Page 65 of Hot Greek Summer

‘I know,’ Frankie murmured. ‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you what I think.’ Stella pulled a bottle of their first attempt at distilling gin out from the shelves and put it down on the workbench. ‘I think he’s seen where you live now, and you should shake his hand and send him packing to find his sunshine somewhere else. You almost snogged Seth Manson last night, remember?’

‘As if I could forget,’ Frankie sighed, touching her fingers against her cheek again. ‘Icoulddo that. I could ask him to leave, and I’m sure he’d go, but I’d feel crap about it. We’re still trying to be friends, you know? And we have to stay that way because of the boys.’

Winnie nodded. ‘Friends is good.’ Friends was something she was never likely to achieve with Rory; it was difficult to think amicable thoughts about him when she was still in the planning-the-perfect-murder stage of healing after his infidelity. Would that ever end? she sometimes wondered. Would she ever reach the fabled acceptance stage? She couldn’t imagine it yet. The woman he’d copped off with should think herself lucky too, because she didn’t escape Winnie’s fantasy cull unscathed. Maybe the car they were shagging in rolled right off the edge of a really high, jagged cliff. Or maybe the ceiling fell in on the seedy pay-by-the-hour motel where they’d rented a room. There had been any number of scenarios, all with the same satisfying outcome.

‘I said he could stay for a few days,’ Frankie said, looking pained. ‘What else was I supposed to do?’

‘Bit of a shocker, though, wasn’t it?’ Winnie read through the distillation instructions and then pulled a funnelled sieve contraption from the shelf beneath the bench. ‘I think we need this.’

‘What will you do about Seth?’ Stella asked.

‘Come on.’ Frankie’s smile was wistful. ‘That was never going to be anything. We all know that. He’s Seth Manson, and I’m me.’

Stella’s brows snapped together. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘It’s true, Stell. He’s from a different world. In fact he’s so different he’s practically another species.’

‘Everyone’s farts are just the same,’ Stella pointed out. ‘He’s just a man.’

‘Well, Gav’s here now and he’s not going anywhere for a few days,’ Winnie said, ever the diplomat. ‘Maybe just let the dust settle and see how things go. I don’t think there’s any handy guidance in women’s magazines on what to do if your ex-husband and your favourite rock star are vying for your attention.’

‘Oh, it’s not like that with Gav,’ Frankie said. ‘That was over years back. You know that.’

Winnie nodded. ‘I did. I do. But Frank … he’s tracked you down on a desert island even though he probably knew that you might not be that thrilled to see him, and if my eyes don’t deceive me, I’d say he’s been working out.’

It was true. Gavin was a man who’d always enjoyed his food and his beer and he had the dad bod to prove it. Or rather hehad, but there’d been decidedly less of him when he’d walked into reception that afternoon.

‘I didn’t notice,’ Frankie said.

Winnie found that hard to believe, but didn’t say as much. If Frankie wanted to indulge in a spot of selective blindness where her ex-husband was concerned, who was she to judge?

‘Right,’ she said, looking at Ajax’s instructions for this step of the process. ‘We have to double filter each bottle through this sieve, once into a bowl and then back into the bottle, and that’s it.’

Frankie took a glass mixing bowl from the shelf. ‘Hang on while I go upstairs and make sure this is clean.’

They watched her jog up the stairs, and then looked at each other.

‘What do you think?’ Winnie said.

Stella curled her lip. ‘I think she’s in trouble. She might think that Gav’s visit is a friendship olive branch, but I’m not buying it. He wants something. He has to.’

Winnie knew Gavin quite well, well enough to not think quite as badly of him as Stella did.

‘I think he’s missed her.’

‘He had her under his nose for seventeen years and I bet he still couldn’t tell you the colour of her eyes without double-checking.’

Winnie felt almost sorry for him. He wasn’t a rock star or a Greek alpha male, or even an Australian sculptor with take-me-to-bed eyes. He was going to find it tough to measure up around here.

‘Here we go,’ Frankie said, returning with the spotlessly clean bowl. ‘Let’s crack out our first ever bottle of Bad Fairy Gin.’

‘You do it, Win.’ Stella pushed the bottle across the bench towards Winnie, uncharacte‌ristically nervous as she lined the funnel up over the bowl Frankie was holding steady on the bench.

Winnie picked the bottle up, turned it a few times for luck, and then twisted the top.

‘Sniff it,’ Frankie said, almost breathless with anticipation.

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