CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I felt alive. All of my senses were alert and prickled. I was filled with a sense of wonder and adventure and a desire for new experiences. Something in me felt like it had been woken, and it felt great.

Dimitri had walked out of the sea and was sitting on the beach watching me. Even though he was far away, the sexual tension that was building between us was still very much there. I slipped my bikini back on under the water and walked out. He passed me a towel and I flopped down on the sand next to him. We both sat in silence for a while looking out over the sea. The view was incredible. This place was magical; I had never been anywhere or seen anything so beautiful before.

“Can I ask you a question?” I turned to face Dimitri.

“Anything.”

“Why are you a tour guide if you’re a model? And a successful-looking one at that?”

“You’ve asked the wrong question. You should have asked why do I model when I am a tour guide?”

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

“This is my passion. This is what I really love doing.”

“So then why model?”

He shrugged and then winked. “Because I’m hot.”

“You did not just say that?”

Dimitri smiled at me and nudged me playfully with his shoulder. “I just do it for money.”

“Really?”

He stopped smiling and turned to look at me. “I come from this big, crazy, loud Greek family… I loved growing up with so many siblings. But when I was sixteen my dad got sick. Cancer. He knew he was dying and he made me promise that when he was gone, I would step up and become the man of the house. That I would take care of everyone.”

“But you were so young,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder without even thinking about it.

“And I had no skills and no way of earning enough to support seven women.” He forced a small smile. “So I used my looks. It was the only thing I had at the time. I’ll stop soon, I just have two more sisters to get through college and then that’s it.”

“You’ve put all your sisters through college? All six of them?”

“Most of them. My youngest sister, the birthday girl, is doing fine art, and my other sister is finishing off a business diploma. I would have loved to study something, but there was just no time… Maybe when I stop this modeling crap I’ll be able to go back and do something. Truthfully, I hate it.”

“Modeling? Please! What could you hate about dressing up and posing half naked with hot women on the beach?”

Dimitri reached for my hand that I had accidentally left on his shoulder. He took it in his and looked at it. “It’s not real. Not like this. This moment here, with you, this is real.”

His fingers traced the back of my hand, and all I could think about was taking his hand and putting it on my body. I wanted to be wrapped up in his arms right now. His eyes locked onto mine and I felt myself transported to somewhere else. Oh God, I am in trouble.

“Besides, you of all people know what it’s like to only be judged on your looks. Sometimes people don’t bother looking past that stuff.”

His words echoed through me, ringing true in every way possible. There was such a strangeness between us now. The crazy sexual heat of earlier was gone, replaced by something warm and calm.

“So why is this your passion?” I asked.

“I love showing people around and watching them fall in love with this place. The people that come here all leave with a little bit of Greece in their hearts. Like you will. And…” Suddenly a strange smile swept over his face.

“What?” I leaned in, intrigued.

“You know all those photos I have in my house?”

“How could I not?”

“So, when I was young, there was a woman who lived in our village. One day, her son left and he took to the seas and started sailing them. There were so many stories about why. Some said he had his heart broken so badly that he couldn’t take it; others thought he was looking for a treasure, or running from the law.”

I laughed. “You Greeks are such storytellers.”

“And we gossip. Everyone talked about it. Anyway, once a week he would write to his mother and send her photographs of all the places he’d been…”

“Those are the photos?” I asked.

He nodded. “I used to get so excited to run up to her house and see them. She would always pour me something to drink, and we would sit outside under the trees and she would make up these amazing stories about him and the places he was visiting. I think she missed him and the stories she told me were a way of keeping his memory alive when he wasn’t there.”

“That’s so sad.”

“It was. But her stories about her son totally changed my life. He was my idol. Even though I’d never met him, I wanted to be exactly like him. I used to imagine he was this great pirate searching for a buried treasure and I wanted to go on the same adventures that he was going on and see the same places he had seen. She used to give me one of the photos every week and I kept them all and vowed I would visit all the same places one day.”

“And have you?”

“Almost.” I gazed at Dimitri’s face now: It had a totally adorable childlike quality to it. He lay back on the sand, making himself more comfortable, and I did the same. “Of course when I got older I realized that there was no pirate treasure.” Another small chuckle escaped his lips. “But I still wanted my adventure.” He turned to me. “You know how you’re looking for something? Well, I feel like I’m looking for something, too, I just don’t know what it is. But until I’ve found it, I feel like I can’t stop exploring.”

“I’m not looking for something,” I quickly qualified. “I’m looking for my father.”

Dimitri turned back to me and shook his head. “I think we both know you’re looking for much more than just him.” His words were so pointed and so steeped in truth that they unsettled me.

“What would happen if you didn’t find him, Jane?” he asked, sounding serious again.

“Why, has the investigator said something?” I sat up straight.

“No. Nothing like that.” Dimitri was very quick with his response. “I was just talking hypothetically.” He turned away and looked back at the sea. “Come, it’s getting late.” He stood up and pulled me to my feet, too. “We still have to go back home and get ready before dinner.”

I had forgotten about agreeing to go to his birthday dinner. I stood up and once again pulled my heavy bag onto my shoulder. The pain of the strap cutting into me was getting too much to bear, and the bag fell from my shoulder and splattered into the sand. I gazed down at the stupid, heavy, oversized thing and a realization slammed into me with such enormous force. It overwhelmed me and shook me to my very core.

“I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t fucking do this.” This bag that I had been lugging around with me wasn’t just a bag. All the lipsticks and straighteners, the brushes and combs—all the paraphernalia that was physically weighing me down—was mentally weighing me down, too. Every time I tried to find the perfect shade, make my hair into something it was not, I was trying to change and push away that unchangeable part of me. This bag contained all my dashed and trampled hopes. It contained all my perceived failures and all the pain I’d been carrying around with me my entire life. This was not a bag at all.

“I’ve had it. I’ve just… I can’t.” There was an edge of desperation to my voice.

“Fuck this!” I bent down and pulled the rest of the contents out of the bag. “I hate this thing!” I held a hair straightener in the air. “Do you know how much I hate it?” I must have looked a little wild as I waved the thing in the air in front of Dimitri’s face.

He smiled back at me. “So what are you going to do about it?”

What was I going to do about it? I hadn’t thought that far ahead, actually. All I knew was that I wanted all this crap out of my bag. I wanted it out of my life. I wanted to stop feeling like I was lugging the weight of the world around with me and it was slowing me down.

I looked around. “This! I am going to do this.” I ran as fast as I could to the edge of the sea and tossed the hair straightener in as hard as I could. It was so dramatic. In my mind I imagined hurling it across the ocean, where it would finally land with an almighty gigantic splash that would shake the very world. It didn’t. It plopped into the water a few feet away—but it sure felt good.

I turned and looked at Dimitri, who was now laughing. “God, that felt good.” I ran back to my handbag and pulled out my oversized makeup bag. I unzipped it, and the lipsticks bulged out. I picked one up, held it in my hands, and read the bottom.

“Midnight Angel.” I looked at him and then out to sea and tossed the lipstick as hard as I could.

I took the next one out. “Dissolved in Dreams. Who names these bloody things, by the way?” I tossed this one into the water, too, and it felt great.

“Cheeky Girl.” *Toss*

“Rampant Red Raspberry.” *Toss*

“Love Me Nude, D Is for Danger, Pink Me Up, Meltdown… at least the last one makes some sense.” I laughed as I tossed them all into the sea.

I went back to my bag. “And do I really need all this sunscreen?” It was a rhetorical question, because before he could answer, I was tossing. “And why do I carry a brush and a comb around with me all the time, too?” I tossed again, and again, and again. Until I had tossed almost everything out of my bag and into the sea. I was laughing like I hadn’t laughed in ages, and with each throw I felt lighter and happier.

I turned and looked at Dimitri, and then without thinking about it I ran up and hugged him. I threw myself at him so hard that he almost toppled over, but instead he managed to lift me off my feet and swing me around. I let go of him and tears started streaming down my face, this time tears of happiness.

“I can’t tell you how good that felt,” I said.

“I’m glad.” He reached out and wiped some of the tears from my face. “Only thing, we don’t want the turtles to choke.”

“What?” I gasped. “You’re kidding?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Oh crap, I don’t want to be a murderer of sea creatures.” I turned and ran back to the sea and straight into the shallow waters. Dimitri came running up behind me.

“Luckily it’s shallow and pretty see-through,” he said, bending down and pulling a lipstick from the seabed. He burst out laughing. “That was quite something, though.”

For the next few minutes the two of us ran around in the water splashing each other and collecting my stuff from the sea. We laughed the entire time, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last had so much fun. We finally emerged after managing to retrieve about 90 percent of the stuff; the rest was unfortunately lost. We both walked back onto the beach with bulging arms.

“There’s a trash can over there,” Dimitri said.

I looked, and sure enough there it was. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?” I asked.

Dimitri smiled. “It was just too much fun to watch.”

We arrived back at Dimitri’s house about an hour later and both scrambled to get ready for dinner. I’d only brought one decent dress; it was smart and expensive. I’d imagined wearing it when my father and I went out to dinner at a restaurant where we’d sit up all night talking. Or I’d wear it when he introduced me to his family. I started to slip the dress on over my head and then heard a knock on the door.

“Are you ready?”

“Almost,” I called.

I grabbed a towel and dried my hair. It was curly and bushy and for the first time in almost forever, I didn’t really care. I’d seen so many women with hair like mine here that I didn’t feel such a need to tame it into submission. I stood back and looked at myself, barely recognizing my reflection. Everything about me looked different, and it wasn’t just the dress and the hair. It was something else. Something intangible.

My phone beeped and I pulled it out of my now much, much lighter bag.

WHATSAPP GROUP: Jane goes to Greece

Annie: Are you there? Sorry if I was a bit harsh with you earlier. I actually have no idea what you are going through at the moment. None of us do. I shouldn’t have tried to tell you what you were feeling.

My fingers hovered over the screen and I was about to type a response, but didn’t.

Annie: Jane?

Lilly: Me too Sorry.

Annie: You there????

Lilly: Chat later then. XX keep us posted. Please.

Annie: X we love ya

I locked my screen and slipped it into my bag again. I didn’t have time to chat with them about this right now, but it was good to know—and not surprising—that they supported me in whatever the hell you’d call this journey I was on. I stepped out of the room, and Dimitri rose from the couch. Then his mouth dropped open and he stared at me. “Wow. You look incredible.” He walked toward me and I was sure my cheeks were an embarrassing Rampant Red Raspberry shade.

“Thanks.” I felt so coy, like a schoolgirl being asked to prom by the hottest guy in her class. (Not that that had ever happened to me.)

He looked hot, as always; shorts, a loose-fitting top, and… hang on, he looked almost exactly like he’d looked today, and yesterday. He looked completely casual. Suddenly I felt like a total moron for dressing up.

“I didn’t realize that this was such a casual thing,” I quickly said. “I’ll go and change into something more appropriate.” I turned and started walking back through the door, but he grabbed me by the wrist to stop me.

“Don’t you dare change,” he said, his eyes looking directly at my lips in a way that made them feel like they were tingling.

“But you look so casual and I feel way overdressed.”

“I’ll sort that out.” Dimitri suddenly disappeared into his room and closed the door behind him.

I sat on the small sofa, picked up a newspaper, and started flipping through it. It was all in Greek and the pictures weren’t very interesting. I heard the door open and looked up…

I looked straight into GQ magazine’s Hottest Men photo shoot.

Holy fuck! That was about the most sensible thing my brain could manage. There he was, casually leaning against the doorframe. Dark, broody eyes and a slightly clenched jaw accentuated his chiseled face. But that wasn’t what took my breath away.

It was the fact that he was dressed in a full black tuxedo. His hair was swept back, and aftershave wafted into the room. He was dripping far more sex appeal than bare-chested, spear-wielding Dimitri had. It was the first time I had seen him in noncardboard form with so many clothes on, and he’d never looked more gorgeous. He had deliberately posed like a model and I could see he was struggling to keep a soft playful smile from tugging at his lips.

A small breathy sound escaped my lips as I tried to regain control over my senses. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“What?” he asked as if butter couldn’t melt in his mouth.

“You’re doing some deliberate modelly thing.” I pointed a finger at him.

Dimitri laughed. “I am,” he admitted. “What did you think?”

He struck another kind of pose with an even more clenched jaw.

“It’s very ‘Blue Steel.’” I smiled back at him, amused. I’d never imagined that someone like him might actually see the funny side in it. You sort of imagine male models as the kind of people that take themselves seriously, but he didn’t. He was poking fun at himself—and that made him even sexier and more desirable.

“Okay. Watch this,” he said with a chuckle in his voice and a kind of twinkle in his eye. “This is a very important look. As a model you have to master it… Right.” He straightened himself and looked like he was doing something that resembled warming up, the way an athlete would.

I burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation as he gave his neck a stretch and winked at me.

“Okay, are you watching carefully? This is the flirting face.”

I nodded in a state of perpetual giggles.

“I’m going to look down at my watch,” he said as he started fiddling with the imaginary wristwatch on his arm. “Now see what happens when I hear a sexy female voice and realize my date for the evening has arrived.”

My giggling escalated into full-blown laughter as I listened to Dimitri describe the imaginary scene.

“I glance up at her from my watch, slowly, with only my eyes, and…”

He looked straight up at me and my giggling stopped immediately. “Holy crap!” The words escaped my mouth as my whole body reacted to the look and stiffened. His eyes bored right through me in a way that would make it impossible for any woman, anywhere in the world, to resist him.

“Do you want to buy the watch, Jane?” he asked in a husky seductive voice that was a mixture of danger and sex and dripped with unspoken promises of orgasms aplenty.

“Yes,” I said faintly.

He smiled and looked back up in a more normal manner now. “Good. My job here is done.”

He walked to the sofa and then extended his hand for me to take. “Shall we?”

I looked at his hand and, as if on autopilot, stood up and placed my hand in his. I could see he was totally aware of the effect he was having on me. He was fully aware that he had reduced me to a puddle of simpering hormones.

“You look… you look…” I heard myself stutter, although I wasn’t even aware that my mouth had ever opened.

“Not as good as you look,” he said before leaning in and kissing me on the cheek. This time it was different. He let his lips linger and when he pulled away, he let them trail gently down my check, coming ever so close to the corner of my mouth. I wanted to turn and kiss him so badly. So I did.

I could see it took him by surprise at first. But he soon tangled his hands in my hair and pulled me closer. I lifted my hands and placed them on his face; it was soft and rough all at the same time. I pulled my lips away but didn’t move my face; instead I leaned my forehead against his, and he held me in place there. When I opened my eyes, I was so close to his face that his features were blurry. He touched his nose against mine, and I could feel and taste his breath against my lips. It was in that moment that I decided to forget all the supposed mistakes that my mother had made with a man named Dimitri once upon a time. I would not let her and the choices she had made govern my life any longer. I’d already spent twenty-five years living under her influence, and she wasn’t even there. It was time to cast it off. Time to break free from this invisible pull she had on me. I’d make my own decisions and make my own mistakes, and if this was one, which it probably was, then so be it.

I finally pulled away and we walked to the car in total silence, a silence that drifted into the car with us, too. Dimitri looked totally relaxed, but the more we drove the more nervous I started to feel about meeting his family. Suddenly it was very important that they liked me. Halfway through the drive, he reached across and took my hand in his.

“Don’t be nervous,” he said, giving my hand a firm, reassuring squeeze. He continued to hold my hand and soon he was running his thumb over the top of it. I ran my fingertips up and down his fingers. Our fingers played and intertwined and engaged in a kind of perfect dance. I traced the outlines of his hand softly with the tip of my finger. This was doing a very good job of making me forget to be nervous about meeting his family—but it was causing an entirely different kind of nervous feeling.

We finally pulled up outside a house that looked like a typical Fira home, built into the hill, whitewashed and multileveled. But there was something very different about this house. The noise coming from it was overwhelming, music and what sounded like a million voices.

“Dimitri, Dimitri!” Shouts rang out and I glanced up. About ten faces were staring down at us from the balcony.

Oh God!

Dimitri led me to the front door. “You’ll be fine. They’re going to love you!”

The inside of the house was even more overwhelming. Every single corner and seat and space you could fit a human being into was full. Children ran around the house, almost knocking things over as they went. One almost knocked me off my feet the second I walked in.

“Kalimera! Kalimera! Kalimera! Kalimera!”

More shouts rang out, and everyone turned to look at us. Dimitri put his arm around my shoulders and said something to everyone in Greek, which seemed to set something in motion. Suddenly everyone descended on me and I was pulled into a frenzy of greetings and cheek kissing until I felt dizzy, like a spinning top being whirled around.

“I’m Dimitri’s sister, I’m Dimitri’s cousin, cousin, sister, brother-in-law, cousin, second cousin three times removed, sister, uncle, aunt…”

“What did you say to them?” I managed to ask Dimitri as I was being passed around from person to person.

“I just told them you were my date, Jane.”

“Date?” My heart jumped into my throat and I was just about to ask him what he meant when I felt a pinch on my bum and jumped. An old man, looking well over eighty, was glancing up at me.

“Come. Uncle Nico!” One of Dimitri’s sisters threw me an apologetic amused look and rushed the old man away. I stood in shock for a moment. I felt overwhelmed by the size of his family and the noise and the attention I was getting. Everyone in the room seemed to immediately accept me and want to know me. It was as if I was part of their family. It made me want to cry all over again. I didn’t know these people at all, and yet they had made me feel more welcome in their home than I ever remembered feeling in my own family’s home.

I turned around when I heard a noise and came face-to-face with an older woman. She looked at me for a second and then launched into a sudden and very scary mixture of shouting and spitting on me. What the hell was going on? I backed up straight into Dimitri.

“Don’t worry, she’s just warding off evil spirits and trying to protect you.”

“Really?”

“Come, I want you to meet my favorite sister, don’t tell any of the others I said that!” Dimitri led me out the room and onto the terrace, then rushed me down a small flight of stairs and onto another small terrace. I was so relieved to be away from the noise of it all. “Where’s your favorite sister?” I asked, looking around.

“Don’t be crazy, I don’t have a favorite. I have six. Just thought you needed a break from the noise.”

Truthfully I did. “This is not like my family dinners. That’s for sure.”

“What are your family dinners like?”

“Smaller. Quieter.”

“There’s no such thing as a small, quiet dinner in Greece.” He sat on one of the loungers and I followed suit. “Greeks like to celebrate everything. ‘Count each day as a separate life,’ as one of our philosophers once said.”

“Really?”

“We eat, drink, make love, and enjoy every day as if it were our last.” He said that last part in a strange tone, as if trying to convey something I wasn’t aware of yet. “What would you do if you knew this was your last day on earth?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. Who even knows that kind of stuff?”

“I do.” He stood up and walked over to my lounger.

“And what would that be?” I asked, looking up at him.

“This…” Dimitri pushed me back until I was lying flat and then climbed on top of me and started kissing me. “This and so much more…” he whispered against my lips before biting the bottom one gently between his teeth. Unlike my kiss earlier, this one was not soft and gentle. This kiss seemed to open the floodgates of need and want.

But it was short-lived. When I heard claps and whoops rise in the air, I pulled away and looked up. At least three smiling people stared down at us. I covered my face with my hands, wanting to die of embarrassment, but Dimitri seemed to take it in his stride. He climbed off me, straightened his clothes, and smiled up at everyone. Some loud Greek and laughter was exchanged, and then one of his sisters rushed down and started to whisk me away forcefully. I had no choice in this.

“To kitchen.” Her English was broken, not nearly as good as Dimitri’s. “The women go to the kitchen!” she said enthusiastically. My inner feminist wanted to stop her and explain that bras had been burned so that women did not need to be in the kitchen, but Dimitri shouted after me.

“Just go with it, Jane! You’re Greek!”

His sister held me by the hand and ushered me through the house and the crowds, but stopped halfway. “It’s so nice to meet you.” She was still holding my hand in hers and then she gave it a little squeeze.

“You too.”

“So you and Dimitri?” she said with a wink and a smile in her voice.

I blushed, unable to hide it.

“He’s never brought anyone to meet us before.” She smiled at me with a knowing kind of look.

“Really?” For some reason this shocked me.

“Yes, he’s hardly here. He’s always running off and on this island and that one. And he never is meeting any nice girls. We all want him to get married, but he never seems to find anyone. He’ll make very good husband. He’s the best brother, and Yaya want to see him get married before she dies. And she’s very old, you know.”

All this talk of marriage was making me seriously uncomfortable. I finally found myself sitting in the busy kitchen. It was buzzing with activity—practically bursting at the seams. I stood feeling completely unsure of myself and watched all the women cook in what looked like an organized frenzy. I didn’t cook, which seemed to garner many surprised looks from the older crowd; in fact, they seemed downright horrified. But my lack of experience didn’t stop them from ushering me off toward a large board of ingredients and shouting instructions at me.

“Just put in blender and turn on. Make smooth… delicious!” Those were my instructions. I stood and looked at the ingredients. They looked suspiciously like stuff that would make hummus. I cringed internally. Oh, the irony. Hating Greek food and being expected to make it. How hard could it be, though? Put in blender. Turn on. Voilà. I found myself staring at the ingredients for ages. They terrified me. It was irrational.

“Hurry! Food ready!” Shouting broke out around me and suddenly bowls and plates and utensils were being rushed out of the kitchen. “Hurry.”

Mild panic gripped me. I know how ridiculous it seemed, but I didn’t cook and now I was under a time constraint…

“Quickly.” Someone rushed past me with the biggest tray of meat I’d ever seen and gave me a pat on the back. Shit! Okay. I started to scoop handfuls into the blender and then I just… fucked up so completely and royally that this family would probably talk about the incident for years to come.

Yes, you guessed it. I forgot to put the lid on the blender and it all flew out. Thankfully, I was the only one in the line of fire. But oh how it fired. Within seconds I was covered in oil, whole chickpeas clung to my hair, and gooey paste covered my dress. I wiped some stuff off my face, only to almost blind myself in painful agony as I smeared lemon juice into my eyes.

The commotion that had been constant in the kitchen since I’d walked in stopped. A deathly silence fell on the room, and everyone stared at me. There was a universal pause, a collective inhale followed by a sigh and then, chaos.

People ushered me away from the machine. Others gathered more ingredients to remake the hummus, and someone rushed me off to a bathroom and closed the door behind me. I turned toward the mirror, absolutely terrified of what I might see. And I was right to be terrified. I was covered. My attempt at hummus clung to my cheeks and hair, and worst of all, my dress looked like a Jackson Pollock. I shook my head in absolute despair. A knock on the door made me turn.

“Jane?” It was Dimitri. “I heard what happened.” He was laughing. He was laughing. The bastard!

“It’s not funny, okay?” I hissed back through the door.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure. Why not.” I opened the door quickly, pulled him inside, and closed it again. The fewer people who saw me, the better. He took one look at me and his eyes widened, and then he started laughing again.

“Stop it.” I smacked him on the arm.

“You’re right. Sorry.” I could see he was attempting to wipe the smile off his face, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

“What the hell am I going to do? I can’t go out like this.”

Dimitri looked me up and down like he was formulating a plan of action. He walked over to the sink, wet a washcloth, and started wiping my face. And although he was essentially wiping gooey food off me, it felt wildly erotic, and hot and heavenly and… especially when he ran the cloth over my lips.

I don’t actually recall there being anything there at all.

He washed the cloth out and then started cleaning my hair. I stared at his face: He was cleaning me off with such focus and concentration, it was as if he was performing the most important job in the world.

“Thanks,” I said when it was all over.

“Pleasure.”

Then we stood and stared at each other again. Both our faces broke out into massive grins and I forgot I was in a bathroom, because it felt like I was floating on a cloud, rather than having my feet on the ground.

“You still look amazing, though,” he said before his eyes trailed down to my dress. “But I’m not sure what we’re going to do about that?”

I looked down at my dress. The front was completely covered in a crisscross, splotchy pattern of creamy goo. Dimitri reached for some toilet paper and started scooping the thick clumps off. “I don’t want to wet it. That would be uncomfortable.” He wiped the dress until the worst of it was off, leaving behind giant cream-colored smudges.

“I can’t let people see me like this.” I said.

“I think you’re going to have to turn it inside out then,” he said, as if he had weighed every option and concluded that this was the only solution. I studied my dress in the mirror, and he was right: It was the only thing to do under the circumstances.

“Okay.” I turned back to him and nodded, expecting him to leave the bathroom. He didn’t. “So, you can go now. Thanks.” I looked at the door and back to him, but he simply stepped forward with a smile and a look in his eye that was making me feel very hot under my nonexistent collar. It was the kind of look that made my toes curl and my fingertips tingle.

He reached out and took the hem of my dress between his fingers. He smiled and slowly started lifting it, his fingers trailing up my thighs as he went. My skin responded with a million goose bumps and a shiver that traveled all the way from my thighs to the top of my head. Even my scalp tingled. He lifted the dress farther and farther until I felt the cool air rushing between my legs. His eyes traveled straight down there, and I felt completely naked under his gaze.

“Have I told you yet that you wear the most amazing underwear?”

“Really?” I said excitedly. Finally someone, other than my fish, was actually seeing them. I suddenly felt justified in all that money I’d spent over the years on the sexy lacy things. Dimitri tugged the dress up until my stomach was exposed. His hands moved to my waist, and he squeezed. I threw my head back and closed my eyes. He brought his lips down to my neck as his hands traveled higher up my stomach. A knock on the door stopped us dead in our tracks once more.

“My family’s timing is terrible,” he moaned into my neck before letting me go and sticking his head through the door. I took the opportunity to quickly whip my dress off and turn it inside out myself.

When he turned back around I was patting my dress into place. He shook his head. “And we were just getting to the good part.” He smiled at me and took me by the hand “Come. Everyone is waiting for us.”

And they were: The entire table was full. I was just about to sit down when the older woman who had been spitting on me earlier jumped up and started shouting. She gestured at my dress and then kissed me on both cheeks. Everyone was smiling, and some even started clapping. The whole room erupted and I had no idea why.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

Now Dimitri was blushing, too, and I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. I’d never seen him look so coy and flushed. “We have a superstition here that if you wear your clothes inside out, you’re going to be getting married soon. I’d forgotten about that.” He quickly averted his eyes from me and sat.

“Oh. I see.” For some reason, wild butterflies started flapping through my stomach. My brain then quickly skidded off to a very bad place as I imagined what Dimitri would look like standing at the head of the aisle.

Stop! the sensible part of my brain mentally screeched to that other part. I shot Dimitri a quick glance and that stupid, giddy smile seemed to be mirrored back to me.