Page 48 of Hot Greek Summer

‘Won’t be long,’ Stella said, sitting down by the door. ‘I wish I hadn’t been so hasty about refusing breakfast with Mr Big-shot now though. I’m sodding starving. There’s only one thing for it.’

‘Are you going to turn cannibal and eat us?’ Winnie said.

Stella rolled her eyes. ‘Ask me again if we’re still down here in the morning. For now though?’ She skipped down the steps and pulled a bottle from the shelf. ‘There’s gin.’

They hadn’t intended to drink very much of it. The first swig had been for fortification, the second for courage, and the third for good luck. By the fourth pass, they’d been locked in for over an hour and a half and given up checking Stella’s phone in favour of talking.

‘And then he asked me to take my dress off so he could draw me naked,’ Winnie finished, having been probed by the others on how her picnic with Jesse had really gone. She’d glossed over it every time they’d asked up to now, still turning what had happened over in her head to try to make sense of it. A few gins and a lock-in later, and unloading onto Frankie and Stella seemed like the best idea in the world.

‘You’re shitting me!’ Stella banged her fist down on the bench and then pointed at Winnie. ‘You better be about to tell me that you stripped off, girly, or I’m sticking a stamp on your head and posting you back to England.’

Frankie laughed into her gin. ‘Course she didn’t.’ When Winnie didn’t answer, she looked at her curiously. ‘Did you?’

Winnie twisted her gold feather pendant. ‘I wasn’t going to, but then a little voice in my head told me to be brave.’

‘It was me,’ Stella smirked, gesturing between herself and Winnie. ‘You could hear me. Thank God for you that you’ve got me in there. To be honest, you’d be rubbish on your own.’ She tapped Winnie on the head with her fingertip, nodding sagely.

Frankie placed the bottle down. ‘You did it? You actually took your dress off?’

‘Everything off.’

‘Holy shit, Win.’ Stella high-fived her.

‘I don’t know what came over me,’ Winnie said. ‘One minute I was shocked, the next I was starkers.’

‘And then he drew you?’

Winnie nodded. ‘He asked me to sit on a boulder in his garden, and then he sat under an olive tree and drew me.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Stella sighed. ‘And then what? Don’t tell us that nothing happened, because that is scientifically impossible.’

Frankie cupped her chin in her hands. ‘I think I want someone to draw me naked. Gavin was useless with a pencil.’

‘No lead in it?’ Winnie bumped shoulders with her friend.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Frankie sighed. ‘We didn’t sleep in the same bed for the last five years of our marriage.’

‘Jesus, Frank,’ Stella said. ‘You’ve been celibate for more than five years?’

‘I know.’ Frankie shrugged. ‘We just got out of the habit, plus he was working nights for a while … It was just, I don’t know, easier.’

‘We need to find you a hot Greek lover,’ Winnie said.

Frankie shook her head. ‘I’ll just live through you for a while.’

‘Nothing doing,’ Winnie said, throwing her hands up at their incredulous faces. ‘Honestly, I promise. He drew me, we chatted and then I put my dress back on and he walked me home.’

‘Fucking hell,’ Stella muttered. ‘Is he gay?’

Winnie laughed. ‘Stereotypical, much?’

‘Well,’ Stella said, sourly, ‘he’s as bad as Don Draper. He had me sit with him for breakfast this morning just so he could toss a few insults my way.’

‘He joined me for yoga on the beach this morning,’ Frankie said.

‘Did he really?’ Winnie said, surprised. He was the least likely person on the island she’d have expected to practise yoga.

Frankie nodded. ‘He’s a beginner, but thought it might help his shoulder.’

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