‘Seatbelt,’ I remind her.
‘Yes, Mum,’ she replies, not looking up.
Our next task is to buy desserts and Mark is very specific about which patisserie we should go to. The one five minutes from the house isn’t up to scratch, apparently.
‘Trust me on this.’
‘Didn’t think you had a sweet tooth,’ I say.
‘I used to go there all the time when I lived here. Mrs Evi, the owner, thought I was too skinny and used to try to fatten me up. Her weapon of choice was syrup-based desserts. It’s a miracle I didn’t double in size.’
‘As if you’ve ever had to worry about that,’ I murmur, glancing at him. ‘Mr Concrete Abs.’
He looks at me with an intimate smile, and I blush. I wasn’t consciously thinking of hisnakedbody because surely it’s obvious, even when he’s dressed, he’s smoking hot.
I glance over my shoulder to see if Pen’s picked up on anything, but her head’s in her phone.
Mark’s got the radio on which is churning out a string of Greek pop from the last fifty years.
‘No way,’ he mumbles, turning up the volume. ‘This is my favourite Marinella song.’
‘You listen to Marinella? Enough to have a favourite song?’
‘You can’t call yourself Greek and not listen to her.’
‘Whatever, Granddad,’ Pen chimes in from the back.
‘How come Nella’s Mum and I’m Granddad? I’m only three years older.’
‘She doesn’t listen to old people music.’
I grin. ‘She’s not wrong.’
My victory is short-lived because I don’t notice that I’m swaying along to the music until Mark turns to me and grins. ‘I don’t believe you don’t listen to your namesake. Come on, ’fess up.’
I squirm in my seat. ‘I quite like that song about driving along to the car radio.’
Mark barks with laughter. ‘I like her proper rootsy stuff. Your favourite is from her disco phase.’
‘Shut up.’
Pen, in a brilliant display of sisterly solidarity, finds the song on her phone and starts playing it. ‘It’s not too bad, actually. And she looks amazing in her pink jump-suit in the video.’
‘Yes! Thank you.’
‘You are still officially young and cool, Nella.’
I turn round and give her a high-five and Mark pretends to be offended.
‘That’s the last time I offer to drive around the Praxitelis women.’
As we circle looking to park, Pen notices a bookshop on the same road as the bakery.
‘Oh, can we pop in?’ she asks. ‘I need something to read for the flight.’
I can never resist a bookshop, so I go with Pen and leave Mark to park.
Usually, I make straight for the English-language books, butThe Hating Gamein Greek catches my eye. I flick through it, finding my favourite spicy scenes, and picking up some new Greek vocab on the way. Including how to say ‘on all fours’.
