Hero
"I have a flight," I said. It was technically true. I had a flight booked in forty-eight hours; it just wasn't heading to Scotland.
"Tomorrow?"
"Day after," I replied.
He nodded once, a slow, deliberate gesture. His eyes dipped, tracing a path down to my mouth, then lingering on my hands—which were still gripping the sweating glass water bottle, raw, red, and heavily calloused from hemp rope—before rising back up to settle on my lips. His gaze felt physically heavy, pressing against my skin with a distinct weight.
"Have a drink with me tonight," he said softly. "Before you return to Scotland. Just one drink. On the boat. The maintenance crew will be gone by eight o'clock. I will be here alone."
I knew precisely what that invitation carried. In Puerto Banús, when a man who owned a fifty-meter superyacht, who was clearly married but deliberately not wearing his ring, and who looked at a deckhand with that unmistakable, intense focus asked him up to the deck after hours, it was never just about a drink. It meant a dozen unspoken things all at once. Every rational instinct told me I should decline immediately. I should say no because of the pale, un-tanned line on his finger. I should say no because I was lying about my age, and a man like him would be furious if he discovered I was only nineteen.
I should say no because he was hiding behind a fake name and a vague story about shipping logistics, likely leaving a wife and children waiting in Athens. Most of all, I should say no because my dad was dead, my mum was sitting alone in a quiet cottage in Fife, and I was supposed to be the sensible, responsible son—the one who flew to New York to study business, repaired the family's fortunes, and refrained from getting tangled up with a Greek billionaire on a dark deck in Spain.
I looked at his bare feet resting on the edge of the gunwale, the soft drape of his beige linen trousers, the glint of his expensive watch, the bone-deep weariness etched around his blue-grey eyes behind those dark lenses, and his severe mouth that seemed so unaccustomed to smiling.
"What time?" I heard myself ask.
"Eight thirty," he said, the corner of his mouth twitching with that faint, familiar premonition of a smile. "And don't wear your work shirt, Lachlan."
He stood up smoothly, picking up his phone as it vibrated violently once more. A contact name flashed across the screen in sharp Greek lettering that I couldn't decipher—perhaps Andreas, the man he had been arguing about earlier. Without looking back, he made his way back up the teak stairs toward the upper VIP deck, his bare feet making no sound against the wood. By the time he reached the top, he was speaking rapid, angry Greek into the receiver again.
I remained motionless on the dock, holding the fancy glass bottle as the water inside rapidly lost its chill. Sweat trickled down the center of my back, stinging the dry skin of my neck while the scorching Spanish sun beat down relentlessly on the hull of the Eleni and the crown of my head.
What the fuck are you doing, Hero? I thought, my chest tight. What the fuck are you doing?
Deep down, I already knew the answer. I knew with absolute certainty that I was going to show up at eight thirty. I knew I was going to pull on my one good shirt—the crisp white one that strained just a little too tightly across my shoulders—and I was going to step onto that boat and keep telling him I was twenty-two.
I finished scrubbing the chrome nameplate, moving my hand in strict, disciplined straight lines rather than the circular strokes I had been using before—exactly as he had instructed. Every pass of the microfibre cloth seemed to draw a cleaner reflection out of the metal, buffing away the light haze of sea salt until the letters of Eleni burned almost too brightly beneath the intense glare of the midday sun.
My forearm throbbed with a dull, familiar ache, but I kept my pace deliberate and even, using the repetitive motion to anchor myself while my head spun. I focused entirely on the cool, reflective curve of the chrome, trying not to look back up toward the upper VIP deck, trying not to listen to the distant, sharp cadence of his voice as he continued his telephone argument in Greek, and trying not to think about what eight thirty was going to feel like when the dock finally went quiet.
I didn't go back to the hostel straight away after Marco let us off at four. I couldn't.
I sat on the rough concrete breakwater at the far end of Puerto Banús—the quiet corner where the tourists don't venture, where the rusted fishing boats bob in the harbor and the smell of fuel mingles with the salt air. I sat there in silence and let my salt-crusted work t-shirt dry against my back, stiffening as the fabric sucked in the heat. The sun was finally starting to drop, shifting from a blinding white glare to a thick, suffocating yellow. The light hitting the water was so harsh it made my eyes ache even behind the scratched lenses of my cheap sunglasses.
I had a bottle of water in my hand. It was the same heavy glass bottle he had thrown me earlier. I had kept it. I hadn't meant to keep it; I had just shoved it into my duffel without thinking, and now I was sitting here holding it like an idiot, my thumb tracing the cold condensation as it evaporated into the warm afternoon breeze.
Lachlan from Glasgow who is twenty-two. Have a drink with me tonight. Don't wear your work shirt.
I owned two shirts that weren't for work. One was a faded black t-shirt with a tear in the armpit that I wore to sleep in. The other was a white button-down. That was it. The white shirt was from Zara. I had bought it in Edinburgh back in March, two days before the funeral, because my mum had insisted I needed a proper shirt for the service and I didn't own a single thing that fit my shoulders anymore. It had cost twenty-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence, and it was still far too tight across my back and chest. I was built like my dad—a broad, heavy-set fisherman's frame, not the sleek, narrow build of a Zara model.
I had worn it to bury my dad. I had worn it to the bank meeting where a man in a crisp suit politely explained to my mum what it meant to be asset-rich and cash-poor. I hadn't touched it since. Right now, it lay folded flat at the very bottom of my duffel bag, tucked beneath my passport and the acceptance letter I hadn't dared to show anyone in Banús.
I thought about not going. For a full hour, I sat on that hot concrete and tried to convince myself to walk away.
List of reasons not to go, I typed into my Notes app, tapping the screen like I was fifteen and trying to talk myself out of trouble:
1. He is married. Ring tan line.
2. Probably has kids.He is probably thirty-eight, maybe thirty-nine.
3. Far too old.He thinks I am twenty-two, but I'm nineteen.
4. He'll be angry when he finds out.I have a flight in forty-eight hours that isn't taking me back to Scotland, and I need to pack. I need to keep my head down and not do something stupid before I leave Spain.
5. My dad just died.
List of reasons to go:
1. He looked at me like I was a person and not just the boy who cleans.
That was it. It was the only reason on the second list, but the words seemed to loom larger than all the rest combined.