Page 15 of The Summer Show
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The dress code for the evening?
“Heels are for the inexperienced and masochists,” Ana told me. “If you hate pain, and I really hate pain, go for comfortable footwear.” She waggled her feet at me. They were wrapped in her favorite Chucks. I swear, she owned the Converse sneakers in every color.
Once we arrived at the promenade on foot, it was obvious that high heels and Nera weren’t compatible. Cobblestones were the natural enemy of all but the most stable footwear. More than one ankle was destined to twist tonight. Not mine, thankfully. I’d committed to flat sandals.
Gone was Nera’s charming daytime facade. At the night the island switched to ho mode. Strings of colorful lights crisscrossed the main street. Hidden black lights caused the stark white buildings bordering the promenade to glow a fluorescent blue. It was hard to believe this was the same island.
One thing that remained the same were the people. Locals and tourists flooded to the waterfront once the sun went to punish the other hemisphere. Children were unleashed. Adults gathered in groups. The chatter flowed freely in several different languages. Every so often I caught a snippet of English and my head whipped around to find the source.
Ana and Thanos introduced me to so many people my head was soon swimming.
I was almost relieved when the crowd parted and Nick Merrick was standing on the side of the street eating a gyro, casually scanning the throngs of people. He struck me as a man entirely comfortable in his own skin. Most other people would have had their phones out for company.
Ana called out to him. He ignored her and kept on eating.
Since earlier this evening, he’d lost the grey sweatpants and found jeans and a white shirt that clung to his chest like his pecs were a life raft.
Lucky shirt.
In a desperate effort to not objectify Ana’s brother, I dragged my gaze sideways and focused on a huge squid hanging outside a taverna. The dead mollusk could fuel a horror movie or two. Alas, it was destined to be a tourist’s dinner. Soon the limp flesh would be sliced into rings and dipped in batter before being photographed for the ‘Gram.
“Want to come eat with us?” Ana was asking her brother.
“Can’t,” he said. “Got somewhere to be.”
“Is it a woman?”
With his mouth on the gyro, he paused to raise his eyebrows at her.
“Hey, I’m just asking,” she said. “You can tell me. I won’t say anything to Mom.”
“It’s not a woman.” He glanced at me as he spoke, which didn’t mean a thing because he had to look somewhere, didn’t he? Tell that to my hormones, though. They were a pack of giggling girls, all excited because the hot guy looked at me. Fools.
He swallowed the last bite, scrunched the foil and paper into a ball, pitched it into a nearby garbage can.
“Wow,” I said, perpetually impressed by coordinated, skillful people.
“I can do that, too,” Thanos said.
Ana smushed his cheeks in her hands. “Of course you can, honey.”
“I can.”
Nick tilted his head at the garbage can. “Be my guest.”
Ana sighed. “Don’t start, you two.”
“Who’s starting anything? Not me,” Nick said. He nodded once at me and turned away.
The last I saw of Nick Merrick was his back retreating into the night.
seven
Well, that wasn’t quite the last of it. We made it home before Nick did. Which meant that after a shower there was still time and the opportunity for me to dig in my heels and get my way.
The couch was mine.