Page 33 of Love on the Rocks
“In the rudimentary lodgings that my very considerate boss booked for me?” I sat up and swung my legs over.
He stood up, looming over me again. “You’re not leaving yet.”
“I am.” I insisted, but then admitted, “I don’t know how I’m going to get back to my place though.” It was bad enough climbing up there on a good day. Now with a sprained ankle and crutches, it was going to be impossible.
“I’ll find a solution,” he said. “I have a few more patients to see, and then I’ll get you settled.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you do.” He handed me the crutches and held out his hand. I couldn’t help but feel like it was some sort of peace offering. Hesitantly, I took it. What choice did I have?
When I crossed over into the waiting room two other young women had added themselves to the line of eyelash batting, hair tossing, coyly smiling patients.
“Yia sou, Niko,” one of them said. And I couldn’t help it, I looked back at him and rolled my eyes.
“It’s not my fault,” he said as he helped me outside. “It was all those lessons in animal magnetism I took at Docs R Us.”
“Hilarious. Okay, thanks, bye.” I gritted my teeth as I set my crutches on the stairs.
“I’m not done with you yet,” he warned, and before I could protest, he swept me up in his arms and started toward the house across the shady courtyard. I was no featherweight, and honestly could not remember the last time a man carried me. It was probably my dad when I was six. Again, I hated it and loved it at the same time.
“What are you doing? Let me down!” I hit his solid arm. “Are you seriously kidnapping me right now?”
“Will you stop talking for once?” he asked, elbowing open the door to his place. He crossed the tile floor of the living room and plopped me down on a cozy sofa in front of a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the sea. Then he threw a soft blanket at me and stalked off.
I heard water running from the kitchen behind me and then he was back with a glass full of cloudy liquid. “I’m not drinking that! First you kidnap me, now you’re drugging me?”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “It will help with the pain. Doctor’s orders.”
He watched as I drank it up, gagging a little. “What is it with Europeans and effervescent medicine? Can’t you put it in a capsule? It’s not like I want to savor my anti-inflammatories.”
“Stay here, relax. I’ll be back soon, and we’ll get you settled.” He grabbed a couple of books and threw them in my lap.
Globalization and Its DiscontentsandLetters from a Stoic. “These will put me to sleep for sure.”
“Good,” he answered and walked out the door.
I stared at the closed door in a daze. I should have gotten out of there, yet there I was on his sofa like an obedient pet.
My eyes traveled around the room. It was unexpectedly stylish and cozy in a very masculine, mid-century modern way. The sort of pretentious style you’d expect from a Columbia Med graduate. He probably imported all his furniture from his Morningside Heights brownstone. I snorted. What an asshole, posing as a fisherman and construction worker—to what end? To prove that I thought I was too good for the locals? Ha! There he went taking me for a snob again.
Grabbing my crutches, I pushed myself up onto wobbly feet. Surely, Nikos wouldn’t be back right away, and I could do a bit of snooping around.
I propelled myself over to the bookshelves to study the framed photographs. Most of them were older and slightly faded. There was a large portrait of a handsome man with a thick mustache and dark eyes—Nikos’s grandfather? I could see the resemblance. More photos of the same man lined the middle shelf; in one, he had gray hair and stood on a beach with three dark-haired boys, one of whom I could only assume was Dr.Broody himself. I squinted at the photo. It looked like it had been taken in the cove where the resort was going to be built. I recognized the gnarled old trees, the dock, the small buildings jutting out into the sea.
I picked up the photo and studied it. The smaller boy was most certainly Nikos. He had a serious expression, while the older boys wore broad smiles.
On the desk was an open book with yellow graph paper decorated with large, scrawling script stuck in between its pages. I squinted at it; it was a doctor’s handwriting all right, but I could make out some of it:Drinking vessel found in Orpheus’s Cove in 1956. Origins unknown, though many of the elements depicted hint at a link to the Minoans who had established a presence on the island around 1900 BC.
I hobbled over to a turntable next to some old records arranged in a box. I flipped through them. There were a lot of titles in Greek, mournful women with large eyes gazing off into the distance, but my suspicions that Nikos had good taste in music was confirmed when I found some Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell. I turned on the record that was already on the turntable and gorgeous swirling music of some exotic string instrument filled the air. I turned over the sleeve.
“Theodorakis and Livaneli. No idea who you are but this is a banger.” I started swaying, and it wasn’t to the music. Those drugs Nikos had slipped into my water sure were strong.
A tapping at the glass drew my attention to the big furry beast outside the door. He’d all but abandoned me in the past couple of days and I had found myself missing his reassuring presence.
“I should have known you were a spy,” I said as I slid open the door. “Are you allowed inside? I don’t really care if you aren’t. Go ahead, put your dirty paws everywhere.”
He trotted in and plopped down on the armchair. Yawning, he laid his giant head on his giant paws. I yawned too. Wow, I needed a nap, but not until I’d investigated the other rooms.
