Chapter Two It’s All Greek

It’s All Greek

Demetrios stared over the colourful wooden tables scattered along the beachfront at a man. Not a boy. A man.

Jesse.

Jesse was here. In his country. His town. His taverna.

With his dark blond hair billowing in the soft breeze, glasses framing kind blue-grey eyes and, Jesse was still the boy Demetrios remembered, swathed in an unreachable man. He had the same boyish charm Demetrios recalled in his dreams, despite the sullen expression he couldn’t hide thanks to the reason he was here.

Demetrios fought for air. Jesse Hough had always stolen his breath, and he was here, doing it all over again with his mere presence. He hadn’t changed. Yes, he’d grown up. Yet, somehow, he was still exactly the same. Like a picture hung over a mantlepiece, the edges tattered from each year passed, but the image within still stirring the same feelings to those who gazed upon it. Jesse was a moment frozen in Demetrios’ subconscious and conjuring up feelings laid dormant. Untouched. Buried and hidden for too long. And he, like a refurbished old smart phone brought back to life, could work again.

He wasn’t sure he liked it.

Being numb had meant he hadn’t felt the things that should have hurt. Now that’s all he felt.

Sucker punched.

“Hey, Deme?” The girl sitting at the table he’d been serving reached for his hand.

Demetrios had been vaguely aware Kelly had been speaking, but too busy watching his father converse with Jesse, Demetrios zoned everyone else out. He’d known this had been coming. He’d thought he’d prepared for it.

Not enough.

Kelly squeezed his hand. “Deme?”

Demetrios ripped his focus from the scene at the front of the Kallis Taverna to address his customer. “Hmm?”

“You okay?”

Kelly and her friend, whose name escaped him, had been here a week already, staying in one of the Kallis’ self-catering apartments tucked behind the taverna and had dined with them every night. She was cute, petite and brunette, had an array of bikinis in every colour that flattered her ample chest and curvy figure. She was on a gap year before starting university, putting her at around nineteen.

The age he’d been when he’d last laid eyes on Jesse Hough.

When he’d last laid anything on Jesse Hough.

Eight years and counting.

“Uh, nai.” He rubbed his forehead, the adrenalin surge pounding his temple. “Yes.” He corrected himself in English. Although Greek was his first language, he spent most of his days among English-speaking tourists, so he probably spoke it better than his mother tongue.

His biological mother, that was. Not his stepmother. Because she was English.

Had beenEnglish.

He hated thinking about her in the past tense.

“You zoned out on us.” Kelly squeezed his hand, beaming up at him, her brown doe eyes radiating a warmth of concern beneath perfectly curled eyelashes. “We were asking if you were planning to go to Void later?”

Ah. His tourist flirtations hadn’t subsided because of recent events. Ingrained in him to be the holiday romance, it had become innate to be one. His babá maintained it was good for business. Once upon a time, Yiannis Kallis had been the one to dish out free ouzos to the pretty girls, offer a day trip on his boat much cheaper than the organised tours, and kiss them under the stars, aiding them in their quest for a holiday romance under the scorching Aegean sun. But he’d got older. Then met Freya. And his dalliances diminished. So with Demetrios’ heart always elsewhere, he’d taken the baton from his father and revelled in the many, many people who offered him a no strings attached liaison.

Don’t break their hearts,his babá had ordered of him though, romance them to the very end. We can’t afford the bad reviews!

Little had babá known, it was Demetrios with the broken heart.

“I’m sorry, girls. Not tonight. It’s my stepmother’s funeral tomorrow. We have guests arriving.”

Kelly clasped a hand around her mouth. “Oh, Deme!” she gasped. “I had no idea!”

Why would she? It would dampen the customers’ holidays to learn there’d been a death on the premises. They had a business to uphold. They couldn’t afford the cancellation fees to close the taverna and apartments for something as immaterial as his mother’s death and subsequent funeral.

Step-mother’s.

He didn’t have the time to mourn Freya like he had his own mother, despite it having eaten more of him inside to the point he wondered what he had left in him.

“I’m so sorry,” Kelly said. “When did she pass?”

“A few weeks ago. Sudden. Unexpected. Heart failure.” Demetrios tapped his pencil on his small wire bound notepad in a nervous jitter. “Her family’s flying in for the funeral.” And one was right over there, jump starting all those feelings he thought he’d left in the sheets belonging to other people.

He didn’t say that, though. He was having a hard enough time with his reaction to Jesse’s presence himself, let alone putting it into words. English words. Because all he had was gamó, gamó, gamó—fuck, fuck, fuck—repeating over and over like the thudding beats of his tumultuous heart.

“Is she being cremated here?” Kelly asked.

“Buried. The Greek Orthodox Church believes in reincarnation. Cremation is a sin.”

“So her family can’t take some of her back with them?”

No. No, they couldn’t. They’d have to come here to lay flowers.

“It’s what she wanted,” Demetrios said. And Yiannis had vowed to give Freya Hough everything she ever wanted. Even after death they had parted.

Kelly gripped his hand. “Oh, Deme, I’m so sorry.”

Demetrios smiled in gratitude, squeezing her hand back, unconsciously focusing on the terrace where Jesse was. Jesse ripped his gaze away first, obvious disapproval etched all over his face because Demetrios was still holding the bikini-clad girl’s hand.

“I should check on babá.” He tugged his hand away. “You two want the chef salad, yeah?”

“Yes, please.” Kelly’s eyes lit up with elation. Demetrios had remembered her order.

He always remembered the regular orders. Bikini or not.

“Bread and hummus too?” he offered.

“Yes, please!”

“On the house for my girls.” Demetrios winked, then rushed off through the sand and leapt up the verge to land on the concrete terrace. Yiannis had his hand on Jesse’s shoulder, and Demetrios hadn’t ever felt envy like it. It hadn’t been Jesse’s shoulder that he had last touched, and his hand burned with a memory so raw it was relentless.

“Demetri,” Yiannis said through sniffles, “look who’s here!” He gestured to Jesse.

Demetrios smiled, not quite believing it. They were breathing the same air. Side by side on the same sand. Beneath the same sun.

Jesse offered a polite smile. One that pained him to give.

Demetrios tucked his pencil behind his ear, then held out his hand. “Jesse, it’s been too long. Wish it was in better circumstances.” Oh, boy, did he. He’d wished and wished for Jesse’s return for years. But the reunion didn’t feel as magical as Demetrios’ persistent dreams claimed. Clouded by death and destruction, Jesse wasn’t launching into his arms. Despite the yearn straining Demetrios’ heart for him to do so.

So he kept himself at both the physical and emotional distance Jesse required of him.

Jesse hesitated before putting his palm into Demetrios’. “Hi. Demetrios.”

He shook his hand with as much indifference as he spoke his full name. Demetrios breathed out a reflexive laugh. How had they come to this? To handshakes and full names? The detachment hurt, and Demetrios wondered if that was how the recurring guests felt when he forgot their names.

Especially the ones he’d bedded.

“Sit, sit. Please.” Yiannis scraped out chairs from one of the vacant square tables.

“No, it’s fine.” Jesse adjusted his bag. “I need to go check in.”

“Check in?” Yiannis gasped, horrified, glancing to Demetrios, then back to Jesse with a frown. “Are you not staying here?”

“No. I booked an apartment somewhere else. For me and dad.”

“Where?” Yiannis shoved his hands on his plump hips, the outrage hitting hard at Jesse’s blatant disregard for his entire livelihood. Not only did they own one of the better located apartment buildings, but it was their home. Jesse’s mother’s last home.

“Um…” Jesse fumbled in pockets, the strap of his bag falling off his shoulder and the satchel tumbling out of his clutches. He had to raise a knee to stop it from falling to the ground and Demetrios grabbed it, readjusting the strap on Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse flinched, then said, “Thanks,” and went back to searching inside his bag. He fished out his phone, scrolled through, and raised his glasses to squint at whatever was on his app. “Villa Konstantin?”

Yiannis blew a raspberry. “You will not! You are staying here!” He gestured to the entire leasehold of Kallis Apartments and Taverna. The fully open windows and doors led into the open plan dining area with the kitchen at the back run by Chef Christos. The apartments, a relatively newer edition to the business, had to be accessed from the back, on the main road. Why wouldn’t anyone want to stay here rather than in the poky rooms at Konstantin overlooking the dusty road? It was why they’d invested so much in this idyllic spot, to the detriment of all else.

“You got the apartments?” Jesse said, no inclination, no inflection, straight at Demetrios in accusation.

Demetrios said nothing.

Jesse snorted, then addressed Yiannis. “I’ve paid the deposit at Konstantin’s.”

“I will get that back for you, no problems!” Yiannis grinned, tapping Jesse on the back.

“But my dad…”

“Is he here?” Yiannis stiffened.

“Not yet.”

Demetrios didn’t expect Richard Hough would turn up, and he was both relieved for his babá to not have to deal with him when he was in mourning himself, but also heartbroken for Jesse having to deal with all this alone.

“Your room is here. Your mum wanted you here. We want you here. Don’t we Deme?”

Jesse glanced at Demetrios.

Yiannis gestured to a chair, scraping the coloured wood out for Jesse to sit. “If your father comes, he can have Konstantin’s apartment.” He tapped the seat of the chair. “Sit!”

Jesse looked as though he’d rather do anything but park his backside on Kallis owned property, but he obliged and sat, not removing his bag from his shoulder or unwrap his fingers from around the pull handle of his cabin case. He sat awkwardly, as if waiting for a bus. Or for a tsunami. It wasn’t the best advert for their relaxed, laid back taverna serving the sun worshippers. Especially not with how Jesse had his jacket zipped up to his chin.

“Why are you dressed like that?”

“I got burnt.”

Demetrios chuckled at the memories. Some were good ones. Some were great ones. Some were heartbreakingly annihilating.

“I’ll get you a drink,” Yiannis said, back to the charismatic owner of Kallis Taverna and Apartments. Demetrios had forgotten how well his babá played the role. He’d been a shell since Freya’s departure to the skies.

“I’m okay, really,” Jesse’s reply fell on deaf ears as Yiannis scurried off, leaving Jesse and Demetrios alone.

Except for all the other customers, of course. But it felt as though they were the only two there.

Jesse glanced up at him. Demetrios smiled. Jesse didn’t.

So Demetrios dropped into the chair next to him. “How are you?” he asked, wrapping his hands around his blank notepad.

Jesse snorted, glancing out to the waves frothing over golden sand, children and couples running into the glorious blue Aegean Sea.

When Jesse turned back to Demetrios, his face said it all. “My mum just died. Me having not spoken to her in…” he peered up to the heavens as if counting the beats. “A long time. And I’ve had to come back to the island that ripped my family apart.” He stared back at Demetrios. “How do you think I feel?”

“Like shit.”

“Accurate.” Jesse groaned, slipping off his glasses to wipe them on his jacket, then tucked them back on his nose. “I forgot it was like the firepits of Hell here.”

“It’s thirty-four degrees. You can unzip the jacket. You’re making me sweat just looking at you.” He ruffled out his pink T-shirt, airing his damp skin.

“I burn.”

Demetrios smiled. “I remember.”

Jesse held his gaze, unmoving. No response. Stoic. Had he been practicing that? Or did Demetrios really not have any effect on him whatsoever?

Yiannis came back with a bottle of Mythos blond lager and ripped open the cap, plonking it in front of Jesse. “You’re a man now.”

“I’m twenty-nine.”

“Exactly.” Yiannis shoved his back. “Drink!”

Jesse regarded the bottle as if it were roadkill. He then shrugged. Lifted it to his lips and said, “hair of the dog,” then threw some down his throat.

But it was Demetrios who drank in the exposure of Jesse’s long, slender neck, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he gulped back the lager. It was the pale skin. The pure, unblemished smoothness of it. He didn’t have stubble. Not any Demetrios could see, anyway. Maybe he’d feel it on his tongue if he —

“Deme will show you to your room,” Yiannis said, cutting into Demetrios’ thoughts.

Jesse dumped the half empty bottle on the table. “Honestly, it’s fine. I’d rather stay in the same place as my dad. He’s running late, but I’m sure he’ll be here.”

Yiannis chewed on his lip. “Diane said he might not make it.”

“Diane?”

“Freya’s sister?” Yiannis phrased that as a question and Demetrios winced.

“I know who Diane is,” Jesse snapped back. “Considering she is my aunt. Is she here? When did she speak with Dad?”

“Um…” Yiannis peeped at Demetrios, as if begging for help.

“She’s arriving later,” Demetrios said. “Babá contacted everyone in your mum’s book.”

“My mum had a book?”

“Yeah. She kept a book with all the important numbers and addresses.”

Jesse’s lips twisted. Demetrios could tell Jesse was in no mood to hear about how his own mother had lived and connected with those back home when he, himself, hadn’t been part of it. Through no fault of Freya’s.

Or, maybe, his own.

“Do you want food?” Yiannis asked him, his innate hospitality spilling out over his fear and trepidation about what Jesse’s visit meant. “I’ll bring you a meze.”

“No.” Jesse wiped under his glasses, around the bridge of his nose. “I’m fine. I’d just like to get my head down for a bit. It’s been a long morning.”

“Speak no more!” Yiannis held up his hands, then gestured to Demetrios. “Deme will take you to your room—ah, no, won’t hear another word! Freya would want you here. With us!”

The defeat in Jesse’s eyes had Demetrios squirming. He didn’t want to stay here. Certainly not with them. It twisted in his gut, made his chest heavy. As much as he knew Jesse wouldn’t be pleased to see them—him—especially under the circumstances, he’d been toying with thoughts that maybe, just maybe, when Jesse saw him again, all that anger and resentment might …fade away.

“We can still be friends.”

“No, Dem. No, we can’t.”

That memory, scarringly deep, was as if it had happened yesterday, on this very terrace on a day as hot as it was now. The lingering sting of careless words hadn’t faded in time, nor stroked away by beautiful women.

“Deme!” His father once again snapped him from the past. “Show Jesse his room.” Yiannis was then called away by Christos inside the restaurant, once again leaving Demetrios and Jesse to fend for themselves.

“How is your dad?” Demetrios asked, hoping to move from pleasantries back to who they could have been. Friends? Brothers? Both words hurt.

Jesse looked at him. Through him. As if Demetrios were transparent. He’d never felt invisible before. He was a big deal around here. Forever the object of the visiting tourists’ holiday romances. A memory chalked up to a good time. A summer fling. He’d got himself a reputation for it. The locals called him the ‘Greek God’. As if he could click his fingers and a beautiful woman would walk off the beach, into his arms and fall in love. With him.

They often did.

He, more often, didn’t.

“He’s…” Jesse blinked himself out of his trance. “Not great.”

Demetrios fiddled with the wire which bound his notebook. “Understandable. It was a shock to us all.”

“Yeah.” Jesse exhaled from rounded lips and squinted out to the sea. A single bead of sweat dripped down from his temple to his jawline.

Demetrios licked his lips.

But a hand clamping down on his shoulder had his gaze ripped away from Jesse to Kelly looming over him. “Hey, Deme.”

“Hey.”

“Um…” She peered from him to Jesse. He now had his full focus on her. Or, mostly, her hand on his shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve been waiting a while for our drinks…”

“Skata!” Demetrios leapt from his seat. “Sorry, Kelly,” he squeezed her arm, “I’ll put it in now. On the house. For my favourite girls, yeah?”

Kelly smiled. Beamed. As they always did. “Thanks, Deme.” She gave Jesse a quick peek, then sashayed her sarong-wrapped hips back along to her table on the beach.

Demetrios plucked the pencil out from behind his ear, watching her go, then wrote the order on his pad. When he turned back, Jesse arched an eyebrow.

“Wait there.” Demetrios pointed the pencil at Jesse.

“Where am I gonna go?”

“To Konstantin’s.”

“Who?”

“The apartment you booked.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jesse furrowed his brow as if he’d forgotten the conversation they’d had.

“Wait there.” Demetrios scurried off, ripping the page from his notebook, and slapping it on the counter that separated the kitchen from the seating area. He spoke in Greek to Christos. “Table five, on the beach. The two pretty girls.”

“They are always pretty, Deme,” Christos said, taking the ticket and reading the contents. “And they always order the chef salad.”

“Are you saying the English are predictable?”

“No. But you are.”

Demetrios laughed, then hurried back to find Jesse waiting for him, clutching his bag to his chest, hand wrapped around the handle of his cabin case.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Demetrios said in English.

Jesse peered up over his round glasses. “I should wait—”

“I know you don’t want to stay here. I get it. But babá’s insisting. And he’s hurting. Broken. You might not care about that, but your mum would. Do it for her.”

Jesse sighed. Either waning and admitting defeat, or too exhausted to fight, because he stood.

“I can take that for you?” Demetrios offered to take Jesse’s bag.

“No.” Jesse clutched it to his chest.

Demetrios retracted his hand. “Still carry around those secret drawings, huh?”

“They’re not so secret anymore.” Jesse pushed his glasses up his nose, an act Demetrios remembered with fondness.

“No?”

“I’m an illustrator.”

“Awesome. For what? Comics?” Demetrios knew everything about Jesse, of course. He knew from Freya. He knew from having stalked him online for the past eight years. The question was merely to keep up the conversation. Above all, he liked hearing Jesse’s voice out loud on not just in his head.

“Children’s books, mostly.”

Demetrios smiled, genuinely. “Knew you’d do something with that talent.”

“Just show me to the room.”

Demetrios nodded. “Round the back.” He angled his head.

He led Jesse around the side of the whitewashed concrete taverna, where they had to walk in single file through the stony passageway between buildings, wooden chairs dotted along for those who wanted to dine in the shade, or where Christos sometimes sat for a vape. Demetrios would have thrown a flippant comment over his shoulder about the last time they’d been here, in this covered archway, but he wasn’t sure what reaction he’d get. So he kept quiet and reminisced on his own, as he often did. They emerged out onto the main stretch of road, squinting at the blinding sun and passing cars and scooters kicking up dust as they zoomed in front of them. The blue front door directly to their left was where he lived, his house, and next to it was the entrance to the guest apartments. He opened the first door, the home he shared with his father, and stepped into the airy marbled flooring of the entranceway, steps leading to the first floor straight ahead. He led Jesse up them. “Careful, they’re a bit unev—”

Jesse tripped, toppling into him.

Demetrios grabbed his arm, finishing his warning, “Uneven,” he said, gazing into blue-grey eyes that had once held such warmth that he’d thought he was King of the World.

Jesse wriggled from his clutches. Cleared his throat. Looked away.

Demetrios climbed to the second floor. “That one’s my apartment.” He pointed to the first door.

“Surprised there’s not a revolving door on it,” Jesse muttered to the floor.

Demetrios inhaled a sharp breath. He couldn’t dispute it, but he hadn’t ever felt so sordid about it before. He was open and honest with everyone. He was single. Usually the others were too. And they weren’t ever anything more than a fling that faded from his memory quicker than the suntan they’d worked on did.

Except for one, that was.

“Here’s you,” he said, and opened a door directly opposite.

The room contained a basic bedroom with a balcony, sadly lacking a sea view but provided a sweeping vista of the bustling town ahead. The double doors leading onto it were open, curtains floating in the gentle breeze made from a passing car. It had an ensuite in the way of a tiny shower cubicle and toilet separated by a tiled wall.

Jesse rolled his cabin case toward the bed in the centre, made up with soft sheets and a stitched throw. “Thanks.”

“Your mum had this done for you.”

Jesse spun to face him.

“We don’t rent it out. Or let anyone else stay here. It’s yours. For whenever you wanted it.”

Jesse’s sharp, noticeable swallow echoed in his throat.

“She loved you,” Demetrios said. “A lot.”

“Dem?”

Demetrios’ chest fluttered at the familiar way Jesse uttered his name, spoken from sweet lips, and he bristled with hope. “Yeah?”

“Can we…not?”

Demetrios sank, then reached for the door handle. “I’ll be in the taverna if you need anything.”

“Sleep. I need sleep. Don’t think I need you for that.” Jesse flipped his bag off his shoulder, dumping it on the bed, then unzipped his jacket, shucking out of it, his slender back soaked in sweat.

Demetrios had a sudden thirst.

Jesse peered over his shoulder, eyebrows rising in question.

“It’s good to see you again, Jess,” Demetrios said, then stepped out and closed the door behind him, inhaling a vexed breath filled with years of regret.