The car slows until we’re off the road, coming to a complete standstill. Red lights on the dash flash a warning for the driver, as smoke billows from under the bonnet.
Oh my God, I’m going to die in a car fire.
With an erection.
The driver gets out of the car, moving much too slow for my liking, shouting in his native tongue. I slip out, my legs weak, my head heavy, opening the boot to retrieve my bag, even though the advice in a fire is always to leave your bags behind. Twenty-five days without clothes was not on the itinerary, and the boot isn’t alight yet.
A car fire!
When the driver lifts the bonnet with reckless abandon, I expect flames to rip upwards, maybe even set him alight. I’d weep on the shoulder of the highway, anguished, scared.
But no. Just smoke. Quite anticlimactic.
‘The engine has broken down.’ He skims a hand over his head. ‘This keeps happening.’
‘Keepshappening?’
Cars rush by, but nobody stops to help. The city in the distance, waves of heat rising, gives the impression of being underwater. The grass is yellow, burnt. If not a car fire, then I’d die from heat stroke.
I shed my duster jacket, exposing skin to the sun, wishing I’d lathered sun lotion on.
‘I meant to get it fixed,’ the driver says. ‘Just hadn’t got round to it. Athens is just over there.’
‘I see it,’ I say. ‘But how are we getting there?’
‘You will need to walk.’ He takes his phone out of his pocket and dials a number, turning his back on me as he shouts rather loudly down the phone.
Dumfounded and without any other options, I grip my case, adjust my hand luggage, and sniff, hoping to keep my dignity. Walking down a busy road in a new city with a boner was definitely not part of my plan.
Embrace it, Will. This is an adventure.
With a spring in my new-found swagger, focused on Athens in the distance, I hold my head a little higher. I am Julie Andrews, heading to the Von Trapp mansion.
That’s until the wheel on my case snaps, my foot tangles under the weight of the case, and I fall into nearby bushes, yelping as twigs jut into me.
A horn beeps, but I can’t look. Someone is probably laughing at my expense. My face definitely flushes from embarrassment now.
As I pull myself out of the bush, dust off my clothes, try to hide my goddamn erection, possibly the longest erection ever known to man, something taps my shoulder.
‘Oh, thank God, you got the car working again.’
Instead, I turned to… Apollo.
That’s the only way I can describe him. He stands tall, his long blond hair tumbling over broad shoulders. A freckled face peers at me curiously, perfect lips parted ever so slightly. He isn’t wearing a shirt, because this is Greece and people don’t wear shirts in this weather, not when you have actual abs. Proper summer body. The type I thought I’d get after my day at the gym.His olive-skinned six-pack is an eight pack. His chest is all light blond hair, bronzed nipples and oiled skin.
I quickly slid my bag in front of my legs as a fresh wave of blood headed straight to the world-record erection.
‘Are you all right?’
His accent. It’s not thick Greek like my taxi driver’s was. In fact, it has a British twang to it, I’m sure. Behind him, there’s a white van parked beside the road advertising an Athens coffee shop called No Name Coffee. Hazard lights flash, the engine ticking over.
I stare back at him, finding his blue eyes.
What the…?
‘Samuel Greer?’
He blinks, eyelashes fluttering. It’s him. It has to be. If it isn’t, I need to let Samuel Greer know to never come to Athens because his doppelgänger is here and he would definitely die.
