Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1) (27 page)

F
or a while he’s
lost
.

That’s okay, he wants to be lost.

Lights flash. From the bumper cars, from the carousel, from everywhere. Children shriek.

Happiness bleeding all over the place.

This is how it’s supposed to be.

He makes a light pole home. Crosses his arms, watches life. Teenagers flirting, vanishing into the long, dark stretch of the promenade. Full of hope and fun. Certain that life and love will always go their way.

Been about a thousand years since he was that young. Tonight, maybe longer.

An engagement party. Fuck. That means wedding plans are underway. Imagine if he’d prolonged this. He’d wake up one morning to a text demanding he be at the church that afternoon.

His phone rings.

Ignore, Ignore, Ignore.

He doesn’t pray much, but he prays now – for salvation, for freedom without bloodshed. He saved himself, now he needs saving from what comes next.

And when he opens his eyes, she’s there.

His salvation.

S
he’s
in yellow and
he’s in trouble.

Aphrodite in her sundress, hair spilling over her shoulders; his heart aches just looking at her.

He misses her face, misses her conversation. A life with Vivi would be one of fire and friendship. A good life.

“I wasn’t going to come over,” she says. “Then I was, then I wasn’t.”

“Then you did.”

“Apparently.”

“Soula and Kostas wondered if you were here.”

Vivi glances around. “Are they still here?”

“Somewhere. They got hungry.”

Small talk mimicking mortar, filling in the cracks, holding the conversation together long enough for it to step onto solid ground.

“Is Melissa enjoying the festival?”

Vivi shrugs. “I don’t know. She's here somewhere. My mother has a leash on her. The family suggested it might not be a hot idea to let her be so free. She exploded when I told her. Said I was ruining her life. The exact same thing I told my mother when I was her age.”

“What do you think?”

Vivi looks up at the stars. “I think they're full of shit. I want to protect my daughter but not to the point where she can't have any fun with her friends. Apparently she has to pick her friends based on the family's approval, too. No whores, chicken thieves, or people whose families vote for opposing political parties. At this rate all that's left are imaginary friends.” Her gaze drops, finds his. He tries not to look at her mouth. “What do you think?”

He abandons the pole for a nearby bench. A couple of kids were on it – now they’re not. He sits, she sits.

“When I moved to England for what you call college, I was just a kid. At the time I thought I was badass. I loved that nobody knew me there. Nobody cared what I did or who my friends were. I could party as I pleased – no judgment.”

“Okay . . .”

“Greece is different – especially here where the town is small. They thrive on knowing what everyone else is going, and they talk and talk and talk. The bigger the scandal, the more excitement it produces. If there are no big things, they magnify the small things. That sustains them between major dramas. The trick is to not let their talk stop you from living your life. If you want to do something, do it. Just be aware that they will talk about you, and all of them will have advice or tell you how you could have done it better.”

She moves her eyes to the constantly shifting crowd. “So I should just let Melissa do her thing?”

“Within reason, of course. She's still so young. It would be nice if family feuds weren't passed down to the next generation. In the grand scheme of things a chicken thief is not so bad.”

“It's not exactly murder,” she says. “What were you like in college?”

“Horny.”

They laugh together. He holds out his hand. Vivi makes a fist against the yellow.

“Dance with me,” he says.

“Okay, but I have to warn you . . .”

“. . .
I
don’t really dance
.”

Max leads her to the stage. She takes in the other dancers, the worn, scuffed planks, the instability of it all.

“Is this thing safe?”

Max laughs. “Yeah, it’s safe. They’ve been using the same wood for fifty years.”

He’s joking. He’s joking?

“While I have confidence in your confidence, a lot of things have been going wrong lately. Dragging me up here might end in disaster – just so you know.”

“It’s not much of a drop. Chances are we’ll make it.”

He curls his hand around her hip. Nice, she thinks. Too nice. But she steps closer, embraces the nice. His body runs hotter than hers, but hers runs wetter.

Bodies do their own thing. They don’t wait for permission. So Vivi’s body is getting ready for the possibility of getting what it wants. Doesn’t matter what her head has to say.

“Is your fiancée okay with this? I don’t want her coming after me with a meat cleaver.”

His hand goes north, cups the back of her neck.

“It’s just a dance,” he says.

“Just one dance. This can’t go any further. I won’t be the other woman.”

Yeah right, her body says.

“Anastasia and I are done. It’s over. There’s no engagement. No relationship.”

She stops. Doesn’t know what to think, doesn’t know what to say. What’s appropriate when someone loses something you didn’t want them to have? Aaaand, what’s appropriate when your last thought was purely selfish?

“I’m sorry,” she says. Silence. “Wow, when did that happen?”

“Not long ago.”

To an outsider, it looks like she’s relaxing into him.

That’s a no. She’s tighter, tenser than she’s ever been. They could use her nerves to restring an orchestra. Max’s hands are on the move again. Down, down, to the small of her back. The S curve. The yes, yes, yes curve.

“Wait,” she whispers. “I don’t want to be the headline news in tomorrow’s gossip fest.”

The dancing horde doesn’t give them much room. Max moves back maybe an inch.

“Better?”

“Better,” Vivi says. And worse.

Max closes the distance with his head. His breath is hot against her ear. “I’m going to fuck you so hard and good you’ll never stop craving me.”

Vivi scans the crowd, scans, scans.

The music is loud, yeah, but what if there’s spy equipment about? People this nosy, can’t have them missing any of the juicy stuff.

“I don’t have an addictive personality,” she says.

“I can change that.”

“When did you plan on starting?”

“As soon as we get back to the Jeep.”

“Where is it?”

“Not far.”

She thinks about her mother and Melissa and how she should tell them she’s leaving. But Melissa is safe with her grandmother, and if Eleni sees her with Max there will be questions. Too many questions.

So: “Everyone needs one addiction – right?”

Right.

W
orld’s oldest teenagers
, these two. Back to the Jeep and he’s up her dress and down her dress and into her with his fingers.

He stops long enough to drive, but he keeps one hand on her and in her.

Max makes her crazy for two whole minutes with his small talk. Don’t talk, she thinks. Do. As in, do me.

He talks and talks and she can’t because his fingers aren’t letting her.

The Jeep jerks to a stop outside her cottage and Max changes the subject – to them, to her, to what he’s going to do with her.

To her
.

“Just shut up and do it,” she says.

“Trust me, it’s hotter if I tell you first.”

He’s down and out of the Jeep and opening her door. And then he lifts her out and bends her over the hot, damp seat.

“I’m going to keep talking and you’re going to keep listening. Okay?”

Can’t speak. She’s too busy raining all over his fingers.

He stops before she explodes, pulls away. Her world is instantly ten degrees cooler.

“Inside,” he says.

“Inside.”

She can hear the promenade’s music from here.
Thump, thump
. Her pulse is racing to keep up. She unlocks the front door and Biff bolts out.

The look on his face says he’s real sorry he’s interrupting. He pees. Then it’s back inside to the cool kitchen floor, as though he’s been there all evening and the dog hair scattered on the couch is an illusion.

Max knows which room is hers, so he takes her there.

She feels wild and awake and simultaneously hazy. Too hot to care that there’s never been anyone but John. She should tell him, but not right now. No way does she want to dislodge his fingers from the underwear he’s pulling down, down, down with her dress.

Now she’s naked and he’s not and her shyness kicks in. He grabs hers wrists, stops them from doing a shitty job of covering herself up.

“I want to look at you,” he says.

“I want to see you, too.”

She gets one wrist back so he can unbuckle his belt and shuck his clothes. Talented man, that Max.

“Can you see how much I want you?”

Like she can miss it.

She kneels in front of him, looks all the way up.

“Show me.”

S
lipping her grandmother is
easy
. Melissa waits until she’s too busy socializing to notice her fading away. She knows she shouldn’t be doing this, but whatever. It’s too late now.

Come at eleven
, the note said. She found it this morning, wedged in the gap between her shutters and the window.

Didn’t tell Dr Triantafillou, did she?

An hour ago she was fretting, trying to figure a way to meet Thanasi without Mom finding out, but then Mom let her go one way with Grams, while she went another.

An opportunity presented itself so she took it.

She’s wearing her favorite outfit and Mom’s least favorite.
One or the other, Mel
, she always says about the pink pleated miniskirt and the white top with the spaghetti straps. But Melissa’s clever. She hid the top under a T-shirt, and now she’s stowing that T-shirt on the far side of the tiny church near their house. That way she can find it easily later, before she sneaks back to the promenade with a mouthful of excuses she’s already thought up.

Thanasi is going to go wild when he sees her outfit. At least she hopes so.

Doesn’t she?

But by the time she reaches the meeting place, the buzz is mostly gone. Suddenly, meeting a boy in the dark doesn’t seem like a great idea. She can’t back out now, though, because Olivia’s voice is whistling through the night. “Woo . . . Tyler, is that you?”

She can hear Olivia, but she can’t see her.

“No, I’m a psycho with a chainsaw, and I’m here to eviscerate you,” Melissa calls out.

“Eww, gross,” Olivia says, but she’s laughing. “Don't be such a loser. Come on. Wait. Put this on.”

Makeup changes hands. Melissa sets her font to bold. Then she steps into the olive grove. The town lights give one last flicker before vanishing.

Olivia is there. Vassili, too. And next to them Thanasi is smiling, his teeth almost glowing in the dark, like they’re painted with the same spooky stuff they put on those sticky stars and planets.

She smiles back, but it’s cool plastic. She remembers the kiss and how it didn’t fit.

“We're going over there.” Olivia points to a spot in the distance. Doesn’t matter, Melissa can’t see it anyway. “You guys go over there.”

“Shouldn't we stay together?”

“Why? Are you into four-ways, Tyler? I had no idea you were so kinky. Let’s see if you can at least hit a home run, first.”

The guys have no clue what she’s saying, but Melissa gets her message loud and clear. This isn’t just a make-out session. Olivia is daring her to hook up, to go all the way. Be like me, she’s saying.

“If she doesn't want to go – ” Vassili starts, but Olivia shuts him up by dragging him deeper into the black.

And now Melissa’s alone with Thanasi, whose hands are getting too friendly.

She wiggles away, tries to put some distance between them.

“Come on, Melissa, don't you like me?”

His touch is doing weird things to her, making her hot and cold at the same time. She’s frozen, but she wants to run.

“Can't we just, you know, talk?”

“Of course,” he says lightly.

Olivia's giggles fade.

Thanasi sits on the ground, his back supported by the rough twisty trunk of an olive tree. Melissa kneels beside him, fighting to stay cool and not freak out.

“Do you like sex, Melissa?”

“I – ”

O
ne bite at a time
.

T
hanasi pulls
her hand until –

– swiveling her legs –

– straddling his lap –

“ – are you my girl? Show me – ”

She doesn’t say yes, doesn’t say no.

“ – something for me. All the girls do it – ”

– metal scratching metal –

“ – your hand . . . please.”

Please, he says. As though she’s directing this teenage train wreck.

Except he’s pushing her down on the ground into the ground pushing up her skirt pushing into her. And she can’t scream doesn’t scream won’t scream because you’re supposed to say “No” before screaming.

And she never said “No.”

She never said, “Yes” either, but everyone knows “No” is the power word.

And she never said it. She’s sure of that.

Isn’t she?

Then it doesn’t matter because he’s done and she’s as cold outside as inside. And she’s sore and stretched the way she felt when she was six and she shoved Barbie’s leg up her nose.

She makes two Melissas. Cuts herself down the middle. Melissa girl. Melissa woman. Melissa woman feels all grown up. Melissa girl is crying, crying, wishing she could go back in time and scream, “No.”

“That was fun,” Thanasi says. “Maybe your friend can teach you how to give head. She's a pro.”

Melissa girl, Melissa woman – doesn’t matter which one speaks. “It's not nice of Vassili to tell you about him and Olivia.”

Thanasi laughs. “He didn't tell me.”

“You and Olivia . . .?”

“You had me all hot and hard the other day. She was something to do. Men get sick if they don't . . .” He jerks his fist in the air.

Both Melissas go icy cold. “But she's my friend.”

“So?”

“Why didn't you tell me before we had sex?”

“Would you be here if I did?”

“No.”

“So, it was good that I didn't. Come on, Melissa, you liked it. It's good.”

It’s not Melissa woman or girl who makes the next move. It’s Melissa, daughter of Vivi, granddaughter of Eleni. She takes one small step toward evening the score. Knees his balls right out of the court.

“You’re a fucking asshole!” she shouts to the tune of his gagging.

Stupid little girl, she’s crying and crying as she waits for Olivia at the edge of the grove.

She doesn’t have to wait long.

“Oops,” Olivia says. “Looks like someone popped a cherry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let's just say I'd wash that skirt in some cold water before your mom sees it, or she's going to totally freak out.”

Olivia is right: the sun is setting on her skirt. A long copper smear. Mom buys her pads, so there’s no way she'll believe Melissa has her period.

Their friendship shatters. She looks at Olivia, former friend and backstabber.

“Screw you, Olivia. And by the way, thanks for sucking Thanasi’s dick.”

“At least I'm not a tease. You lead him on, pretending you liked him while your legs stayed shut. He needed a real woman, so I gave him one.”

“You can't even imagine how much I hate you right now.”

“Not nearly as much as I hate your boring, pathetic ass. No wonder you tried to kill yourself. Figures that you'd manage to fuck that up too!”

It gets physical.

Melissa slaps Olivia.

Olivia slaps Melissa.

Melissa shoves the other girl as hard as she can. Olivia’s feet shoot out from under her. Her arms windmill, trying to stop the fall, but it’s way too late. Melissa doesn’t mean for Olivia’s head to crack against the sharp rock, but it does.

Terrified, she runs. Leaves Olivia there, running nowhere, staining the sticks and stones with her broken bones.