Page 63 of The Summer Show

He was amazing.

The way he had known exactly what to do, executing his plan perfectly, right down to the coffee. The way he remained calm and gentle through it all, guiding me through the streets until the lookie-loos gave up the chase. The way he was looking at me now like he was relieved that I was okay.

I had come to Nera with a small piece of me hoping I would find love here, or at least someone for a temporary good time. I had pictured walks along the beach, holding hands. Sipping wine under the olive trees, then laughing because I didn’t know diddly about wine. Really, it was more or less all the same to me.

But I never expected Nick.

I understood that I had shown him kindness on the plane, and that I was his sister’s little friend, but damned if he didn’t make me believe that he cared.

By rescuing me first from the reporter, then from the crowd, he’d managed to awaken something in me. A belief that I had value, that I was worth saving. Not because I was a daughter or a sister, but because I was me.

The idea shook me.

I was downright rattled.

And all that soul shaking created little cracks inside the bits of armor I wore around my soft bits, and sprigs of ivy began to curl up and out.

My crush was evolving into feelings.

Our escape brought us back to his grandmother and great-grandmother’s house, which was probably the second safest place for us on the island. Although I hadn’t witnessed their wrath myself, I’d heard tales of the older Stamou women and the havoc they could wreck upon a human body with nothing more substantial than a shoe or a wooden spoon. Nobody was going to storm this gate and prevail.

Right now there was no sign of the two older Stamou women. After lunch they had all retreated into their shuttered rooms to sleep. The neighborhood was quiet, except for the occasional cluck of a chicken or donkey braying. But even the animals were lethargic and keeping to the shade because they didn’t want to become jerky. The only ones outside were Lina and Irini One, and Lina looked like she would rather have shingles than hang out with her sister-in-law.

Irini One eyed us like we were a story she wanted to tell. Lina glared across the table at her.

“Did you two know each other before?” Irini One asked.

“No,” I said.

She touched her finger to her eye. “Because to me it looks like you know each other very well.”

“Stop meddling,” Nick told his aunt.

She gasped and crossed herself. “What happened to you, eh, Nikos?”

Beside me, Nick tensed. “Nothing happened to me.”

Her beady eyes prowled over him, hunting for a thread to yank. And although none of this was my business, I wanted to step between them. Protect him. Shield Nick from her questions.

Terrifying.

Because when you care about someone, you give them power. All you can do after that is hope they wield that power with good intentions.

twenty-three

Night three, episode three.

First event: Chariot racing.

Who won? Nobody. The chariots were pulled by pairs of goats, and to spur them onwards we had carrots on sticks. Most of the goats decided they wanted the other chariots’ carrots, and, well, none of us made it to the finish line. The only winners were the goats who managed to score a carrot. The rest of us extricated ourselves from the wreckage and tucked our tails between our legs as we limped back to the judges to find out what task was up next.

Cooking.

The nine of us were instructed to make the same dish, according to our families’ recipes: Tzatziki. We were able to choose from a variety of ingredients—plain yogurt, sour cream, garlic, onions, vinegar, lemon juice, and a bunch of herbs, spices, and baffling additives that I didn’t recognize.

Everyone else had a recipe. Even the German seemed to know what he was doing. Not me. I had to wing it and reverse engineer the few tastes of the sauce I had tried this week.

Somehow, I prevailed. One thing was for sure, it wasn’t my mixing skills that pulled me through.