Fun In The Sun, repgreece [best value ebook reader .txt] 📗

'The Alexander' hotel just down the road and book a room there for you. It's cheap and cheerful there, and at least it's in town."

"Oh great. Thanks. Right, we will be setting off pretty soon," he said, glancing at his watch and grimacing; they were going to be late for Mike, "but could you let me know if and when you find a room?"

"Sure," Adam answered.

"Thanks Adam; I owe you one. Speak later then; I've got to go."

"No problem; speak later," Adam replied, hanging up.

Luckily, Mike arrived in the lobby at the same time as Sal and Nick were descending the stairs, so all they had to do was settle their bill and they were ready to go.

As Nick and Sal drove out of Matala, heading for the highway with Mike driving behind them, Sal said a private, fond farewell to the place, choosing to push any negative memories from her mind. They had been so excited to arrive there; it had been a wonderful break, like a mini holiday. Sal realized that it had been a long time since she had got away for a fun break with friends; she would make sure she did it more often.

When they hit the highway, Sal immediately became aware that Nick had been right, it was quite chilly on that bike now that the day had lost most of its heat. She was glad of his sweater and huddled up to his back for warmth.

Speeding through the Mesara plain, many thoughts came to her. Memories of the last few days flashed through her head, as well as all that she had learnt about Nick's past. She then began to wonder about the summer ahead, how much time she'd spend with Nick and what Jen would have to say about that. In fact, she wondered if Jen even knew about their trip to Matala. Come to think of it, Nick hadn't even appeared to have contacted her since they'd been there. Strange.

Before long, they were approaching Heraklion, where they made a quick stop to find a cafe for a rest and a warm drink. Sal ordered a hot chocolate and the sweet, thick liquid was an unexpected luxury, before they returned to their vehicles for the remainder of the journey.

Between the resorts of Hersonissos and Malia, Nick's phone rang and they were forced to pull off the highway so that he could answer the call. Adam informed him that a room had been booked at the Alexander Hotel for Mike, and that the manager would be there to greet him when they arrived. Nick thanked Adam, turned off his mobile phone for the rest of the journey, and they set off once more.

Finally, cold and aching from their travels, the three of them arrived in a moonlit Agios, driving first to show Mike to the 'Alexander Hotel', and next to Sal's apartment. There were always bikes, cars and people milling around her apartment block up until fairly late at night, and so neither of them initially noticed who was standing, waiting for them, leaning up against the outer wall of the building.

Nick turned off the engine of the bike and dismounted, helping Sal with her backpack. He had dreaded this moment for some reason he couldn’t quite work out.

“Well, I guess you’ll be busy tomorrow at work,” Nick pointed out.

“Yeah, I’ll speak to Adam though about starting you working again. I’m not sure if he will need you tomorrow or not. Friday nights aren’t that busy at the moment, but we will need you for sure on Tuesday,” she stressed. “Either way, I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve spoken to Adam. It’s a night flight tomorrow though, so I’ll be trying to get some sleep before work . I usually stay awake as long as I can the night before so that I can sleep in the day and I won’t be so tired at work,” she rambled. She should really shut up and go.

“Good luck with that tonight Sal; you look pretty shattered,” Nick replied.

“Yeah well, it was worth it,” she smiled.

“Yeah,” he smiled back.

There followed a short silence in which Nick hovered on the door step of Sal’s apartment block, and Sal was reluctant to finally enter it. Still, what else could they do? At last, Nick made a move, catching Sal unawares as he leant forward suddenly and kissed her on the cheek.

“Night Sal.”

It was then that the onlooker emerged from out of the shadows, stepping into the illumination of the street light and making both their hearts race with adrenalin.

“Hello you two. I thought I’d surprise you Nick, but instead, you surprised me. Where the hell have you been?” Jen scowled, looking from Nick to Sal.
Chapter 38

"Err, I've got to go," Sal said, backing her way up the outer steps of the building. "I've got work tomorrow evening, and I've got to sort stuff out. Oh, and I've got to ring Adam to let Nick know about work, and then I'll stay up as long as I can so I'm not too tired. Then I've got to go to bed and get up in time...got to set my alarm and make sure I'm up and..." she rambled, finally running out of things to say, ..."umm, well, yes, that's about it. Got to go. Bye," she finished, turning around and rushing up the last few steps before disappearing through the door.

Jen watched her suspiciously before turning to Nick. "I take it that you did book a room at the Apollo hotel?" she questioned him, folding her arms and looking a lot like a school headmistress in her immaculate dark suit and straight dark hair falling down her back, with not so much as a tress out of place. That was Jen alright, organized beyond belief, neat, straight to the point and suspicious, with her dark wary eyes glittering like coal.

"Yes."

"What room number?" she asked abruptly.

"Umm." He had to think quickly to remember it, considering that he'd only actually spent one night in there. "Thirty two."

She stared at him, unimpressed at the uncertainty of his response.

"Meet me back there in ten minutes. We need to talk," she said, abruptly turning on her heel, striding to a car parked on the side of the road, getting into it and driving away.

"Oh crap!"

He jumped onto his motorbike and raced after her.

By the time Nick had reached room thirty two, Jen had beaten him to it. He knew she would get given the key from Maria at the reception. She shouldn't really have given Jen the key to his room, but Maria knew they were together, and besides, no one refused Jen anything she wanted, particularly when she was in that kind of mood. He couldn't help but wonder if Jen had intentionally got to the room before him; maybe to check it out first, hoping to find some incriminating evidence in there. Why did he feel guilty anyway? He hadn't done anything wrong. Not really.

The door was ajar. He knocked and cautiously inched it open, peering around it. Silly really; he'd paid for the damn room.

"Jen," he called out meekly.

"What?" She appeared suddenly from around the door and nearly gave him a heart attack. After a quick recovery, he stepped bravely into the room.

"So, where have you been Nick?" she asked in an accusatory tone, emphasizing the question by slamming the door loudly behind them. He was trapped!

"How did you know to wait outside Sal's?" he countered.

"I'm asking the questions here!" she replied angrily, her voice raising by several decibels.

Nick had had a few minutes to consider all his options. He had decided to answer as few of her questions as possible before he found out what she'd already been told.

"You must have spoken to Ruth," he replied, making sure to phrase that as a statement, rather than ask it as a question.

"I had to ask around," she answered, quietly and seemingly calmly at first, before her voice gradually rose to nothing less than a screech, "because my so called boyfriend had pissed off half way across the island with some other woman and I had no idea where he was!"

It took every ounce of Nick's willpower not to wince at the ear piercing sound of Jen's furious voice. He suddenly felt slightly nauseous.

"It was just Sal," he replied, hating himself for appearing to undervalue her.

"'Just Sal,'" Jen mimicked. "Well, Sal's another woman, isn’t she? What were you two doing in Matala anyway?"

She made it sound so sordid.

There was no way he was even going to try telling her about the quest; she wouldn’t believe him anyway.

"I heard from Phil and Sandra again," he began, casually, strolling over to a table by the window and emptying his pockets onto it. "You remember them; they ran an ice cream parlour by the lake and moved to the west a few years ago. Anyway, they invited me to Matala and Sal had nothing else going on so she came along." Well, there was a small element of truth in that, albeit miniscule.

Nick was holding something back; Jen was sure of it. Well, she wasn’t going to lose Nick now, not after everything she'd been through back at home, and not considering that she'd just moved back to Crete to be with him. She would do anything she could to hold on to this bit of security in her life. Besides, she'd look like a complete and utter fool if he left her. She'd never particularly liked the way that Sal had hung around Nick so much last year. Nick had insisted that they were just friends, but Jen was sure that Sal wanted to steal Nick from her. The way she always obsessed about men, eyeing up every guy in sight and dressing in next to nothing in the hope that one would be interested, it was pitiful. But she hadn't got a guy yet; no wonder she was after Nick.

"Well thanks a lot Nick. While you were enjoying yourself in Matala, I was being called every name under the sun by my family," she said with genuine pain in her eyes.

"What? But they seemed to be fine with you when I was there. I thought you'd be okay," Nick replied.

"I told you," she cried out angrily, "I told you what they'd do if you left, but you just went and left anyway!"

Nick felt the panic rise. What had he done? "But...but I thought I'd give you some time to make up with them."

"We're never going to make up Nick," she wept, "Not until I move back there for more torture. Well, I won't do it; I can't do it! It's not enough that I send every bit of extra money I can afford back to them, that I've always held the whole family together, looked after the kids, put food on the table, played mum while mum was too bloody depressed to even move out of bed day after day..."

"I know all of that," Nick cut in with frustration. "I'm not asking you to go back; I don't think you should at all. You could have come back with me," he pointed out.

"You know I couldn't do that; I had to go to Grandpa's funeral."

"Well, you could