‘Lydia, sorry. Do you mind if I speak to Sam?’
She looks between us, as if bored. ‘Of course.’
‘Um, in private?’
‘Oh,’ Lydia says. ‘So, I buy you wine and you throw me out?’
‘Just for a moment,’ I say.
Lydia stands, but she doesn’t leave. Instead, she grabs an empty glass, pours herself some wine, and locks herself out on the balcony, turning her back to us.
‘I suppose that’s something.’
‘She’s been worried about you.’
Lydia, a person I’ve only known a few weeks, cared more for my wellbeing than the man I thought once loved me.
‘Sam, I mean it,’ I say. ‘I want to stay.’
‘Stay where?’
‘With you,’ I say. ‘Here. Athens. I don’t know how I’ll do it. I don’t even know if I can, what with bloody Brexit, but I want to stay. You’re here. And you’re… you’re what I want.’
Sam comes to sit next to me then, our knees touching.
‘I want you, too.’
‘I’ve been stupid,’ I say. ‘Stupid to keep you out. I needed time.’
‘I know.’
‘I know it’s been three years without him. I know he has moved on. But I hadn’t. Not until I came here and saw him again, and had all of that happen. I had no idea what was going through my mind. But seeing him again made me realise what a fool I’ve been. Um, a justified fool, but a fool. Sam, he was always cruel to me. Why did it take me so long to realise it?’
‘There were great times. When you’re infatuated with someone, you don’t see the other side. Or you choose to ignore it. That doesn’t make you stupid or wrong.’
A month ago, I’d have argued the point. Hell, maybe even a week ago I would have argued the point.
‘I’m an excellent judge of character. And I know you’re a good guy, Will. You’re kind. You’re thoughtful. Sensitive. What you’rethinking and feeling right now about him, about yourself, it isn’t wrong.’
‘So am I horrible? Am I an idiot?’
Sam’s eyes widen. ‘No, you’re none of those things. Is that what you’ve been thinking?’
‘Sometimes.’
Sam takes my hands in his.
‘Look at me.’
I do. His blond hair is tied back. He is more tanned than the last time I saw him. Has he always had freckles across his nose?
‘You’re perfectly flawed, just like the rest of us,’ Sam says softly. ‘But you’re human, and you’re talented, and you’re the reason I’m happy.’
‘I make you happy?’
A frisson of something fizzes within me, and it makes me shiver. Feelings I don’t recognise bubble up to my cracked surface, threatening to spill out into the open. I don’t think I’ve ever made anyone happy before.
‘The happiest I’ve been in a long time,’ Sam says.
