Mine are a mossy swamp colour. His are a refreshing ocean.
‘This is Monastiraki Square,’ Sam says. ‘Pretty much city’s heart. A great vegan place just around the corner. Syntagma square is worth a visit. There’s a little market street just over there. And the Acropolis is pretty much on your doorstep.’
‘You can be my tour guide.’
‘Happy to be,’ Sam agrees. ‘I better get back to the coffee shop. I know it feels like forever getting here, but it’s honestly not that far away. It’s quicker to walk than drive. Maybe we should have done that.’
‘And carry my broken luggage? No, I enjoyed the car ride.’
‘Me too,’ Sam says. He crosses his arms and I try to look anywhere but his golden nipples.
‘I’ll come back here at around half six,’ Sam says. ‘We can walk over to Mum’s from here.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I say. ‘But you don’t need to come meet me. My phone works here. Vodafone roaming. I can find my way there.’
‘I want to,’ Sam says.
He wants to.
I can’t refuse.
I grip my suitcase and my hand luggage, and leave Sam at his van, the muscles in his crossed arms hard to look away from. It’s even harder trying to wrestle this ruined case.
My stomach rumbles when I sniff the sweet aroma wafting from the nearby café. I could do with a sweet treat right now, something with chocolate and cream. Sam may have a body like that but I do not, and I never will, because oh my God, that smell.
The gold and brown hotel exterior invites me in, and I make a note to stop for coffee once I’d found my room and got some sun lotion on. An iced latte would be the perfect antidote to my already burnt skin.
I relish the blast of cold air as I step into the hotel lobby. A young woman stands behind a gleaming counter, a phone pressed to her ear. She speaks in rapid Greek, her eyes narrowed.
I wait, surrounded by marble white interior, stone-coloured sofas, wealthy-looking people. Curse my drunken credit card purchase. This place is fancy.
Well, at least it would look good on Instagram. I’d be counted among those who have it all. Envied for my perfect life. One day I’ll be just like everyone else: not faking it.
‘Hi,’ the brown-haired girl whose name tag reads Lydia says. ‘Sorry. Customers.’ She catches herself mid eye-roll. ‘Sometimes I want to strangle the guests.’
Great. A murderous receptionist. Just what I need.
I zip my lips.
‘Secret is safe with me,’ I say, because I need to get this girl on my side. She’d spare me.
Twenty-five days to survive.
‘Checking in?’
I eye my broken suitcase, covered in dust, thinking how very out of place I am here, even more so when someone dressed in Gucci walks by. ‘That’s right.’
‘Don’t worry about people like that,’ she says to me, her eyes on the Gucci jumper around the man’s shoulders as he exits.
‘Looks … rich.’
‘Oh, they are,’ Lydia says. ‘But they’re vile.’
‘I’m not rich.’ I need to admit it. ‘This is credit card debt.’
‘They don’t know that,’ Lydia says.
‘In fact, I wasn’t even going to come. I didn’t book this place sober. If I’d known?—’
