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“See you in Greece.”
Jonathan watched and waited until the plane took off and disappeared behind clouds.
He balled his shaky fists. Greece would be perfect.
Well. Maybe not perfect.
The semi-finals were held in a converted monastery set into a cliff face against the sea, and Jonathan hadn’t stopped shaking since the three-hundred-step ascent to the entrance.
“Any rooms without a view?”
The staffer handed him his room key with a brilliant smile and a shake of the head.
“Crypt? Dungeon?”
Confusion.
“Never mind.”
The lobby behind him was all windows, turquoise ocean stretching for miles. Guests hugged the glass and stared down through transparent panels under their feet. Waves crashed on the rocks far below.
David’s laughter waked through the lobby. The second Jonathan had stepped into the hotel, sweat-laced from the brilliant summer sunshine and the climb up three-hundred steps, that faint laughter had welcomed him. He hadn’t seen him yet, but David was close. Closer, now. His presence shivered through Jonathan like the slide of a fingertip on his clammy nape. Find me, find me.
He turned towards the warm lilt.
David stood on the other side of the narrow lobby, between the deadly drop on the other side of the window and another of the large pots of hyacinths that coloured the hotel and the stairs leading up to it. Giant George stood, back huge, blocking half of Jonathan’s view. Mira was gazing, her smile sparkly. In all their posts they bickered and flirted, the tension between them so palpable. He almost felt sorry for Jacquie and Savvy, who’d had to witness it between him and David for weeks on end.
“The competition is stiff,” came Mira’s creamy voice. “You and Ernst, and the Sapphires.”
Long, smooth fingers pinched a petal at the tip of an ice-blue hyacinth, the only sign of David’s anxiety. The rest of him smiled, nodded. Wished them luck with a wink. But underneath . . . David had spoken to his landlord. Two weeks’ grace. If David couldn’t raise the funds by then, he would take the other offer.
Mira and George shot their gazes to him as he approached swiftly, determinedly. He acknowledged them briefly, focused on David. He was very still, absorbing every detail of Jonathan: his tidied hair, short-sleeved buttoned shirt, brown belt, spotless chino shorts, navy sneakers—unmarred, not a speck of dirt. A sharp contrast to his own tousled grace, the wrinkled t-shirt and fashionably scuffed soles. A crooked smile. “Jonathan.”
His name, so breathless like that . . .
David pushed towards him, stirring the sweet spicy scent of the hyacinths, and stopped abruptly an inch away. “All checked in?”
Jonathan grimaced. “My room has a wonderful view, apparently.”
“Good,” Mira said with a chuckle. “No one needs to swap this time.”
Jonathan looked sideways to her tucking smooth hair behind one ear. “Swap?”
“At the ICon O’Hara was asking everyone if their room was on the twelfth floor. The Sapphires, George, all his fans . . . he begged me to swap. We were on the way to see if my room was what he wanted when you got stuck in the elevator with us.” She paused and looked at him funny. “It . . . Oh.”
Teeth grazed David’s smile; with a cheerful goodbye to the others he snapped the handle of Jonathan’s suitcase from him and strode toward the elevator. He didn’t look at Jonathan until they arrived outside a door. Not Jonathan’s.
David used his key card and popped lights on—necessary, because all the drapes had been pulled against the view. Jonathan drew in a deep breath. He did that for me.
He leaned back against the closed door and observed David tossing his luggage onto the queen bed.
“I’m living out of my suitcase,” he said, and unzipped Jonathan’s, “but I know you’d prefer the drawers.” He glanced over, eyes sparkling.
“You swapped your room at the ICon. To be next to mine?”
He flipped open his suitcase. “I might have asked if you’d checked in yet. I might have convinced them to tell me what room would be yours.”
The door was refreshingly cool at his back and arms. It steadied him as the frissons in his chest plunged toward his stomach and pulsed there. “Before I arrived.” Before they’d spoken again.
He sucked in a deep, slow breath and kicked off the door. Four steps and he stood before David, a hand cupping his jaw, fingers warming at a pinked ear. “You . . .”
David’s laugh stuttered. “You came down to our first workshop with a muesli bar in your pocket. Like you knew I’d missed breakfast.”
He said the words like fact, but the question lingered nevertheless.
Jonathan lowered his voice. “Of course I took it for you. I’d have fed it to you—reluctantly—if you hadn’t taken it.”
“Reluctantly?” David ran a hand through his locks and grinned up at him, lips parting.
Jonathan inched closer, towards a whisper against his ear—
