Katerina and Antonis picked him up at midday, and Jimmy loaded their boot with his backpack, taking a seat in the back, next to Markos, who wouldn’t dare miss a couple of days by the beach.

The trip to Halkidiki was not long. They were only going South to the first peninsula, Kassandra, so it took them the better part of an hour to get there, despite the traffic on the highway. Summer had come early this year, and everyone was storming to the beach while it lasted. It was still April, after all. It was bound to pour with rain at some point. Katerina turned to a station which was infamous for streaming only the worst of Greek folk songs and blasted the Greek music inside the car.

Antonis struggled with his love for Katerina and his hate for the music throughout the entire trip.

‘I can’t believe Stelios couldn’t come. I thought he didn’t have any classes today,’ Jimmy told them.

Katerina shook her head with a grimace and Antonis ignored his comment. Markos put his hand on Jimmy’s knee and tapped it a couple of times.

‘He had a lot of studying to do. You know him. He wants to be the best of the best.’

Jimmy rolled his eyes. ‘I want to be the best of the best. I’m here, though, aren’t I? And the fucking asshole has turned his phone off.’

Katerina turned the music louder and sang. Antonis covered his ears until Katerina turned the volume down again.

Jimmy didn’t care much for their antics. He looked outside to the endless fields and illegal houses built by the side of the road. It had been a stressful couple of weeks.

At first, Jimmy didn’t know if Ren had said anything to anyone about them kissing. Then, Ren had to storm into his workplace and talk about that stupid night just as Jimmy had been expecting the rest of the gang to swing by and keep him company overnight. Thankfully they’d missed each other, but it had been stressful enough to have made his knees weak.

Jimmy didn’t like how he’d spoken to Ren, truth be told. But he couldn’t think of another way to push Ren away from him. He was dangerous for Jimmy. Never in his life had he felt the urge to be with someone, to kiss someone in public, until he’d met Ren, and Jimmy couldn’t trust himself around the man.

They arrived at Possidi sometime after one o’clock and were assigned to their tents. It turned out Markos and Jimmy both had a tent all on their own and of course Katerina and Antonis were sharing another. Jimmy put his rucksack in his tent and joined Antonis and Markos outside for a cigarette on the table outside of their tent.

‘Where is Katerina?’ he asked.

Antonis pointed to the general direction of the entrance. ‘She’s coming. Left something in the car.’

Jimmy put his feet on her chair, after taking his shoes off, and leaned back. The sun was bright behind the large oak trees and a light breeze cooled them down as fast as the sun warmed them. It was the perfect start to a camping trip.

A few people passed by, but it was still off season and not many were around.

Katerina came back, her phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and she pushed Jimmy’s legs out of her seat.

‘Guess what?’ she cheered.

‘What?’ Jimmy said when no one else replied.

‘Stelios is here.’ She pointed behind him, the direction she had come from and Jimmy turned to see Stelios and Ren approaching!

Stelios reached the tent in no time, but Ren slowed down and stood at the end of the allotted space as if it was a circle of salt cast by the Winchester brothers and he was a demon that couldn’t cross it. Everyone looked at Jimmy, except for Ren who was staring at the ground. Jimmy couldn’t take his eyes off Ren. His locks fell in front of his face and his hands laid inside his shorts pockets, his height, usually a dominant presence, was slumped by his posture.

Jimmy had to force himself to look away. There had been a reason he had wanted Ren out of his life, and that reason hadn’t changed yet. He glanced at every single one of his friends, trying to stare the truth out of them. Katerina had a naughty grin on her face, Antonis raised his eyebrows in response, Stelios crossed his hands in front of his chest and grimaced, and Markos shrugged at him. It had been a united effort, and a part of Jimmy was proud of his friends for wanting to include a new—foreign, in all sense of the word—person in their group, and the other part wanted to kill them all for forcing him to inhabit the same space as Ren.

‘Hi,’ he told Ren.

Ren slowly lifted his head and his blue eyes met Jimmy’s. God! He didn’t hate Ren. Not in the slightest.

Ren greeted him back.

The silence returned. The rustle of the trees and the occasional cricket penetrated the awkwardness. It seemed as if the entire place, people and all, had gone quiet for their benefit. The ash reached the butt of his cigarette and Jimmy threw it on the floor. He stomped it off.

‘I’m sorry, Ren,’ he said. Ren twitched but didn’t do much else. ‘I—I was going through a tough situation. I—I can’t explain now. I didn’t mean to cast you out.’ Only he did. But the whole point was to erase the awkwardness from the current moment.

Ren nodded but didn’t say anything to Jimmy. ‘Are we staying in tents?’ he asked Stelios.

Stelios nodded.

‘Cool. Which one is mine?’

Katerina pointed at Jimmy’s. Jimmy stared at her, but she ignored him. Those sneaky bastards were determined to force Jimmy and Ren back to friendship. Again, the pride in Jimmy battled with his frustration. He couldn’t ask to change with someone, as that would insult Ren further and only tell him that Jimmy didn’t mean his apology. Which he did. Sort of.

‘Katerina and I are going for some food. Are you guys coming?’ Antonis said and put his hand on Katerina’s waist.

‘I’m okay,’ Jimmy told them.

Markos and Stelios followed them. Ren told them he’d grab something later. Jimmy thought Ren would talk to him as soon as they’d gone. Instead, he unzipped the tent and threw his stuff inside. He zipped it back up and took off his shoes and socks. He sat on the chair in front of their tent, and Jimmy watched him from Katerina’s table.

‘You can sit here, you know. I don’t bite,’ Jimmy told him.

Ren didn’t look at him. ‘Yeah, but you kiss, run away, and act like a lunatic, so kinda the same thing.’

Jimmy looked around, but no one was there. ‘Look, Ren, I’m sorry. I really am.’

‘I don’t care about being sorry.’ Finally, he turned to look at Jimmy, ‘I want an explanation. What happened that night? And why did you talk to me like that? Why ignore me? Why ask your friends to ignore me? What did I do?’

Jimmy gazed at the ground, but Ren’s gaze burned hot on his forehead. ‘You did nothing. It’s all me.’

‘What did you do?’

Jimmy took another look around. He wasn’t sure how many of the tents were inhabited so he stood up and took a seat next to Ren in front of their tent.

‘I kissed you. In public.’

Ren leaned closer and Jimmy thought he was going to kiss him, but he stopped a few inches from Jimmy’s face. Jimmy’s eyes scanned the perimeter.

‘Why are you so scared? What’s wrong with a kiss?’

Jimmy closed his eyes. ‘Everything!’

He felt Ren’s hand on his and Jimmy opened his eyes to find the blue of Ren’s. ‘Are you bi? Gay? Or did you just want to experiment?’

The sky was a perfect hue of indigo with no cloud in sight. Jimmy could feel a burn in his eyes that only looking up could stop.

‘You don’t understand. You come from an open-minded country. You have same-sex marriage and equal rights. You have TV shows with gay people on them. You have openly gay celebrities. Greece is—Greece is nothing like that. We only got the civil partnership to include same-sex couples a year ago and still, everyone is scared to do it because it means your name goes on public record as a homosexual. We have a fascist party in the parliament, whose supporters hunt down gays and beat them all the way to the hospital. We have fake experts calling us sick and disturbed on live TV. We have censorship. We have the church calling us sinners and damning us to hell.’

‘You—you said us.’

Jimmy looked down, then toward Ren. ‘Because I am gay, Ren, and I’ve never told anyone.’

‘And that’s okay. All those people, all that shit you grew up around, is bullshit. You know that right? And yes, London is very progressive, but not much of the rest of my country or the world for that matter. Homophobes are everywhere. But they are in the wrong and we are on the right. You know that?’

‘But I have to live here. I have to live with the fear and the hate. That’s why I couldn’t see you again. Because you don’t understand what implications kissing you in public could have. If the wrong person was there at the right time, it could all spiral out of control. I don’t want to lose my dad. Or my friends. Or my job.’

Ren took hold of Jimmy’s hands, and his eyes burned with passion.

‘Listen to me Dimitris Aristiadis. You are a beautiful man with beautiful friends. You won’t lose anything because of who you are, you hear me? I won’t allow it. It’s time for you to stop being scared.’

Ren smiled and Jimmy’s heart trembled in his chest, its reverberation reaching his head.

The butterfly reawakened and flew wild circles in his belly.

‘I don’t know how.’

Ren took his hands and gave them a squeeze. ‘It’s okay. We’ll find out together.’

Jimmy returned the squeeze. ‘Okay,’ he said, and he knew then his life was about to change in a way he could never even begin to imagine.