“So what were your intentions for the night, then?” Eleftheria asked. She pushed her finger tips against my own, then intertwined our fingers, then let go, and continued to play with my fingers.

“I just came here to have a few drinks with my friends before I head off to tour again,” I replied.

“Ah, yes. A musician on a cruise ship.” Eleftheria laughed a bit. “Are you any good?”

For a moment I almost forgot about the lie I had told her, and a part of me wished that I could have told the truth. Lying to her would complicate my chances of ever seeing her again and starting something. But deep down I knew that this was just a one-night stand. One that I definitely would never forget.

“Yeah. I mean, I get the job done,” I replied with a slight chuckle. If only she knew the truth.

“That you sure do,” she said as she exhaled. I could see her cheeks turning pink.

We were lying in the backseat of the van together. My pants were still unzipped and she was only in her jeans and bra. I laid on the edge of the seat with my right arm wrapped around her body. Her right leg was draped across my legs so she could remain in the side-ways position she was forced to be in because of the limited space.

I noticed a small tattoo showing on her right hip. Half of it disappeared where her jeans hit, but it looked like some sort of flower and Greek words. I used my arm that was wrapped around her to lightly trace over the ink on her skin. “I just noticed you have a tattoo,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” she looked down at it and tugged her jeans down a few inches so I could see the rest of it. “Do you have any tattoos?”

“No. I don’t like the idea of having something permanently on my body like that. I’d be afraid of regretting it later,” I replied. “What does it say?”

She said a small phrase in Greek that I couldn’t even begin to translate or mimic. She said it with such an ease that only made me want to hear more. She looked down at the tattoo and said another small phrase, more to herself than to me.

“It says ‘goodnight, my love’ with my Grandma’s favorite flower, the orchidaceae. It’s like an orchid.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. My voice was low and gentle. I could tell that her grandmother must have been close to her, and by the way she continued to stare at the tattoo I could tell that she must have passed away. I wanted to ask her more about it, but I decided to leave it alone.

“How long have you lived in San Diego?” she asked, changing the subject.

“All of my life. I was born here.”

Eleftheria smiled a bit to herself. “I like it here.”

Before I could reply, a vibrating sound broke the silence. I checked my pockets, but my phone wasn’t there. “Is that you, or me?” I asked as I peeked my head over the edge of the seat to try to see if my phone was there.

“I don’t know, my phone isn’t in my pocket. I must have fallen,” she said as she climbed off of me. She pulled her shirts over her head in a matter of seconds. She laid flat on the floor and tried looking around under the seat. The vibrating started again and I saw her pause, listen, and then shove half of her body under the seat.

“I found one!” she exclaimed from under the seat. “It’s yours, but it’s not the one ringing.” She held up her hand so I could grab my phone.

I unlocked my screen, ignoring my multiple texts, and clicked on my flashlight app. “Here, this might help,” I said as I handed my phone back to her.

She grabbed it and within seconds I heard her answering her phone. She handed my phone back to me but continued to lie on the ground so she could take her call.

I went back to my text messages. Three of them were from my brother, Mike, and I had one missed call from my mom from a few hours ago.

‘Hey bro, we’re ordering another round, where you at?’
‘Your beer is warm. I’m going to drink it anyways. Better hurry back if you want it. 3..2..1..too late, it’s gone.’
‘Seriously, dude! Where the fuck are you? We’re going to leave in like an hour.’

I thought about typing a response, just to let him know that I was okay, but if I replied to him then he would try to get more information and wouldn’t leave me alone because he would know that I was by my phone. Right as I was about to put my phone back in my pocket, the little dots showed up on the left side of my screen, indicating that Mike was typing me a massage.

‘You know I can see when you read your messages, right?’
‘Can you please just tell me where you are?’

I looked down on the floor and Eleftheria was still on the phone, talking in a very hushed voice. I tried to listen for a moment to see if she was speaking in Greek, but I couldn’t hear well enough to be able to make out anything she was saying. I figured that I might as well reply to Mike or else he would call my dad and then everyone would be worried about me. It was very out of character for me to just disappear and not tell anyone where I was going.

‘I’m in the van. I’ll be back in soon for a final shot of the night.’

I saw that Mike read my message but he didn’t start to reply. I locked my iPhone and pushed it into my pocket. Eleftheria was starting to sit up. She gave forced herself to go crosseyed and then smiled afterwards. I couldn’t help but try to suppress a laugh. She was adorable. I wanted to kiss her again.

“Okay, see you soon, bye,” Eleftheria said into her phone before removing it from her ear and hitting end on the screen. “Sorry, that was my friend. She wanted to know where I was. And then she started telling me some story about this guy that hit on her or something. I don’t really know. I wasn’t really listening.”

I laughed a bit and smiled widely at her. I looked over her features and noticed that something seemed a bit different about her face. “Where’d your nose ring go?” I finally figured out what it was. Her golden nose stud was no longer there.

Her left hand reached up to touch her nose. “Oh no!” she said. “It must have fallen out!” She quickly got up and flicked on the overhead light. “Can you help me find it?” she asked as she began to carefully inspect every inch of the van’s floor.

I began looking on the seat, but my attention kept averting back to her. I hadn’t seen her in proper lighting yet, only in the blackness of the night and the dimly lit bar. Granted, this lighting wasn’t the best either, but I was still able to see her features more clearly. There was a welted scar that hit near the corner of her left eye and reached, diagonally, down toward her ear. It was very hard to notice, but it still looked like it had been a fairly rough injury. Her cheeks were bright and pink, and there wasn’t a single blemish on her face. It had to be impossible for somebody’s skin to be that perfect.

“I can’t find it,” I said as I tried searching the seat again.

“Yeah, me neither,” she said as she got up from looking under the seat. “Oh well. I have more at my apartment.” She gave me a crooked smile and shrugged her shoulders.

It was silent for a few moments as Eleftheria seemed to become lost in her thoughts. I tried to get lost in my own, but I still continued to get lost in her beauty.

Her phone started vibrating on the ground next to her. She picked it up, checked the screen, and slid her finger across to accent the call.

“Hey…okay…yeah, I’ll be right out…okay…bye.”

She hung up the phone and looked me right in the eyes.

“Gotta go?” I asked her with a slight pout.

She yawned before answering me. “Yeah,” she said as she finished her yawn. “I have to go meet my friends out front.”

“Okay, I’ll walk you there,” I said as I began to get off of the backseat. I followed Eleftheria as she climbed over the seats and slid open the side door. On my way out of the van, I switched the light off and made sure that everything was just the way we had left it before. I didn’t want the guys to interrogate me more than they were already planning.

I followed Eleftheria as we walked around the bar the long way.

“When do you leave?” she asked once we had reached the back of the bar and continued to round the right side of the building.

“About a week,” I answered.

“Oh, that sucks. Do you look forward to it, or do you like being at home?”

I really didn’t want to talk about me, especially about my lie. My ridiculous lie. At least I was able to be somewhat honest about my feelings toward traveling and playing music. “It does suck being away from home for so long, but I really do love traveling and I get to play music while doing it. Plus I meet so many incredible people. It’s amazing.”

“So jazz, huh? Funny, you don’t really come off as someone who would play jazz. Let alone even listen to it,” she said as she looked at me.

I just let out a nervous laugh. “So do you live far from here?”

“Not really,” she said, simply.

Just as I was about to ask her more about school, she stopped walking. We had reached the end of the bar, and just around the corner was the front. She peeked her head around the corner, careful to keep the majority of her body concealed by the building.

“My friends aren’t out there yet,” she explained.

“Oh, cool. So we have a little more time, then,” I smiled at her.

She gently grabbed onto my wrists and switched our positions so I was the one next to the wall. She pushed me up against the brick of the bar and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. I deepened the kiss right away, letting my hands glide up and down her curves. I placed my hands under her shirt and held onto the heat of her skin for every possible second I could.

Eleftheria pulled away with a smile on her lips. She opened her eyes and then bit her bottom lip. She lifted up her right hand to reveal my cell phone. She unlocked the screen and began to put her number into my phone.

“I hope you don’t mind that I dug this out of your pocket while I distracted you,” she smirked as she placed my phone back into my pocket. “Maybe we can get together before you leave.”

I smiled wider than I thought possible. “Yeah, I’d really like that,” I said through my toothy grin. I had to have looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. The thought of seeing Eleftheria again made my heart beat faster than when I was first talking to her by the dumpster.

I heard some laughing and talking coming from the front of the bar. I peeked around the corner and saw three girls stumbling out to a waiting cab. One girl paused to pull out her cell phone. Seconds later, I could feel Eleftheria’s phone vibrating against my leg. She pulled herself off of me and looked around the corner.

“My friends are waiting for me,” she sighed. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Definitely,” I smiled. She started to walk away but I grabbed her wrist before she could get too far. “Wait,” I said. I pulled her wrist so her body crashed into mine. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her.

She pulled back just a bit and smiled up at me. She placed an innocent kiss on my cheek before she whispered into my ear. “Call me, Vic,” she said.

When I opened my eyes, Eleftheria was already rounding the corner.

“Theria!” a voice called out to her. “There you are! Girl, you missed a crazy..one crazy night!” Her friend stumbled over a bit, but Eleftheria caught her before she could fall. I could see her body shake a bit with laughter. Her drunken friends piled into the car – with Eleftheria’s help – and then came her turn. As she walked up to the passenger’s side, she looked up for just a brief moment to smile at me. She broke her gaze as she shut the door.

Theria. I played around with her nickname in my head. I tried to imagine her saying it in her accent, but it only made me wish she was still with me.

Notes

Second chapter for you guys. Also, I have added Theria's character description to the story summary page. It doesn't say too much about, just the pronunciation of her name and a picture to show you guys who I based her physical appearance after.

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