Chapter 9 #2
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.’
‘Keeps happening?’
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 doppelg?nger is here and he would definitely die.
‘That’s me.’ He peers at me now, and I don’t care if he can’t place me.
It must be years since we’ve last seen each other.
He’s climbed into the body of a ripped man but he still has that kind face, the curious air to him.
He’s sprouted so much he must be at least six foot five.
He was always taller than me, once slim and lanky, like Mike TV after he goes through the wringer in the chocolate factory. Now he’s a Hemsworth brother.
‘You don’t remember me?’ I ask. ‘Pokémon champion of Ponty primary, 2002?’
His eyes widen.
‘William Cooper? Is that you?’
‘The very same.’ Extending my hand was a bad idea. My bag moves, and I’m definitely tenting in these joggers. What a day not to wear underwear. His eyes dart, quickly averting, as I move my bag back with haste.
Samuel Greer just saw the outline of my hard dick.
As he shakes my hand, my Apple Watch pings, notifying me of a quickened heart rate.
‘I go by Will now.’
‘And I’m Sam,’ Sam says.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Sam?’
‘I could say the same about you. What has it been, like, twenty-five years?’
‘Not quite. You up and left after we won the championship.’
By championship, I mean a primary school class competition to determine who could catch the most Pokémon on our Gameboys.
Our classmates got bored, but Sam and I competed with one another until we both completed the game at the same time.
Technically, I beat the final league trainer before him, but I was nice and shared the title.
We’d caught them all, as the game encouraged.
We’d boasted to the school that we were masters, and for a day or two, people cared.
We were the celebrities of the playground.
Then someone won a football game, and we were the nerds who restarted our Pokémon games and played again.
Then, one day, I found out Sam had left. I remember locking myself in my room for the entire weekend, and I definitely did not cry. I had something in my eyes. Losing Sam, my closest friend, felt like the end of the world. I hadn’t felt that feeling again until Ollie left me.
Another beep of a horn. It’s the taxi driver getting back on the road. ‘I got it running again.’
I run forwards. ‘Then let me—’
But he’s going, going, gone. Leaving me stranded.
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Your taxi driver?’
I hold my hands out in exasperation. ‘Was my taxi driver.’
Sam rubs the back of his neck, giving me a glimpse of the hair under his arm.
‘You live in Athens?’
‘The very one.’ Sam beams, pointing at the coffee van behind him. ‘Family business.’
‘Coffee?’
‘Coffee.’
‘I could murder a coffee right now.’
He points to my arm, and with horror, I spot blood trickling down my skin.
‘Oh my God, am I dying?’
Sam chuckles. ‘No, but I wouldn’t make a habit of falling into bushes like those. They’re lethal. Come on, let’s get you back to mine and clean you up.’
He makes for his white van, keys in hand, his broad back now in my eyesight.
‘Wait a minute,’ I say. ‘We may have been best friends in school, but you’re a man now. How do I know you’re not a roadside killer?’
‘I have coffee.’
I get in the car.