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Xandros was great, Sienna decided. He arrived the next day around eleven for wine tasting, and Mom turned all pink-cheeked, like a woman entranced. She wore the blue blouse and basked in Xandros’s compliments.
“I really don’t mind if she has a fling while we’re here,” Sienna told Carter as they sat together on the bus.
Xandros’s smile was wide, his gaze flashing often in her mother’s direction in the rearview mirror. He never truly stopped looking at her mom. Except when he smiled at Sienna as if he was asking permission for something.
“Are you just trying to convince yourself?” Carter wanted to know.
“I mean it. We had a nice talk about it last night. They might even see each other again after the trip is over.”
“Good.” He stroked her thigh. She liked the way he touched her intimately, as if they were an item, though they hadn’t even kissed yet. What were they waiting for?
The wines they tasted were amazing, and so were the vineyards, the vines coiled on the ground like woven baskets, a growing method that protected the vines from the wind and heat.
They tried mostly whites, because the majority of grapes grown here were white, but there were reds. And retsina, of course, which was fermented with pine resin that left behind its unique aroma. She found it overpowering, preferring the sweet dessert wine, Vinsanto.
Xandros chose wineries off the main cruise route so there were fewer people. The tastings were no less delicious. Well known to the proprietors, they gave him the red-carpet treatment with a variety of appetizers and flights of wine.
Sienna was tipsy by the time it was over, but she’d had fun. On the return trip, with her head on Carter’s shoulder, the sway of the bus and the warmth of his body lulled her.
Xandros kept up the tour guide gig the following day, taking them on a catamaran to Nea Kameni, a small island created by the volcano itself, its last eruption back in 1950.
Birds roosted on the rocks as they landed at a small wooden dock. Tamryn whined that she hadn’t brought appropriate footwear for hiking, and Xandros climbed back onto the catamaran, reappearing with a pair of shoes that fit.
Tamryn’s favorite pastimes seemed to be complaining or creating drama.
Lava rocks rimmed the cemented path along with scrub and grasses dried brown in the sun. Wind whipped through trees that looked like little more than tall, thick weeds. The path changed to steps as the group climbed, then finally to gravel.
It was a good hike, though not strenuous. Her mother enjoyed it as well, taking the hills faster than the rest of them, right alongside Xandros.
Finally, they gazed down into the crater that had formed as the magma cooled, Carter reading all the interpretive signs while Tamryn and the guys sat in the shade of a picnic structure.
She’d thought that was the top, but Xandros waved them on. “There is more,” he called, leading them along the rim. Several benches had been erected beneath umbrellas for those who needed to escape the sun.
Santorini and the blue water came into view. She stopped to take pictures while her mom trudged on with Xandros, Carter not far behind. The higher they went, the windier it got, until it was almost a struggle to walk, but the panorama was stunning.
Trails crisscrossed the crater, smoke and sulfur fumes rising out of the ground.
“The vents are called fumaroles.” Xandros had them squat to touch the ground. “Feel the heat coming from below.”
The volcanic earth was warm to the touch. The island was like walking on the surface of the moon.
She murmured to Carter, “I’ve definitely decided that instead of working out in the gym, I’m going for a hike every day during my lunch hour.”
He laughed, not at her, but with her. “What about your high heels and skirts?”
She shrugged. “I change to work out in the gym. I’ll do the same for a hike. There’s a trail by the Presidio.” It was where she’d seen Mr. Smithfield that day. “I don’t get there often enough.” She pumped a fist in the air. “But now it’s a priority. And I also plan to do some hills.”
Carter pulled her in and kissed the top of her head. “You go, girl.”
She liked how easy they were together. Wasn’t that the better way, friends first?
They headed back to the catamaran for a light lunch and the cruise to the hot springs.
When they arrived, tourists already packed the small bay. “A hazard of Santorini,” Xandros commiserated. “Tourists everywhere.” Though tourists were his company’s mainstay.
The water bore a reddish tinge due to the hot springs emanating from the volcano. They all stripped down to swimsuits and dove in.
