Winter Hearts

Triple T

Siana blinked the tears out of her eyes and shoved her hands into her pockets. She felt burning humiliation. She felt stupid and vulnerable, but mostly stupid. Every time she thought about how she had looked longingly into Leo's eyes, she cringed. It should have been a better memory than that, but he had to go and turn away in the middle of one of the hottest, tastiest, most glorious moments of her life.

She remembered the look on his face as he had wiped his mouth. That gesture seemed to say it all, and it hurt her so bad. Then the look in his eyes.

He looked... disgusted. The thought made her squeeze her eyes shut with mortification. She thought she had seen genuine signs of attraction, but maybe all this time she was imagining it.

Maybe all this time he had thought she was easy.

She groaned loudly up into the night sky. I've spent the whole day thinking about Leo and Vixx, and now I think I could actually be sick of them all, she thought. Then she suddenly thought, maybe I am easy. I don't even know these guys, and there I was under a tree like some green schoolgirl, dancing the Tongue Tango with Taekwoon.

She giggled through her pain.

Then she heard Leo call out to her from behind.

She walked faster down the driveway and came to the highway, which was empty. She crossed it quickly and walked onto the main intersecting road that would take her almost to her doorstep, although she had to walk through Kirra first. The walk was a good three or four kilometres, but she was up for it, even in the dead of night.

She could hear Leo break into a trot as he tried to catch up with her. She wondered what twisted soul would keep on harassing someone they had just humiliated.

Someone like Tongue Tango Taekwoon, obviously.

She had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop laughing.

She decided she would call him Triple T from now on.

She darted into the shadows and turned down a tiny lane that went directly to the pebble beach. If she walked along the beach instead of the main road, she would arrive at her uncle's hotel, from where it was a short walk across the same main street to her home. With any luck, Leo would be disoriented and return to his friends.

Even better, she hoped he would get lost and wander into the olive groves forever.

Siana smiled. That wouldn't happen as he would eventually come out the other side somewhere.

Her humorous thoughts made her relax a little. She could hear Leo call out to her from the main street, and she walked silently on, pleased with herself that he couldn't find her.

She looked at the still waters of the bay, which shone silver under the ambient starlight and gentle moonlight. The water lapped gently on the pebble shore, making a gentle tinkling noise. She breathed in a deep breath of the sea air, feeling a strange calm wash over her. She walked almost a kilometre until she came to a small jetty which jutted out into the bay. It was concrete, and barely stuck out more than a metre into the water. On it, she could still reach the pebbles on the beach to grab a handful to throw into the water.

The sound of the tiny pebbles falling into the water was like rain, and she did it over and over, its soft noise satisfying.

She remembered she was supposed to be under the chaperonage of Panos. She pulled out her mobile phone and texted him. Going home.

He texted back almost immediately. I know. Say goodnight to Leo for me. Kiss Kiss.

Siana could have thrown the phone into the sea. Instead she gently put it in her lap and put her head in her hands.