His attention is caught by something behind me. A kid is barrelling towards us holding an enormous inflatable flamingo. It completely obstructs his view, I realise, a second before Mark pushes me out of the way.
I keep my balance, but Mark topples backwards. I watch, horrified, as his head lands heavily in six inches of water with Flamingo Boy on top of him.
Panicked, I thunder over to them.
‘You stupid idiot!’ I yell at the kid. ‘He just got out of hospital!’
The kid promptly bursts into tears.
‘Crying’s not going to help!’
‘En taxi, re mitsi,’ says Mark soothingly, telling the kid it’s okay. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’
This kid doesnotdeserve Mark’s concern. ‘He’s fine,’ I snap. ‘He just needs to be more careful.’
An angry-looking woman – probably the kid’s mother – stomps towards us. If she tries to blame his tears on us, I’ll tell herexactlywhat I think of her parenting skills. But she storms past me, too busy berating her son for letting go of the flamingo they’d ‘only bought that morning for twenty Euros!’
They leave without a second look. ‘Yeah, don’t worry about the man with the head wound,’ I say under my breath.
I crouch down next to Mark, not caring if the hem of my dress gets wet.
‘Fuck, you gave me a fright. Are you okay? Did you hit your head?’
‘I’m fine,’ he says gruffly, getting up. ‘Stop acting like I’m broken.’
I’m taken aback by his prickliness. ‘I’m not, it’s just …’ The sentence hangs unfinished.
You nearly died in front of me.
He hears it, though.
‘Sorry,’ he says after a beat. ‘Shall we head home? There’s an inflatable unicorn over there who looks ready to attack.’
I smile. ‘Yeah, of course, although …’ I trail off and indicate his soggy clothes. The back of his T-shirt and shorts are soaking wet.
‘Are you worried about the car or getting another piggyback?’
‘I’m not jumping on your back. You’re drenched.’
He half-smiles. ‘There’s more than one way to ride this pony.’
Before I can react, he puts his shoulder to my abdomen, wraps an arm around the back of my knees, and flips me up in a fireman’s lift.
‘What the hell, Mark?’ I shriek, balanced precariously on his left shoulder. ‘You were knocked unconscious twelve hours ago!’
‘Relax, I’m not going to drop you,’ he says, marching up the beach.
It’s not falling I’m worried about, it’s everyone seeing my knickers. I’m not sure my dress isfullycovering my arse.
The blood rushes to my head, and the curtain of my hair means I can’t see anything. Resigned to my fate, I bounce up and down, clutching his damp T-shirt, my hip pressed against the side of his neck and my face hovering above his firm backside.
Having no control over my movement from A to B is so disorientating. No wonder Zorba hates being picked up. And the way Mark flung me over his shoulder, like I weighed no more than a five-kilo cat, made my tummy flip. Millennia of evolution, and his effortless caveman movestilltriggers a spasm of lust.
We reach our sunbeds, and Mark puts me back on my feet. Annoyingly, I’m more out of breath than he is.
‘If you’requitefinished with your manly display.’
He grins. ‘Sweetheart, I kissed manly goodbye when I put on these flip-flops.’
