Chapter Three Paint a Picture

Paint a Picture

Jesse exhaled.

Then glanced over his shoulder, checking the door was closed and Demetrios wasn’t standing there watching him, so he could groan and collapse, face down on the bed, weeping into the soft furnishings.

He lay there for a while, not sleeping but not resting either. Head mushed, he couldn’t muster the strength to move, or join reality. He couldn’t blame it on the hangover anymore. And he wasn’t sure he could blame it on the grief either. A combination of everything, Jesse was out of sorts. He wasn’t himself. Wasn’t all there. Or here. The place that held a tonne of memories, from the wonderful to the gut wrenchingly horrid. They were all tumbling forth and he couldn’t close them away in the box he’d created in his mind. Pandora’s Box well and truly opened by laying eyes on Demetrios.

How very fitting.

The need to breathe had him lifting his head from suffocating into the mattress and taking in his surroundings. His room. The one his mother kept for him.

The one he’d never used.

Flipping onto his back, he stared up at the whitewashed ceiling, a single light bulb hanging from its fixture swaying in the gentle breeze wafting in from the open balcony doors. A sudden and stark realisation overtook him and he fought back the tears welling in his eyes by digging the heels of his hands into his sockets. He could cry. Should cry. His mum had died, for fuck’s sake. But he couldn’t let himself. Not then. Not here. It didn’t seem right. Didn’t seem appropriate. He rolled over again, stomach digging into the zip of his discarded jacket. He yanked it out from beneath him and threw it to the floor.

“I burn.”

“I remember.”

Jesse closed his eyes, trying to ignore the echoing of poignant words rolling around in his head. It didn’t help.

It only brought him more memories.

* * * *

July, 2006

“Hi!”

Jesse peeked over his drawing pad, the brim of his oversized sun hat preventing a full view of the boy in front of him. He was wearing swim shorts, his skin tanned and almost-black hair shoulder length, framing a round face with straggling strands stuck to the corners of his mouth. He wiped them away, Jesse now able to see the kind brown eyes gazing at him in wonder.

Jesse squinted, the blazing sun burning down on him and causing a shadow around the boy. “Hello.”

“Why are you sitting under an umbrella?” The boy spoke good English, but he had an accent. Not like Jesse’s Uncle Andrew from Liverpool, but one more akin to where Jesse was right then. Holidaying on the Greek island of Naxos with his parents.

“I’m not allowed in the sun.” Jesse pushed down his sunhat, wriggling next to the pole of the parasol he’d dug into the sand to provide him with vital shelter.

“Why not?”

“I got burnt.” Jesse lifted his T-shirt, spinning around to show his red raw back.

The boy winced, then crouched in front of Jesse and ran the back of his finger along his skin. He hissed, snatching his hand away as if Jesse was on fire. It certainly felt like he was. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” Jesse sulked. “A lot.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jesse.”

The boy smiled, and it was the widest, most beautiful smile Jesse had ever seen. Even more beautiful than Isla in his class, who had all the boys swooning and falling at her feet. He was jealous of her smile. And her effect on all the boys.

But this boy’s smile didn’t cause envy, it caused Jesse to smile too.

“I’m Demetrios.” The boy held out his hand. “You can call me Deme, if you like?”

Jesse dropped his pencil onto his sketch pad and shook the boy’s hand. “Are you Greek?”

“I am!” Demetrios gestured to the restaurant located off the beach where Jesse’s parents sat on the terrace, his mum reading a tatty novel swiped from the airport lounge library and his dad with his nose in an English newspaper. “I live there.”

“In a restaurant?”

“Yeah.” Demetrios swayed his arms, then clapped his hands together to rid them of the sand, which was pointless as he then threw them down onto the sand and launched into a handstand. “Above it is where we live,” he said, upside down, then lifted one hand to point at the white cubed building above the ornate veranda which housed the restaurant where Jesse had eaten his breakfast of fruit and yogurt. “Me and my dad.” Demetrios landed back on his feet and stood.

“Where’s your mum?”

Demetrios bowed his head, kicking up bits of sand with his bare feet. “She died.”

Jesse gulped. How horrible. Demetrios appeared to be about the same age as him. It must be awful to lose his mum at such a young age. He couldn’t imagine it. He glanced over at his mum. She was now in a heated conversation with his dad. As per the norm when they spent too much time together. They didn’t when at home. So Jesse often wondered why they went on these holidays together. But what did he know? He was a kid.

“How old are you?” Demetrios asked.

“Ten. How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“Do you go to school?”

Demetrios laughed, brown eyes sparkling like the glittering Aegean Sea. “Yeah. Of course. It’s summer break. I have twelve weeks off.”

“Twelve! We only have six. Is that why you can grow your hair?”

Demetrios swiped away the locks around his shoulders. “Babá says I look like Mowgli from the Jungle Book. I think I look more like Posh Spice.” He pouted, one hand on his hip, the other outstretched into a peace sign.

Jesse laughed. Demetrios did too. He then back flipped.

Jesse widened his eyes. “How can you do that?”

“I’ll teach you!” Demetrios gestured for Jesse to get up.

“I can’t.” Jesse hung his head, the brim of his sun hat shielding him from the disappointment on Demetrios’ face. It was a shame. This boy had been the first one to talk to him since he’d got here and being an only child got lonely. It wasn’t like he had an abundance of friends back home either. He made his own friends by drawing them.

Demetrios sank his knees into the sand beside him. “What are you drawing?” he asked, tilting his head at the sketch pad on Jesse’s lap.

Jesse could feel his cheeks flame. People made fun of his silly drawings. But when he looked into Demetrios’ eyes, all he saw was genuine kindness. Maybe he wouldn’t mock him, so Jesse lifted his arm to reveal the picture.

“Who’s that?”

“It’s a superhero. One I made up.”

“Oh, yeah?” Demetrios smiled, sincerity seeping out from his dimpled cheeks. “What’s he called?”

“Ice Boy.”

“Ice Boy?” Demetrios settled in next to him, his shoulder touching Jesse’s and scooting under the parasol, knees up to his chest. “What can Ice Boy do?”

“He can turn sunburn into ice!”

Demetrios waited a moment, then cracked out a laugh, landing on his back in the sand. Jesse couldn’t help but laugh either, and he fell down beside him, which killed his sunburned back and he hissed through the searing pain. But he didn’t want to move. He liked lying beside Demetrios. He peeked at him out of the corner of his eye, subtly tracing the outline of his face as if he were drawing him. He had a nice face. Kind. Smiley. But also a little mysterious. His mum would tell him Demetrios was handsome, then would follow that up with reassuring him Jesse was too, although he knew he was more cute than handsome. Demetrios was a whole different person. If he’d met Demetrios at home, Jesse would fear talking to him.

But he wasn’t at home.

He was in Greece.

A million miles from rainy England and the mean kids.

Demetrios scraped his head along the sand, catching Jesse staring at him. He smiled, winked, a twinkle in his eye causing Jesse’s breath to catch.

“How long are you here for?” Demetrios asked.

“Two weeks.”

“Want to be my best friend?”

Jesse smiled. “Yes.”

Demetrios grinned, stood and grabbed Jesse’s hand to yank him up. “Come on then. Let’s play!”

* * * *

Present day

Jesse slapped his hand down on the bed, forcing himself to sit. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes, and willed his heavy heart to ease. It was the grief causing it, and not the lingering memories of this place, of Demetrios, clogging his ability to feel anything other than regret.

He hated regret.

Perching on the foot of the bed, he browsed the room. He could tell now where his mother’s touch had been. He could almost see her whistling while she hung the pictures. She’d thought of everything, from the wooden desk pushed up against the wall at the side of the balcony, single chair tucked under, to a wooden workstation ready to have paper clipped onto it, for him to draw. There was also an easel on the other side in case he had the urge to paint. Jesse stood, meandering over, and ran his hand along the antique wood. He found three drawers underneath one side and opened the first one. He gulped. His mum had inserted a drawing pad and set of pencils inside. The drawer below held paint brushes and a pallet.

Unable to contain his sorrow, he closed the drawer, turned his back, which had him facing a framed picture hung on the opposite wall. He lifted his glasses, the scratched lenses making it hard to see anything clearly. But he had to put them back on to step forward and inspect the painting. It was of the Kallis Taverna, in all its blue and white glory, set to the backdrop of a cloudless blue sky and beneath a round, golden sun. Taken as a view from the beach, where vacant colourful wooden tables and chairs dotted the terrace. Save for one. A man lounged back on that chair, tipping it onto two legs, with an ever present pencil tucked behind his ear and arms flung around his head, soaking up the sun with one of the most striking and infectious smiles Jesse had ever seen.

Demetrios.

Jesse closed his eyes. He’d painted that. He’d painted it when he’d been seventeen. When things had felt as though nothing would change. That it would be how it had been forever. That the world had shifted and Jesse was ready to take the leap and couldn’t remember a time he’d ever been so happy.

Life was cruel sometimes.

Ripping off his glasses, followed by his trainers, he had to wash the day off. He wriggled out of his clothes then traipsed his way over to the shower cubicle separated by a stuck out wall. He scraped back the curtain and stepped into the shower tray. As he suspected with any guest accommodation, the hair and shower gel were provided gratis. Jesse’s usual brand, though. He twisted the knobs to start the water, then squealed, jumping back. It was freezing. He leapt away from the spray, then had to slide his arms under the ice cold water to adjust the temperature. It came out boiling. He squealed again, steam rising and gagging him, so he adjusted the temperature again. Stone cold.

“Christ!” He adjusted it once more, deciding scorching hot was a better choice than freezing cold, and scrubbed himself down amid the cloying steam.

He switched it all off, then stood there, dripping, choking from the hazy vapour, having forgotten a towel.

“Great.” He stepped out of the cubicle, flooding the wooden floorboards, and felt around the separating wall, then ran, stark, bollock naked out into the main part of the room.

“Skata! Sorry!”

Jesse knew Demetrios was there by his soft Grecian accent, but also because of his scent. Demetrios had the distinct aroma of summer. Of sea breeze. Hot, sultry nights wilting away under a blanket of stars.

Of romance.

Jesse felt around the bed, hands finding a towel, and he wrapped it around his waist, then found his glasses and popped them on, turning back to face Demetrios. He swallowed. Demetrios hadn’t moved. Stood there, as if transfixed, he raked his eyes over Jesse to the point of invasion.

“Sorry.” Demetrios shook his head, gaze averting to the wooden floor planks. “I knocked but—”

“Is there a lock on the door?”

“Yeah.” Demetrios rushed over to the door. “It’s on the inside.” He pulled it forward, showing him the key stuck in the knob. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“So you came in to watch me?”

“No!” Demetrios held up his hands in surrender. “No. I…” His gaze flickered down the length of Jesse, stopping at the water pooling around his feet. “Did you get the temperature right in the shower?”

“Yes,” Jesse lied. “Thanks.” He internally rolled his eyes. “I like it scorching hot.”

Demetrios chuckled. “I remember.”

Jesse couldn’t acknowledge Demetrios’ cheeky smirk, or his attempts at bringing up the past. He was too concerned about something else. “Did you come in for a reason?”

“Your aunt’s arrived. In the restaurant. She asked me to let you know.”

Great. Now he had to deal with Diane. His mother’s sister. “Thanks,” he said with as much genuine gratitude as he could muster. He was aware he wasn’t being fair. None of this was Demetrios’ fault. He’d be reeling at Jesse’s presence here as much as Jesse was. He wouldn’t want the reminders either. Certainly wouldn’t want Jesse encroaching on his summer conquests.

A death and a funeral might mean he didn’t hit his quota of British tourists to bed.

“No worries.” Demetrios smiled, and it went straight into Jesse’s weak heart. Why did he have to have such an infectious smile?

Demetrios spun, gaze settling for a moment on the framed painting on the wall. The one of him. He glimpsed back to Jesse. Smiled. Again. A smile that acknowledged that day. That time. And was fond of it. He walked out, clicking the door shut behind him.

Jesse closed his eyes, exhaling long and weary. How was he going to get through the next few days breathing the same air as Demetrios Kallis? Being across the hall from Demetrios Kallis? And when would he stop thinking about Demetrios Kallis and concentrate on the real reason he was here—his mother’s funeral?

Suitably chastened, he dried himself off, zipped open his case and pulled out whatever he’d packed when he’d been of more sound mind. He laid out the black trousers and black short-sleeve shirt on his bed, then chose his salmon chino shorts and a plain white T-shirt to jump into. Once dressed, he checked his hair in the oval mirror on the wall next to the painting, having to rub away the condensation to see himself, and, happy with his appearance, he looked back at the painting. His heart ached.

That day.

That fucking day.

Of all the days to paint a reminder of, it had to be that one.

Jaw clenched, he unhooked the painting from the wall, threw it into the last drawer on the desk, and left the room.

The door opposite was closed. And Jesse wondered, inflicting even more pain on the open wound of his damaged heart, how many others had made it up those rickety, uneven stairs? How many other people had been behind that door? Had revelled in Demetrios’ soft, nurturing, and demanding hands on them? How many had he kissed and whispered enticing words of romance into their ears?

How many others had been swept up by his lies?

Forcing himself out of his neuroticism, he bundled down the stairs to the front door and left the house. He chucked a right into the adjoining passageway, willing the images of when he’d last been in this shaded, cobblestone route to the beach not to surface. He couldn’t deal with that. He couldn’t handle thinking about then.

When he popped out into sunlight, he found his aunt sitting at a table on the veranda.

“Jesse!” She leapt up, waving at him.

He fell into her open arms and she smelled intrinsically and rather cruelly of his mother. She had her hair too. Curly and mousy. Hard to style into anything other than what it was—a mound of spiralled locks. She held him, tightening her arms around him, and snuggled into his shoulder. She then let him go, hands clasping his arms as she tipped back to take him in.

“It’s been too long,” she said.

Had it?

“How are you, Jess?”

Jesse would have shrugged but her hands were preventing him and he thought, right then, that might be a bit too flippant an answer considering it was her sister and his mother they had lost too soon.

“I don’t really know,” he settled on, which was the most honest he’d been since learning of his mother’s sudden death following a heart attack. If she had been somewhere nearer to a hospital or a defibrillator, it might have saved her. But she hadn’t been. She’d been here. The place she’d chosen to call home. Far away from Jesse. From civilisation.

Proving her paradise island hadn’t come with everything she’d needed.

Diane gestured to the seat opposite. “I’ve ordered a coffee. You look like you could use one.” The sympathy shining out of blue eyes, the twin of his mother’s, had Jesse choking.

“Not a bad shout.”

Diane twisted in her seat. “Cooey! Deme!” She waved over to Demetrios, who was leaning on his elbows at the ordering counter, arse poking out and straining against khaki shorts. He glanced over his shoulder. Casual and carefree. Very Demetrios. “One for Jesse, love.”

Demetrios met his gaze. “Two sugars?”

Why did he remember everything?

Jesse nodded, then turned his attention back to Diane. “Did you speak to Dad?”

“Briefly.” Diane laced her hands together. “Have you?”

“He should have met me at the airport. He didn’t show.”

“He’s…” Diane ruffled back her curls. “Finding all this difficult.”

“No shit.”

Diane reached for his hands, open palms on the table. After a hesitation, Jesse slipped his hands into hers. “He’s a grown man. Makes his own decisions. He’ll either regret it, or he won’t.”

“He could have thought about me in all this, that’s all.”

“I know. And he should have. You’re right. You’re hurting. But, Jesse, he’s too consumed with thoughts of himself.” She squeezed his hands. “Always has been.”

“After everything I did for him, though.” Jesse slumped back in his chair, the injustice and unfairness of it all making him droop. “Everything I gave up for him.” He peeked back at Demetrios by the counter.

“I know, Jellybean.” Diane didn’t know. She didn’t know the half of it. “How are you though? Really?”

Jesse sighed. “I can’t seem to…process it. I don’t know whether I should be sad. Or mad.”

“Grief takes many forms and you’ve got a lot to sort through. It’ll happen in its own time.”

“I just wish…” What did he wish?

For everything, all of it, to have been different.

Diane tilted her neck in sympathy. “She loved you.”

“People keep telling me.”

“You were her only son, and she adored you.”

“She left me.”

“You were eighteen, Jess. You were at university. And she didn’t leave you. She left your father.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn’t and I hope one day you’ll realise that.” She stroked her thumbs over his knuckles. “Whatever you think of her decision and how she went about it, she was still your mother. She hated that her happiness caused you to drift apart. We all understand your loyalty to your father and we get he needed…” she searched the sky for the right word, “more of your attention.”

“He was broken.” Jesse bit his lip. “Still is.”

“I know. But does that mean your mum didn’t deserve to be happy?”

Jesse sighed. Of course she did. But didn’t he, too? “I thought I’d have more time,” he mused, a whisper on the breeze.

“We always do.” Diane clutched his hands. “Life’s short, Jesse. Your mum knew that. Maybe she knew she had little time left and wanted to lead her life to the fullest. It’s why you have to grab what you want by the balls and cling on!” She slipped her hand from Jesse’s, emulating squeezing a pair of bollocks.

Demetrios arrived then. Timely. And he popped a tray onto the table, two metallic gold cups and two filled briki pots ready to pour the thick, black and super strong traditional Greek coffee into. It was a far cry from Jesse’s usual flat white from Starbucks.

“You need anything else?” Demetrios rained sachets of sugar on the table in front of Jesse.

The question hung in the air. Did he need anything? He needed his mum. Needed the last ten years back. Needed to start over. Needed to stop thinking about Demetrios. The could’ve been. The what if. The how many.

But he said, “No, thanks.”

Demetrios meandered off, leaping down onto sand to gather up the leftover plates and whatnot from the vacant tables.

“He’s a decent bloke, y’know?” Diane said, pouring out coffee from her pot into a cup.

“Who is?” Jesse did the same, needing the caffeine fix he’d expect to come from the stronger-than-espresso coffee.

“Demetrios. I know you hate him.”

“I don’t hate him.” No, he didn’t. But he couldn’t form into words how he felt about him, either. He once could have. He’d once known exactly how he felt.

“You’re not very nice to him. He’s lost his mum, too.” Diane stirred some sugar into her coffee. “He’s lost two.”

Jesse sighed, closing his eyes. Was that how it came across? Did Demetrios think he didn’t like him? There’s a fine line between love and hate. And when he glimpsed him on the beach, no longer clearing up tables, but hugging two girls who’d ventured over from their sun loungers, Jesse couldn’t even see the line anymore.

“And before you say it, he didn’t replace you.” Diane held the coffee to her lips.

“Excuse me?”

“He didn’t replace you as Freya’s son.”

“Can we not talk about it?”

“Okay, tell me what’s going on in your life, then.” She ruffled her shoulders. “Make it juicy.”

Jesse snorted. “Hooked up with a stranger last night if that’s considered juicy.” Or at least he thought he had. He was still undecided if anything sexy had taken place. Apart from having woken up naked, there weren’t any telltale signs. He certainly didn’t feel satisfied.

He never did.

“Okay, not that juicy.” Diane sipped from her cup. “No relationships? Dates? Looove on the horizon?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Disappointment oozed from that one syllable. “Well, look around.” She waved her cup to the beautiful surroundings. “You’re on a Greek island. Romance washes up with the sea here.”

“I’m here for my mother’s funeral.”

Diane shrugged. “Sympathy sex can work wonders too, then.”

“Diane!”

She chuckled, drank from her coffee, then leaned her elbows on the table, cup at her lips. “There’s really no one?”

Jesse wasn’t sure he should confide about his love life to his aunt, but maybe it was the summer air. The sea breeze. The romantic surroundings and seeing his aunt for the first time in a long time that made him blurt it out. “There is someone but…”

“But…?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It always is.”

“Met him online.”

“It’s twenty, twenty-four. Everything is online. My bloody gynaecologist is online.”

Jesse snorted. “We’ve been texting for a while. Late into the night. He seems nice. But it’s nothing serious.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve not met him.”

“So meet him.”

Jesse shrugged, picking up his coffee and drinking, wincing through the bitterness. “What’s the point?” He glanced out to the beach where a girl hung onto Demetrios’ neck. He had his arms behind his back, clutching onto his notebook but it didn’t matter if Demetrios wasn’t touching her, the view hurt all the same. “I’d rather live in the fantasy. Reality sucks.”