict instructions to get beer, but that was just for Duncan. He slipped me an extra twenty.

‘Any other requests?’ I asked, getting a small notebook out of my bag.

‘Water,’ said Duncan. ‘Bottled water and lots of it.’ I wrote down ‘water – LOTS’. Then I wondered how we would carry lots of water back to the boat.

‘Tzatziki,’ said Marie. ‘Oh, and something to eat it on – bread, I guess? Oh, and tomatoes.’

‘Oh god yes,’ I replied. I underlined tomatoes three times.

‘Snacks,’ replied Hannah, unhelpfully.

‘What snacks?’

‘I don’t know. Whatever they have. Just snacks.’ Great. So far, being on kitty duty sucked.

‘I’ll help figure it out,’ said the cute guy next to me. I looked up at him – gosh, he was tall – and he was smiling down at me, damn him.

‘Right,’ I said, tidying up the pile of cash and putting it into my bag. ‘We will see you back at the boat.’

I cringed a little as Hannah called out after us, ‘Have fun, you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ Wonderful – she was still running with the whole ‘you look like a couple’ thing.

The grocery store was a couple of blocks away from the café, and Josh grabbed a trolley when we got inside. Walking the aisles side by side, we stocked up on breakfast foods – muesli, cereal, jam, bread, peanut butter, milk, yoghurt – they do just call it ‘yoghurt’, by the way, rather than ‘Greek yoghurt’. As we tried to guess what the others might enjoy, we discovered we liked a lot of the same things.

Snacks were a little trickier than breakfast, but we found crackers, cookies, nuts, chocolate, and fresh fruit. I hoped Hannah would approve – I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of my roomie. For lunches, we went with the stuff for Greek salad, pita, tzatziki, cured meats and extra tomatoes. So far, the shopping experience was exactly like shopping back home in Sydney, which I admit was a little disappointing. I had been looking forward to a more authentic experience – local markets, having the grocer select the best tomatoes for me – but this shop was obviously catering to the tourist crowd.

Then we got to the liquor aisle. ‘Oh my god. Look at how cheap it all is!’ I exclaimed, immediately realising how I must have sounded. But the prices were ridiculous – about half of what we would pay in Australia. And right in the middle of the middle shelf was a familiar, pretty blue bottle. As I reached for the Bombay Sapphire gin, so did Josh. I looked at him. ‘Hey! That’s my fave.’

‘That’s my favourite too,’ he replied.

‘No way.’

‘Way.’

‘That’s brilliant – we can share. And it’s only seventeen euros. That’s like …’ I tried to do the conversion to dollars and came up short ‘… cheap.’

‘For sure.’

Then I had a real brainwave. ‘We should get two.’

‘Will we drink two?’ he asked.

‘Even if we don’t, the others will. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re sailing with a bunch of drinkers – and that’s not even including Patricia.’

‘I have noticed that, yes.’

‘And thank god!’ He laughed at my effusiveness. ‘Can you imagine the alternative? Being on a boat with a bunch of teetotallers? I mean, kill me now!’

‘Torture.’ I think he may have been making fun of me, but I didn’t care.

‘Exactly.’

We got two. And beer for Duncan.

I looked down at our nearly full trolley. Did we have enough food? I hated the thought of running out while we were in the middle of the ocean. Yes, I do know the Aegean Sea is not an ocean, but I figured that running out of food on any body of water would be a bad thing.

‘Is this enough?’ I asked my kitty buddy.

He responded by laughing at me.

‘Uh, yes, probably for the rest of the trip and I am pretty sure there will be other grocery stores in our future if we run out of anything.’

‘How are we getting this back to the boat? We can’t carry all this.’

‘I figure we’ll just steal the cart.’ He smiled cheekily. I frowned at him, ‘Or, we could use the cart, and I can bring it back when we’ve unloaded it.’

‘That’ll work.’ We paid, we bagged, and we pushed the wonky-wheeled trolley three blocks to the boat where we were greeted with great enthusiasm by our boatmates, who then insisted they put the stuff away.

I was totally cool with handing over the reins; I’d hit a wall of exhaustion. So much so that, when the shopping was put away, and Duncan announced an expedition to explore more of the island, I declined. My plans included my bunk and a nana nap. I probably should have gone with them – who knew when I’d be back on Ios again – but I desperately needed to sleep.

I had only been asleep for about an hour when I woke to a loud voice in the cabin next door. ‘You know, you’re a smart guy. I like you.’ Patricia. She was back from her drinking spree, and I could only guess she was talking to Josh – and what was he doing back so soon?

Patricia continued her diatribe. ‘You’re not like the others on this boat. They have no idea what real life is all about; they have no soul. You take those two next door – Princess and Queenie. That blonde one, moping about ’cause she’s lost the supposed love of her life – well, guess what, sweetheart? Get over it. Find a new man – they’re everywhere! And the other one! The Queen of fucking Sheba. She thinks she’s all that. She thinks she knows. She doesn’t know! She’s misguided, see?’

Finally, I heard Josh’s voice, but he spoke so softly I could only make out a few words – ‘smart’, ‘sweet’, and ‘friends’.

Then she laughed one of those taunting I-know-better-than-you laughs. ‘That’s a joke. That girl’s not your friend. She’s collecting people like they’re trinkets for her charm bracelet. I’d watch that one if I was you.’

‘Yeah, we’re going to have to agree to disagree there, because I like her. And we are becoming friends.’ Well, I heard that! He was sticking up for me.

‘Listen, kiddo,’ she said, interrupting my thoughts about what great friends Josh and I were becoming. ‘You do your thing. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Look, I’m going to head back out. I’ll catch you later.’

‘Later.’ And then I heard her leave the boat. I got up and opened the door of my cabin to make sure she was gone. Josh must have heard me, because he popped his head around the corner from his cabin.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ I replied. I really had to concentrate on not staring at his torso, because he was only wearing a pair of shorts. And it was a nice torso.

‘Did you hear any of that?’

‘Most of it. Boy, she really hates me, huh?’

‘I wouldn’t take it personally. She kind of hates everyone.’

‘Except you.’

‘Yeah, except me for some reason.’

‘Hey, I thought you were going out with the others.’

‘I was going to, but then I realised how tired I was – especially as I didn’t really sleep last night. When they left, I took the cart back and then came back to sleep. As soon as I drifted off, Patricia came in and woke me up.’

‘Oh. Bummer.’

‘Yeah.’ I was still avoiding looking at his half-naked body, so of course, I ended up staring at his lips. He must have just licked them. They were shiny and looked very kissable.

‘Well, I’m going to try to get some more sleep,’ I said, as though the two of us lying on our respective beds with only a paper-thin wall between us was a perfectly platonic way to spend an afternoon.

I mean it was, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead I’d end up lying there thinking about Josh lying on his bunk half-naked and of course, I’d be wondering if he was thinking about me. The whole thing was far too sexually charged for my liking, and even though I was still ridiculously tired, I found myself saying, ‘Actually, scratch that. I’m going for a walk instead.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Josh coming with me wasn’t part of my revised plan. A walk was my version of a cold shower. Didn’t he know that?

‘Sure. Sounds good,’ I lied.

‘Just let me get a shirt on.’ Yes, for god’s sake please put on a shirt! In fact, please never forget your shirt around me again. Damn him, he was causing a real stir. As I picked up my sandals, I reminded myself in no uncertain terms that I was not on this trip to have a holiday romance, especially with someone too young for me who lived on the other side of the world.

I was relieved when we departed the confines of the boat and I could breathe nonsexually charged air. As we walked along the pier away from the boat, I took in huge gulps of it, hoping to clear my head of extremely impure thoughts. Just friends, just friends, just friends, I chanted in my head.

We walked past waterfront cafés and bars, and there were a few more boats docked than when we’d arrived. The sun, still warm on our faces, was hanging low in the sky. It was magic hour, the time in the late afternoon when everything was bathed in golden light.

The water in the bay was an incredible blue, deep and inky, with patches of aqua near the surface where the light caught hold. It was a beautiful place, even if there was hardly anyone there – or maybe it was because of that.

Without talking about where we were going, we made our way up to the church we’d seen from the boat as we sailed in. It was just as breathtaking as it had seemed from far off – and much bigger than I’d thought. There was a low wall on the seaward side. I climbed up and swung my legs over so we could sit and look at the water. Josh did the same, coming to rest a few inches from me, our fingers nearly touching. Just friends, Sarah.

Away from the boat and fully clothed, the conversation flowed easily with Josh. Sometimes you meet someone, and even though on the surface they seem really different from you, you soon realise that you see the world through a similar lens. I’m not really one to talk about kindred spirits or anything hokey like that, but I found it refreshing talking to someone without having to edit everything I was thinking. As much as I loved my friends back home, too often I’d say something, and they’d tilt their heads to the side a little and look confused.

For some time, I’d felt that maybe I was just really weird. Talking to Josh made me feel understood – normal even.

Our conversation eventually turned to siblings, and we discovered we were both the eldest of two. ‘There’s this unspoken expectation that you’ll be the one to lead the way, to always get it right,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘No matter what “it” is.’

‘At least in your family, it was unspoken. I was always being told to set a good example, to be responsible, to be good. So, I did – I was. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t exactly what you would call a happy child.’ I paused a moment, absorbing what I’d said. I was onto something, and I let the thought continue. ‘Even as a little girl, I was hyper-conscious of doing the right thing. I was so afraid to make a mistake.’ My heart twinged a little for that girl – for me. ‘Meanwhile my sister spent most of her childhood having a ball. She was so cute and charming, and so funny. People adored her. Even today she’s the freer spirit.’

‘So, do you think it’s in there somewhere?’

‘What?’

‘Your free spirit,’ he replied.

I looked at him for a moment and then back out at the water. ‘I hope so. I’m kind of exhausted by being good all the time. But you know, I put more pressure on myself to be perfect, to get it right, than anyone else does. I’m my own harshest critic. It’s tiring.’ I hadn’t ever expressed it in those terms before – not even to Cat. Especially not to Cat.

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about this sort of stuff lately,’ Josh said, breaking through my thoughts.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘What I’ve realised – and only recently – is that I want my life to be bigger.’

It was such an elegant thought. So simple. Succinct, yet all-encompassing. He didn’t need to explain it beyond those few words, because I completely understood. Bigger than routine. Bigger than normal. Bigger than the constraints of expectation.

‘Well, this trip is a good start, I’d say.’ We shared a smile.

‘Yes.’

I remembered the moment on the bus when I’d wondered if we would become friends. It was hard to conceive how, in such a short time, we’d got to the point where he could share something like that with me. Or that I was comfortable enough to say what I’d said, something no one knew about me, not even my closest friends.

Josh and I were becoming friends.

When we got back to the marina, the others had returned to the boat – except Patricia, of course – and the all-women boat was docked beside us. Their skipper, Stuart – a guy who in any other circumstance would probably not be surrounded by women – looked like the cat who’d got the cream. I knew that look. I’d seen it on the faces of coach drivers I’d worked with in Europe during my tour managing days. That look said, ‘I’m going to shag every one of them if I can.’ Not that I blamed him – they were a very attractive group of women.

Duncan and Stuart had arranged for all of us to have dinner together that night – except Patricia (again). Duncan had chosen a restaurant he’d been to many times before, and when we arrived, he was greeted with lots of fanfare by an effusive Greek woman with very dark curly hair and warm brown eyes. She regarded the large group and waved her hands dramatically at the waiters, indicating for them to move tables together so we could sit at one long table – family style.

We stood out of the way as tables were lifted above heads, chairs moved two at a time, and place settings reset. When everything was in place, the woman smiled and told us to ‘Sit, sit, sit,’ as she bustled about giving us menus.

I sat with Josh to the left of me, Marie to my right with Gary next to her. Hannah was across from Marie, with Gerry next to her and Duncan on her right. On the other side of Josh was one of the women from the other boat, a petite, redheaded American named Kiersten.

Kiersten was the only one from her boat who wasn’t vying for the attention of her skipper during dinner. Instead, all her energies were directed at Josh, and it was quite entertaining watching it all unfold. She was behaving as though she’d been at sea for months with nary a male in sight, rather than on a boat for one whole night and one whole day. And she was ploughing through the white wine like it was water.

The flirtations began as giggles – everything Josh said was hilarious, even when he wasn’t saying it to her – and then she ratcheted it up a few notches by adding hair twisting and licking her lips a lot. All the while, she was getting drunker.

When she put her hand on Josh’s thigh, he jumped in his chair, then scooched it so close to mine, our elbows bumped while we ate. Marie, Hannah, Gerry and I watched this spectacle while swapping amused looks.

‘So, Hannah, how do you like the calamari?’ I asked, as though nothing weird was happening to my left.

‘Hmm. I can do the whole Greek salad thing, but I can’t say I’m particularly into the rest of Greek food so far.’ Her face scrunched up as she looked up and down the table at the array of dishes.

I shook my head at her. ‘You’re gonna be pretty hungry for the rest of the trip if we don’t find you something you like.’

Marie tried to help. ‘Goat?’ she asked, passing Hannah a plate piled high with roasted goat meat. Hannah’s face went from scrunched to contorted, and Marie put the goat back where it had come from. She looked at me with a smile. ‘I guess not.’

Just then Kiersten laughed loudly and Josh practically climbed onto my lap. ‘You alright there?’ I asked him quietly.

‘Not really,’ he said, pointedly. ‘Please help me,’ he added in an urgent whisper.

I made eye contact with him. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like, how much help do you want?’

‘A large amount of help.’

‘Like, “pretend to be your girlfriend” level of help?’

‘Yes. Please.’

I looked over at Marie, who was listening in. ‘Can you please hand me the goat?’

She passed it over, and I made a huge show of putting some on Josh’s plate. ‘Here you go, babe,’ I said loudly enough for almost everyone at the table to hear. ‘You wanted to try the goat, right?’

Josh caught on. ‘Sure, honey. Thanks.’ I took a piece of tomato from his plate with my fingers, and put it in my mouth, licking my fingers seductively.

We smiled at each other, and I added a cute little nose wrinkle to really seal the deal. Kiersten watched me agog. I winked at her and kept eating. She didn’t miss a beat, suddenly turning her attention to her left and laughing at Stuart’s last comment, something she couldn’t possibly have heard. She was a professional-level flirter, I had to give her that.

‘How’s that?’ I asked.

‘I think it did the trick. Thanks.’

‘Any time, compadre.’

Later that night, Hannah, Josh and I were sitting on the front deck of the boat, sipping some of Hannah’s Scotch – straight up, no ice – from plastic cups. After we told her about the liquor prices at the store, she’d rushed over to buy some.

‘I kept thinking, “What’s going to happen here? Do you want to have sex with me? Where would we even do that? We’re both living on boats – and sharing cabins!” I mean, seriously, what the hell was she thinking?’ Josh was obviously still reeling from Kiersten’s overt sexual pursuit.

‘Well, maybe she thought we all wanted dinner and a show,’ replied Hannah. She and I both laughed while Josh glared at us.

‘Oh, come on,’ I teased, ‘it was funny.’ When he didn’t respond, I added, ‘What? Too soon?’

‘Okay, I’m going to bed.’ He got up to leave.

‘Nooo. Sit. We’re only teasing you,’ I said, tugging on his hand.

‘It’s all good. I’m just tired. Thanks for helping me out, Sarah. And thanks for the Scotch, Hannah.’

We waved him off with, ‘You’re welcome,’ and ‘Goodnight.’

When he was below deck, Hannah topped up my drink and said quietly, ‘He likes you, you know?’

‘Josh? No. We’re friends – that’s all.’

‘He does. I’ve seen him watching you when you’re not looking.’ I shook my head. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Even if I was attracted to him – which since the bare torso incident, I realised I was – I didn’t want it to be reciprocated. Because it would mean that something could happen. And I didn’t want anything to happen. I’d sworn off men for a good reason, and I wasn’t going to get my heart tangled up in a stupid holiday romance, especially with someone who was becoming a friend.

No way. Hannah was wrong.

Chapter Five

Hannah was right.

After she mentioned it the night before, my senses went on high alert for any sign of attraction from Josh. We made it all the way through breakfast the following morning without so much of a whisper of it, and I nearly convinced myself Hannah had imagined it, but then he did something that changed my mind.

We were about to set sail for Naxos. Josh was seated in the dining nook fiddling with his camera, and I had just finished cleaning up after breakfast with Marie. As I walked past, he grabbed my hand and said, ‘Hey.’ Tingles shot up my arm. ‘Come ’ere.’ He pulled me gently towards him, and I obeyed. ‘Let me see.’ He turned me slightly and looked at my hip.

Part of my tattoo was peeking out from my waistband, and I realised he was asking to see the rest. Without a word, I pulled the waistband down a couple of centimetres, revealing the tiny spray of cherry blossoms.

‘I like it,’ he said, looking up at me with those steel grey eyes. I felt a twinge in my stomach and another one further below.

I righted my shorts and replied, ‘Thanks,’ as nonchalantly as I could. Then I went up on deck before he gave me any more twinges. Twinges were not good when you were trying to stay ‘just friends’ with someone.

Marie, who had seen the whole thing from the kitchen, joined me on deck shortly after. She raised her eyebrows at me – not like she was being judgemental, but more like, ‘what’s going on with you two?’ I shrugged my shoulders at her. I had no bloody idea.

‘You know,’ she said in a low voice, ‘Gary is a younger man.’ She emphasised ‘younger’.

‘Oh?’ She certainly didn’t look older than Gary. It also didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out where she was going with all of this.

‘Yes, and he pursued me for a long time before I gave in.’

‘Gave in?’

‘Uh huh. I resisted because I’m ten years older than him.’

‘Wow. You don’t look older than Gary.’ I figured I should pay the woman a compliment; whatever she was doing to look after herself was working. ‘So, can I ask how old you are?’

‘I’m forty-eight.’

‘Marie, you seriously don’t look forty-eight. I would have said you were only a little bit older than me.’

‘Thanks.’ She smiled. ‘I think it’s being with a younger man that keeps me young. They have a lot of energy.’ She raised her eyebrows at me again, and this time I laughed. ‘Look, this really isn’t any of my business. I’ll butt out,’ she added.

But I was quickly learning that when eight people live on a fifteen-metre boat, everything becomes everybody’s business and, besides, I didn’t want her to butt out. I wanted advice. ‘No, you don’t need to. I mean, I don’t know what to do here. I’m not looking for anything – casual or otherwise – and it’s not like we can spend any real time together if you know what I mean.’ I paused. ‘Though I do like him …’

‘And he’s so handsome,’ she interrupted.

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows at her. ‘Really?’

‘A blind woman could see that Josh is a good-looking man.’

‘A good-looking younger man,’ I said, bringing us full circle.

‘Look, you don’t need to decide anything right now. Enjoy the flirtation. If something happens, let it.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. You can’t control everything, Sarah, especially feelings.’

I considered what she’d said. I did like to control things. Maybe that’s why the whole thing with Josh was messing with my head – and other parts of me. I didn’t want any kind of romantic entanglement with him – or with anyone – and I did not want anything happening in such close proximity to six other people.

*

The sail to Naxos was incredible. Unlike our trip to Ios, we could sail the whole distance without power, and for most of it the boat was at a forty-five-degree angle. I had to wedge myself into the galley to make a ploughman’s lunch of tzatziki, bread, tomatoes, olives and feta. Josh helped to ferry the dishes to everyone who was up on deck, which was everyone except Patricia. She was still sleeping. Shocker, I know.

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