Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Ilias
I woke to the sound of breaking china and a large amount of screaming.
“Not already,” I groaned, rolling over in bed and burying my head in the pillow. It couldn’t be later than seven. “I need to get out of here.”
“Ilias!” My brother’s voice was like a foghorn through the bedroom door. “Can you come down?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said into the pillow. “I’m up.”
“What?”
I twisted onto my side and sat up before yelling. “I’m up!”
“Good. Watch out when you come down. A mug broke on the kitchen floor.” I heard him stomp down the stairs, and I sighed, figuring if I didn’t get up, Dominic would be back and probably armed with small children.
I loved my nephews, but I did not want to be jumped on this early in the morning. The little clock on the bedside table said six forty-five, and I cursed under my breath as I swung my legs out of bed.
As much as I appreciated my brother and his wife giving me a place to stay whenever I was in London, I wished it came with a side of peace and quiet. Still, it was cheaper than finding my own place and easier than moving back in with my parents, who’d hover and obsess over my every move, so I could suffer through another few weeks of early mornings until I escaped on my next trip.
Throwing on some joggers and an old hoodie, I pottered down the townhouse’s two flights of stairs until I reached the spacious, open-plan kitchen that took up the back half of the house. My sister-in-law loved cooking and entertaining in her free time, so they’d spent a fortune making it the heart of their home.
I heard the chaos before I even entered, but that was what happened when you had four boys under five all trying to have breakfast at the same time.
“Morning,” I muttered, sliding around the edge of the large table that filled the centre of the brightly lit room towards the coffee machine on the counter at the far end. It was one of those ridiculously fancy ones that looked like it belonged in a coffee shop rather than a home kitchen, but I wasn’t going to complain.
“Morning, Ilias,” said Louisa, Dominic’s wife, who was trying to simultaneous feed their eight-month-old twins, Sam and Matti, drink her own coffee, and explain to Nico—who’d just turned three—why he couldn’t have Oreos for breakfast. “Sleep well?”
“Not bad, thanks.” I slid a mug into place and began making myself a drink, watching as one of the twins leant over the side of his highchair and dropped something squashed and beige into Louisa’s mug. I shook my head, grinned, and quickly began to make her a fresh one.
“Here.” I offered her the new coffee, and when she frowned, I added, “That one has unwanted additions.”
“Oh, thanks. I swear, I need eyes in the back of my head.”
“Where’s my brother?” I asked, walking over to the table and sitting on one of the long benches next to the twins in their colour-coordinated highchairs. “He can do something.”
Louisa smiled. “He’s helping Teddy get changed. He spilt orange juice all over himself.”
“Was that what the screaming was about?”
“A little,” Louisa said before turning back to her second child, who was still whining and on the verge of a full-blown tantrum. “No, Nico, you cannot have Oreos for breakfast. You can have yoghurt and strawberries or Weetabix.”
This was a familiar argument, which Louisa always won, so I just sipped my coffee and took over with the twins. I was getting pretty good at it now, even if they’d both started to reach the age where they were making grabs for the spoon and were happy to mash up whatever they could get their pudgy little hands on.
More shouting heralded the arrival of Teddy, the oldest of the four at nearly five, in a fresh t-shirt, followed by my oldest brother, who looked like he hadn’t slept in years.
“Morning,” Dominic said as if he’d forgotten that he’d yelled through my bedroom door barely ten minutes ago. “Sleep well?”
“Until the screaming started,” I said as I scooped more baby porridge onto a spoon.
Dominic shrugged casually. “Just be grateful they don’t wake you up at five.”
“Who was up at five?” Dominic pointed at Nico, and I chuckled. The boy was an adorable hellion with more energy than any physical being should possess. Dominic had been muttering about enrolling him in some form of sport as soon as he was old enough, just to try to get some of the energy out. I didn’t want to point out that all that was going to do was make him fitter.
“Uncle Ilias,” Teddy said, sitting down on the kitchen bench next to me with a piece of toast and jam on a blue plate covered in sharks, “can we go see the sharks at the weekend again? Please.”
“If I’m not working, sure, we can go and see the sharks again.” Ever since I’d taken him to the London Aquarium six months ago, Teddy had become obsessed with all things shark.
It had made it easy to buy Christmas presents for him since the whole family had just bought him shark clothes, shark toys, shark books—which he insisted on having read every night—shark crockery, shark everything. And now, whenever I didn’t have weekend plans, Teddy and I would hop on the Tube and spend the day at the aquarium. He’d happily spend hours in the shark tunnel, his nose nearly pressed to the glass, watching them.
Teddy beamed at me. He had jam all around his mouth already. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, reaching for a napkin to clean him up before the stickiness spread.
“What are your plans for today?” Louisa asked, having finally convinced Nico to eat yoghurt. “Are you working?”
“Yes. I’ve got a meeting at lunch with a writer for The Traveller . He wants to talk to me about a press trip he’s going on. He’s looking for a photographer to go with him, and he reached out.” I knew I was making it sound more formal than it probably was, but I’d learnt a long time ago that I had to make everything sound serious or nobody believed I was actually working.
As soon as someone in my family got even a hint that I might have some free time, they volunteered me for something. I’d had to learn to draw firm boundaries or I never got anything done, and half the time, I worked out of coffee shops instead of my bedroom at the top of the house.
If I was available, it was easy for Dominic or Louisa to ask me to pick up Nico from playgroup, or to get Teddy from preschool because the nanny was ill or on holiday, or to watch the kids for a bit while one of them was at an appointment or working late or because they wanted a date night, or to pick up some shopping, or whatever else they could think of.
And because I lived here for the tiniest amount of rent possible, I always felt guilty saying no.
So I’d learnt to remove myself from the situation because if I wasn’t in the house, they couldn’t ask me to nip out. Obviously, I was still around for emergencies, but it gave me time to concentrate and get work done. Which I needed to do because as a freelancer, I lived from job to job, and not getting work done meant I didn’t get paid. And I quite liked having money.
“That sounds nice,” Louisa said. “Where’s the trip to? Anywhere fun?”
“A locally owned, boutique hotel in Hawaii.”
“Seriously?” She grinned at me. “You get to go to all the nicest places.”
“Perks of my very poorly paying job.” I sipped my coffee. “Which I wouldn’t change for the world,” I added hurriedly before Dominic could say anything.
Being the oldest of my three brothers, he tended to be overprotective, and because I was the only one of us who’d ended up in the creative sphere, his focus was on me rather than anyone else.
“As long as you’re happy,” Louisa said. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her pulling a face at my brother.
“I am.” And I was. I loved my life. I got to travel and take beautiful photographs of all the places I visited. I got to see mountain ranges so tall they disappeared into the heavens and oceans so clear and crystal they seemed to stretch out into infinity.
I got to explore the nooks and crannies of crowded cities, finding paths off the beaten track that only the locals knew about, spending late nights in tiny bars and restaurants with the best food I’d ever eaten, listening as people shared their lives with me. Give me a run-down restaurant shack filled with sizzle and spice over some fancy Michelin-starred place any day.
And when all was said and done, I’d have a lifetime of memories to look back on that didn’t involve being crammed into the Tube every morning or sitting at an office desk and counting down until the end of the day, drinking bad coffee out of a chipped mug while answering pointless email after pointless email.
I’d have lived a free life. Which was all I’d ever wanted.
Louisa asked me a few more questions about the trip before the nanny, Astrid, arrived, then it was time for the chaos of getting everyone ready for playgroup and nursery and work and whatever else was going on that day.
I finally managed to make a break for the safety of my bedroom, planning on a quick shower before I got down to business. I had some photos that needed editing and submitting and another article that needed polishing, and I needed to schedule some posts for my Instagram account, which had a surprisingly big effect on my ability to get jobs.
But when I sat down at the small yet beautiful desk Dominic had added to my room, I found I couldn’t focus.
There were two questions running round and round in my mind, and I didn’t have a satisfactory answer to either. Why had Oscar picked me? And why the fuck had I said yes?
Oscar and I weren’t close, and although I considered us friends, it was in a very loose sense of the word. Sure, we’d had in-depth conversations late at night over drinks while overlooking beautiful cityscapes, but they were always about random things like where to find the perfect chilli crab, noughties sitcoms, and butterflies. They gave me a fragmented view of him as a person but nothing more.
It was why I’d teasingly pushed him last night. I needed to know why he’d picked me.
His answer hadn’t been satisfying though. I knew I was talented, funny, and charming. I’d always been good with people, and my charm was a skill I’d honed over the years when I realised it would get me places.
Being queer seemed to fit the brief, given the type of trip, so it didn’t really feel like a plus but more of a necessity. Oscar had said I was handsome too, and egotistically, I knew that. But there was something about the way he’d said it, like it was something he didn’t want to admit, that gnawed at me. Did he not want to find me attractive? If so, why not?
I assumed he didn’t already have a partner, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked me, so I could rule out not wanting to be attracted to me for that reason. And if he didn’t like me, he wouldn’t have asked me to save his ass, so it couldn’t be that either. The whole thing had me spinning in circles and the only way I was going to get answers was by asking him directly.
But the one thing I couldn’t ask him was why I’d agreed to the trip.
Sure, the trip would be fun. I’d never been to Hawaii before, and the hotel looked beautiful, but I didn’t think I’d said yes just because of that. Especially given the added “complications” of having to pretend to be Oscar’s boyfriend.
Why the fuck did I want to do that? I hadn’t been a boyfriend person for years. Not since…
I shook my head, refusing to follow that train of thought. That subject was dead and buried. Quite literally in fact.
I sighed and looked back at my laptop screen where I’d subconsciously pulled up the hotel’s website. There was a banner of photos scrolling lazily across the homepage, each one more beautiful than the last.
The only reason I could think of, and the only one that made sense, was that Oscar intrigued me.