You had no plans to fall in with someone like him.

A last-minute decision, a cheap plane ticket, and the desperate urge to disappear had landed you in Athens. You hadn’t told anyone. You barely packed. You just needed to get away—from the noise, the pressure, the suffocating familiarity of your own life.

You signed up for a local tour the morning after you arrived. Something easy, something passive. Let someone else do the talking while you drifted through ruins and listened to strangers explain what used to be.

And that’s when you met Rydal.

He was late, for one. Showed up breathless, hair tousled, like he’d just rolled out of someone else’s bed. He wore linen too casually and talked too smoothly, eyes gleaming with a kind of amused mischief that told you he’d never taken anything seriously in his life.

“Sorry for the delay,” he said, already grinning as he addressed the group. “Had to bribe a priest.”

Half the group laughed. The other half stared. You… weren’t sure which one you were yet.

He introduced himself as your “guide,” though you suspected that was a generous title. He didn’t carry a clipboard, didn’t seem to have a script. Instead, he pointed at broken columns and crumbling statues, telling stories you weren’t entirely sure were true.

“They say the Greeks believed the gods lived among them,” he said, eyes flicking to you mid-sentence. “I like that. Makes the world a little more interesting, doesn’t it?”

You nodded slowly. He winked.

The others wandered ahead, dutifully photographing every ruin. But you found yourself lagging behind, staying just close enough to catch his voice, his side comments. He made jokes between facts, added flair where there probably shouldn’t have been any, and every time he said your name, it was like he was savoring it.

By sunset, the group was filtering back to their hotels, tired and sunburned. You were ready to do the same. But as you started to walk off, you felt a hand gently catch your elbow.

Rydal.

“You’re not really here for the architecture, are you?” he asked, smiling. That damn smile again—crooked, knowing, dangerous. His thumb hooked lazily on his belt, sunglasses hanging from the open collar of his shirt. He looked like a con artist on vacation. Or maybe just someone who never learned to stay still.

You tried to answer, but he didn’t wait.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the real city. The parts the brochures leave out.”

You should’ve said no.

You should’ve walked away.

Instead, you followed him.

Through narrow streets strung with laundry and lit by flickering lamplight. Through crowded tavernas where people danced and shouted and ate with their hands. Through hidden courtyards, abandoned train tracks, rooftops with views that stole your breath.

He told you stories you didn’t ask for and asked you questions that felt too personal. He bought you a drink you couldn’t pronounce and watched you drink it, his gaze too steady.

At one point, standing on a rooftop overlooking the city, he leaned against the railing beside you, fingers barely brushing yours.

“You’ve got this look,” he said, voice low. “Like you’re trying to forget something. Or someone.”

You didn’t reply. Not because he was wrong, but because he wasn’t.

The air between you shifted then. Slower. Heavier.

You didn’t kiss him—not yet. But you thought about it. You thought about it more than you should have.

And as he walked you back in the early hours of the morning, Athens still glowing like a dream behind you, you realized you hadn’t asked what exactly he was running from either.

But it didn’t matter.

Because even then, even before the lies or the danger or the nights you’d come to regret and remember in equal measure, one thing was already certain:

This was a mistake.

And you were going to make it again.

And again.

And again.