In Which You, the Reader, Are Introduced to the Main Character, Her Setting, and Her Supporting Cast

"That was Harry Styles with 'As It Was,' the Song of the Summer, or should we say 'the Song of the Fall' now that it's September? It's been months since it came out and people just can't get enough of it!" the tacky radio DJ barked through the fuzzy stereo. "You're listening to Farm Road 3.141! We've got Taylor Swift, Arctic Monkeys, and more after these commercial messages!"

Annabeth groaned and cranked the AC when the obnoxious ad for Olympus Auto started. It may have been September, but she couldn't blame anyone who mistook it for July. She was sweaty already just from the fifteen-minute commute!

"Hello, Berkeley area! Are you in need of a used car? Yes, you are! Come on down to Olympus Auto! We'll find your dream car fast, fast, fast with the speed of Hermes himself! Looking to sell or trade in your car? Yes, you are! We offer Kelley Blue Book value with no hassle! So come on over to Olympus Auto! Your chariot awaits!"

That was the latest advertisement for Olympus Automotive, a small used car dealership in Berkeley Hills that despite all odds, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite the ever-expanding Jupiter Auto Trader corporate chain, persisted in annoying anyone within a twenty-mile radius with its very existence.

Annabeth looked out the driver's side window and took in the used car lot in all its glory. The weird thing about Olympus Automotive was that she'd never heard of any experience someone had buying or selling a car there. All that the place was known for was its obnoxious commercials, its obnoxious spokesperson, and its loaded Greek mythology puns and references that not even the average high school graduate would understand.

In summary, Olympus Auto was known for just about anything except for selling cars.

And Annabeth Chase was about to start her first day as a mechanic there.

Yes, she looked at other places, including Ford dealerships she'd heard of, and even that Jiffy Lube place her father always called 'Shady Lube,' but for a female mechanic, the job market was about as big as a paper bag.

The clicking of Annabeth's turn signal finally stopped when she rounded the corner and pulled into the used car lot.

"Shit," she said aloud. Mr. D, the owner of the dealership who'd interviewed her last week, never actually told her where to park. Sure, there were plenty of spaces in the lot, but which ones were designated for employee parking, she had no idea. The chances of her accidentally parking her Mini Cooper with the cars for sale were greater than zero. Talk about a bad first impression.

She turned the radio off and rounded yet another corner before finally settling on a spot near some cars that weren't decked out for selling. If this wasn't the right spot, she could ask someone else who worked here where she could park.

She pulled the key out of the ignition and gathered her things; they weren't much, just a lunch bag, her wallet, and a water bottle.

"Shit," she swore again, dropping her metal water bottle to the floor. The damn thing had been sitting in the sun for the whole drive over and as a result, was hot to the touch. Fantastic. That's precisely what Annabeth needed on her first day at a new job.

The water bottle unceremoniously rolled beneath the passenger seat of Annabeth's Mini Cooper. She couldn't go in without that; she highly doubted the garage she'd be working in would have decent ventilation, so she leaned over the center console and fished into the abyss beneath the passenger seat.

"Gotcha," she muttered, only to come up with a plastic water bottle. She didn't buy plastic water bottles; single-use plastics were horrible for the environment.

She dug a little further, determined that spending seventy-five cents on three minutes with the car vacuum cleaner would be worth it, and then found her water bottle.

"Shit," she swore again when she came up too fast, hitting her head on the ceiling.

Even though rearview mirrors are meant exclusively for driving purposes, Annabeth angled hers downward so she could check her appearance.

She'd be spending hours on end in a sweaty garage, most likely, so she hadn't bothered with too much makeup—just some mascara on her eyelashes that would hopefully emphasize her gray eyes, as she'd been told they were one of her more intimidating features. Her blonde hair was tied back in two French braids since she'd woken up early. Not a single curl was out of place, although she was sure that wouldn't be the case by five o'clock.

She sighed. Nothing she could do—not fixing her appearance, not buying a new pair of jeans that would inevitably be covered in grease by the end of the day—could calm her nerves.

If the clock on Annabeth's car was correct, she'd need to head inside in about four minutes, which gave her that much time to quickly despair over what horrors awaited her within Olympus Auto.

If the real world was anything like her trade school, she'd need to continue buying her jeans a little too large in the ass. She'd have to brainstorm witty comebacks to sexist remarks. The best she could hope for was that whatever misogyny lay within those sliding doors, it might not include forty-year-old men hitting on her. God, that would be so much worse than guys her age hitting on her.

The digital clock in her Mini Cooper changed once more. It was time for her to face the music. Oh, she hoped they wouldn't make her sit alone with only the remarks of sexist pigs and heavy machinery for music!

...And her dramatizations were simply proving that she had done enough wallowing for the morning. It was now or never. Today, Annabeth was going start her first job in the real world, make real money, and spend it on real adult things like rent and utilities.

She stepped out of the car and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The September heatwave surely had to be contributing to her nerves. At least, that's what she decided to tell herself. She had to squint to read the sign on the front door; the sun was just that goddamned bright.

OLYMPUS AUTO, it read in bright orange lettering. Coloring everything orange was not an aesthetic choice Annabeth would have made, but what did she know about aesthetics? She was just a mechanic.

The doors opened automatically when she approached, sending a nice whoosh of cool air her way. Within that conditioned air she breathed in was the stench of gasoline, oil, and artificial vanilla. It smelled like home. It put her at ease.

Nobody was sitting at the reception desk. Even when she peered over the admittedly high tabletop, there was nobody. Maybe the receptionist was in the bathroom. She could ask an employee about-

"Good morning, ma'am! First one of the day—lucky you!" chirped a chipper young man in a business suit. His blazer was gray, which must have been a stark contrast to his personality because his tie had suns on it, and each of those suns was wearing tiny little sunglasses. "My name is Will," he said, adjusting the magnetic nametag on his suit jacket.

"I'm Annabeth." She held out her hand. That seemed to be the right thing to do when meeting a new coworker.

He took her hand eagerly and then scurried behind the reception desk. Was it possible that this man was the receptionist?

His mannerisms, however, told Annabeth that he was not a simple receptionist. He was most people's worst nightmare: a used car salesman.

He beamed up at her from behind the computer with the light of a thousand tiny suns with sunglasses. Little freckles held hands and sang kumbaya across his cheeks. Even his blond curls were glowing, and admittedly, Annabeth was jealous. Her curls weren't... happy... like his.

"Okay, so!" he said, clacking away on the keyboard. "Have you ever bought a car with us before? Because if not, I just want you to know, we're not like other places." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "I don't treat ladies looking for cars like they're stupid."

Wow, the bare minimum—how progressive.

"Thanks," Annabeth says, "but actually, I'm here about a job; it's my first day, and I'm not really sure where to go..."

He gasped, and as he spoke, Annabeth finally placed his accent. This man—Will—was from the south, and not like Virginia or something. He was from the Deep South.

"I am so sorry for assuming!" he said. "Let me just... Hang tight! I'll just grab my boss quick!"

"Take your time," Annabeth said, not that he heard her. He didn't run to the small closed-off office, but the way he speed-walked would have made those old ladies at the mall jealous.

She looked around the dealership lobby. They didn't keep cars inside like big-name dealers, and there weren't a ton of people waiting for their cars to be inspected. That was certainly a green flag.

The reception desk was new, although it had a small stain from where someone must have forgotten to use a coaster.

Orange flags hung from the ceiling and a plaque on the wall declared that Olympus Auto was voted number one in inspection services. By whom? Surely the people working at a place like this couldn't be that good.

Annabeth was good enough, though. She should be working down the street at Jupiter Auto Trader. She applied for that job. She interviewed for that job, only to lose it to some man that had compared her ass to the peach emoji back in her trade school.

She shuffled her feet on the orange mat beneath her: YOUR CHARIOT AWAITS, it read. They weren't going to put her in an orange jumpsuit like a prisoner, were they? That would be entirely unsavory, but not surprising. What if they ask her to speak in one of those awful commercials? They couldn't do that, could they?

Annabeth tried to think back to the contract she signed in Mr. D's office, but her thoughts were interrupted by...

By...

The most gorgeous man she'd ever seen in her life. How could somebody that attractive be working at a used car dealership and not as a model?

"Annabeth," Will said, flashing his movie star smile. "This is Percy Jackson, our assistant manager. He'll get you set up." And with that, Will pivoted on his heels and waltzed out onto the lot to greet someone looking at a used minivan.

Annabeth's new boss, Percy Jackson, was a Latino man with a movie star smile that although strained, showed signs of mischief. His stubble and unruly hair were hardly appropriate for a professional environment, but he pulled it off. Good God, he pulled it off a little too well.

He held out his hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Annabeth said, taking his firm handshake. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He hadn't bothered to wear a blazer like Will's, although Annabeth wasn't complaining that she could see every last vein in his forearm.

Feeling that she had held his hand for too long, she broke the handshake.

"Alright, you can just follow me," he said. His fingers ghosted her back as he guided her, and it was at that moment that she decided she could not be attracted to Percy Jackson, nor could she be attracted to any man who would touch her like that.

She didn't protest, however. She wouldn't dare make a poor first impression with her boss on the first day.

"So where's Mr. D?" Annabeth asked instead of sticking up for herself.

Percy—Mr. Jackson?—smiled down at her. Annabeth always prided herself on being tall, yet here was this guy, towering over her.

"Mr. D is... away at a conference. At a spa and resort. In Cancun," he said with a wink. "Between you and me, I think he's trying to use up his vacation days before he retires."

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't he own the place?" Wouldn't that make him in charge of how many vacation days he got?

Percy nodded, showing only a hint of annoyance with his boss. "Yep. He says it'll be practice for when I eventually take over— Whoop! This way!" He urges her behind the reception desk. "The chair adjusts with that pedal on the bottom; ask Will to help you if you can't figure it out."

"Uh-"

"There's a stack of paperwork that needs to be sorted and stapled; it's just a bunch of receipts we're behind on because we haven't had someone at the desk in a week," he explained.

And then Annabeth realized that Percy Jackson had the exact wrong idea of what she was hired to do here. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't worry, you'll pick it up fast," he said, waving her off. "Just greet people when they come in, sort the paperwork... Oh! And when someone sells a car or does a trade-in, just ask Will to run you through it. He's familiar with the computer system."

"Excuse me, I-"

But Percy just continued like everything was normal. "Well, I've got a super busy day ahead of me, what with doing my job and Mr. D's, so uh, good luck! You'll be fine. No need to be nervous, Nicole. It's Nicole, right?"

"It's actually-"

His shoes thumped against the floor as he walked off into his office.

This was not what Annabeth was hired to do. She didn't know the first thing about... receptioning? Being a receptionist? Whatever.

Eyes stinging with tears, she did what any rational person would do.

She started stapling.