Accidentally Aphrodite, page 9
He pulled her closer, forcing her to smell his yummy goodness mingled with the crisp air of fall. Quinn gritted her teeth to quell the butterflies flitting about the lining of her stomach and chalked them up to never having had a man as incredibly good-looking as Khristos so near.
“Look over there, Quinn,” he said, his tone hushed and gruff.
She followed the line of his finger and saw an elderly couple with their backs to them, probably in their mid-eighties, judging by their hunched figures and silver hair. The man sat on a thick plaid blanket beside the woman who was in a wheelchair, his hand, aged and gnarled, entwined with hers.
He looked up at the woman then; his gaze was tender, almost fragile, but the love shining from his eyes was so real it pierced Quinn’s heart. So real and so full of complete adoration, for the second time that day, her breath was stolen.
The woman leaned over the arm of her chair and smiled back at him. The profile of her face, silhouetted by the setting sun, was just as full of love when she pressed a kiss to his lips and cupped his jaw with a hand that had a dried carnation attached to its wrist.
Quinn’s heart melted right in her chest when the man rose and tucked a blanket just underneath the woman’s chin with such a fiercely protective gesture, her knees shook.
A tear stung her eye and her throat tightened. She gripped Khristos’s arm. “It was them, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “They were your target. But you were only off by a hair.”
Her heart pounded as guilt pricked her very soul. “What would have happened if you hadn’t intercepted and saved the day?”
She knew she shouldn’t ask. The answer would likely haunt her dreams, but she had to know.
“You don’t really want to know, do you, Quinn? It’s all good now. That’s all that matters.”
“No. I really do want to know, to serve as a reminder of how I could blow this whole thing sky-high. Call me a masochist, but maybe it’ll keep me on my toes. Because I couldn’t bear it if these two people had ended up apart when they so clearly adore one another.” Her words hitched, forcing her to clear her throat.
Khristos turned to face her, his eyes, glinted with amber flecks, searching hers. “If I hadn’t intercepted, Bart would have lost his courage for the second time in their lives and Alice wouldn’t be wearing that carnation around her wrist—one he’d dried and saved all these years. That was her engagement ring, so to speak.”
She clenched her fists and eyes together to keep from crying out an apology to them. “What do you mean by the second time?”
“Bart and Alice knew each other a long time ago. They were almost married straight out of high school, but Bart was drafted and her father didn’t approve of him anyway. Alice’s father made that very clear to Bart. He told Bart he’d kick her out of the house and she’d have to fend for herself while Bart was serving in the military overseas.”
Parents, they could really suck. No one got that better than she did. “How awful.”
“So instead of proposing the way he’d planned, he let her go rather than ask her to choose between him and her family. He feared her father really meant what he said and she’d be left with nothing.”
Her heart ached for them. “Wow. Talk about a painful sacrifice.”
“The sacrifice of real love.”
“What happened to them all that time in between?” All that lost time.
“In the interim, of course, each moved on and married and had families. They hadn’t seen or heard from each other since their high school graduation. Until their fifty-third high school reunion just this past year, where they reunited and fell in love all over again.”
The romantic in her was all ears—ears and floaty hearts and bouquets filled with colorful flowers. “So what’s that got to do with chickening out again?”
Khristos’s face softened, the hard lines easing. “Bart’s dying, Quinn. He has another year, maybe two to live, but he was afraid to burden Alice with the news. Her health is fragile, too. Both families are against them marrying, and Bart almost let his children’s wishes run roughshod over the last bit of happiness he’ll have before he leaves this earth. Today, he was going to break off their relationship. If Cupid hadn’t hit him with that arrow, he might have missed a second opportunity to say to hell with the naysayers and propose to the woman he’s loved for more than fifty years who doesn’t give a fig, as she says, that they only have a little time left—Alice just wants them to spend it together. Bart just needed a nudge in the right direction, and you’ll learn to feel that over time. It’ll become instinct.”
A rush of warmth stung her heart—one she desperately wanted to fight, but Bart and Alice were living proof that, at least for them, true love did exist. They’d proven real love could weather fifty years.
“What would have happened if Bart hadn’t proposed today?”
“They both would have died brokenhearted.”
Quinn gulped, hard, loosening the scarf around her neck. She needed to understand the dynamics of this, the repercussions if she mistakenly did something wrong. Knowing she could muck this up made her all the more determined to get it right in the future. So there’d be no Bart and Alice’s left in her clumsy wake.
“So the earth won’t stop revolving if a match isn’t successfully made, yet, I feel like there’s a ‘but’ attached to that.”
He rolled his wide shoulders, but his eyes were shadowed. “Most times not, but sometimes, one match sets off a chain reaction that can reverberate for lifetimes to come. This time, it was just two people who want to finish out their lives as partners. And sometimes, Quinn, that’s just as important as procreation of future world leaders.”
Quinn swallowed hard again, her chest so tight she almost couldn’t speak at the near disaster Khristos had saved them from. “Thank you,” she whispered at him.
He looked down at her and smiled, that warm, easygoing, “don’t worry about me having my liver eaten straight from my gut night after night while I’m tied down to a boulder” smile and squeezed her shoulders. “That’s why I’m here, Quinn. To help you learn when the timing is right.”
She fought another rush of tears—for Bart and Alice and the time wasted apart all those years due to a disapproving parent, and for the sacrifice Bart was willing to make to be with the woman he loved no matter what anyone else said.
Khristos cupped her jaw, and lifted her chin. “C’mon. We’ve been out here for hours. Let’s go back to your place and have some dinner, and then we’ll give it another try. You just have to loosen up and interpret the varying vibes of matchmaking.”
She moved a step back, because having him so close made her lungs scream for air. “If I get any looser, I’ll end up matching armed robbers to bank tellers. You’re not wrong when you say this feeling I’m supposed to get needs some honing. All I could hear was two heartbeats, and the crashing of them in my ears was so loud, I just figured…” She shrugged, still horrified by her near mishap.
Khristos grabbed her hand again and chuckled as he led her back to Nina and Ingrid. “You know when we really need to worry?”
She blanched. “When?”
“When you mistake some indigestion for true love. That’s always an epic disaster.”
As their hands swung between them, and they crested the small hill to see Nina and Ingrid chatting with Cupid, Quinn barked a laugh, her head falling back on her shoulders. “Note to self, no spicy food until my craft is perfected.”
Khristos chuckled, too, the vibration of it settling in her ears, warm and easy.
And that was just a little nice.
Chapter
Seven
“Are you ready, Quinn?”
Content from one of the best meals she’d had in a long time, Quinn nodded and hid a burp. Though the warmth of the beef stew Darnell the demon had made had since dissipated in her stomach, the sentiment behind it hadn’t.
When they’d arrive back at her house, it was full of people. A man named Archibald, dressed formally in a black suit, silver vest, white shirt and ascot, had waved them to a long table wedged into her tiny living room that had magically appeared in her absence.
On it were bowls and spoons, and napkins folded into small swans. Archibald had apologized for the lack of proper cutlery, but he’d made the trip all the way in from Staten Island at Wanda’s request and decided a more formal place setting would only deter him from his duties—which was to ease Quinn’s load.
He’d greeted her with the same kind of warmth Wanda and Marty had, whisking her off to a place at the table, where he’d poured her a glass of wine and said, “Do rest, Miss Quinn. Goddess work is hard work. Matchmaking must be fraught with pitfalls sure to test the merits of one’s heart, and surely you’re exhausted from your first day out? Now, we’ve taken care of everything. Supper simmers as I speak, and your sheets are freshly laundered and pressed, awaiting your weary head at days end. I’ve watered and fed Buffy and Spike, whom, if I do say so myself, are a delightful couple, even though guilt burdens my heart, as I was Team Angel. And please, don’t trouble yourself until you’ve settled into your new role in life. I’m at your service for as long as needed.”
And then he was off, calling to Darnell—who was in the kitchen making fresh bread—to ensure he’d taken butter out of the fridge so that it would soften enough to spread in time for dinner.
“Quinn?” Khristos interrupted the pleasure brought by the memory of all these strange new people, sitting at a table she didn’t own, all eating together. They’d laughed and chatted and passed bowl after bowl of food, all while she’d watched in silence.
Yet, secretly, she reveled in their friendships and wondered why she’d spent so much of her time with her nose in a book instead of forging friendships of her own.
Because books never left you. That’s why. It was as plain as the nose on her face she had hang-ups where relationships were concerned. Fictitious families never let you down—all you had to do was turn the page for the happily ever after. In the end, the heroine never fell in love with the wrong hero the way Quinn had done repeatedly like some broken record.
Rather than create real-life connections with real-world struggles, she stuck her nose in a book and ignored everything else to the point of isolating herself with her ridiculous expectations.
It wasn’t absurd to think Igor should have been faithful. It was ridiculous to have turned him into something in her mind he absolutely wasn’t interested in being. Hindsight, and the past few days had taught her that.
But she was done with that. Everything she did from here on out was going to be steeped in realism so real, they’d dub her the realest Aphrodite ever.
Khristos grabbed her hand from across the table of the diner they sat in and squeezed it. “You in there?”
Her eyes were heavy now, but she’d had that feeling again shortly after they’d eaten, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t indigestion. That feeling had led them here, to a diner, where, with Khristos’s guidance, she’d pinpointed the difference between an urgent need to match and the quest for a true match.
If what she felt was what Khristos described, then the unsuspecting couple was somewhere in this vicinity, though the diner was almost totally empty.
She snatched her hand back, almost knocking her coffee over. No more hand holding. No more warm fuzzies and crushing on Greek gods who liked leggy blondes. Real people who wanted realistic things didn’t let men like Khristos into their realms of possibility.
“Sorry. I’m just tired, I think. That stew was amazing, and I overate.”
“No joke. But that’s not even the half of it. Wait until Arch breaks out his pancetta-crusted tilapia. Nothing compares to that man’s cooking.”
She found herself wishing she’d be around long enough to do that. After Khristos was gone, and everyone left to go off and continue leading the lives she was coming to envy, it would be just her and Buffy and Spike again. That felt cold and lonely compared to the warmth these people had thrust upon her in such a short time.
“So you’ve known Archibald a long time?” They’d seemed like old friends, laughing and talking about past get-togethers during the course of dinner.
“Yep. Since he was a vampire and I was just a kid. He’s a good guy and his game-day feasts, especially his artichoke dip, are what dreams are made of.”
She smiled absently, running her finger over the rim of her coffee mug, tamping down her envy. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around this paranormal thing. Hearing the word vampire as though it isn’t crazy is still a bit of a struggle.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“So tell me about you. What do Greek gods do all day long?” Attend orgies?
“I’m not a god. I’m just a descendent of one.”
“But it has its perks.”
“If by perks you mean guarding an apple with the power to make or break humankind, sure. It’s very perky.”
Was that bitterness she was hearing? Or boredom? She couldn’t read his tone well enough to know just yet. “You’re being very vague. Why is that, Khristos with a K? C’mon, you can tell me. Do you organize orgies? Iron togas? Make head wreaths out of olive leaves? Sip ouzo while beautiful women pop juicy olives into your mouth all day long as you bask in the glow of Mt. Olympus?”
He cocked a dark eyebrow at her and wiggled it. “I handed over orgy organization to a lowly serf years ago. After a while, when you’ve seen one orgy, you’ve seen them all. Togas get all tangled up around your feet if you’re not careful, not to mention a stiff breeze can present a problem. I hate olives and I prefer whiskey. Jack, to be specific, just in case you pick my name out of the hat for the white elephant this Christmas.”
“So you don’t have a job?”
“My job is to guard the apple.”
“And that’s it? Who pays your bills? Wait, do descendants of Greek gods have bills?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I have bills. How do you suppose we keep the Parthenon up and running? You don’t think sweeping off all those steps just happens, do you? It’s a collective god effort.”
He was mocking her, and the edge to his tone was growing harder by the second—which meant back off. What difference did it make what he did with his days anyway? It was none of her business.
She sat back in the booth and slammed her flappy lips shut. Keeping her distance from Khristos was the smartest thing to do. The less personal they became, the less trouble she could find herself in. She wasn’t going to let his classically handsome face and incredibly hot body, with abs that rippled beneath his stupid sweater that also accented his eyes, sway her either.
They could just sit in silence for the duration as far as she was concerned. Rooting around in her purse, she felt for the current book she was reading, soothed by the cover and the cool feel of it beneath her fingertips.
As she was about to pull it out and bury herself in it, Khristos surprised her.
“So can I ask you a question?”
“I refuse to take over the organization of orgies. I have to have boundaries. Togas are out. I’m too pale to wear white successfully. But I love olives, and while ouzo isn’t really my thing, I’m all for making head wreaths from olive leaves. I was hell on wheels in my last craft class.”
Khristos snorted. “No orgies. Noted. But my question is a little more personal.”
Oh, so now the hunky god wanted something from her that he, himself, wasn’t willing to provide? Huh. She folded her hands on the tabletop, watching the play of the neon signs flash over his face. “And that question is?”
“Igor. How did the two of you end up together? You both seem a pretty unlikely pair.”
How did he know anything about Igor other than what she’d shared out loud at the Parthenon? “How do you know what Igor is or isn’t like?”
“Because I do my homework, and you became my homework when you bit the apple. I needed to understand your state of mind, and how it came to be, in order to understand how to proceed. Being as you’re freshly broken up, it sometimes creates havoc with oversensitivity. No slight to you, it’s just how the heart and mind work.”
Her cheeks grew hot at the memory of all she’d confessed to that stupid apple. “He came into the bookstore where I work a lot.” Like every day for two solid weeks, watching her, flirting with her, asking for suggestions about books she liked.
“And?”
And she thought her daydreaming days had ended when she’d found Igor. He read Shelley and Keats to her while he peered at her over horn-rimmed glasses and she rested her feet in his lap, sipping Bordeaux.
They’d watched Wuthering Heights and Gone With the Wind together on Saturday nights, rebuffing loud nightclubs and crowded restaurants for crackers with Brie and strawberries dipped in chocolate while the strains of Chopin or Beethoven could be heard from her CD player.
They drank wine and talked classic literature while Rachmaninoff and Paganini dusted her cloud of love with the magical arrows of Cupid.
She rolled her shoulders. “And I dunno. He was smart and funny and well versed in all sorts of things I’m interested in, I guess.”
“So you had a lot in common?”
Had they? Looking back now, she wasn’t sure if he’d just pretended to have a lot in common with her because he wanted in her drawers. If Shawna was who he’d turned to, a woman she had absolutely nothing in common with aside from gender, how much did Igor really enjoy Wuthering Heights and listening to Paganini?
“I thought we did. Maybe in hindsight we didn’t.” This was uncomfortable and embarrassing, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t know the whole story anyway.
Khristos nodded, sipping his milkshake. “Nope. You didn’t. But he let you believe you did and you went along for the ride.”
Anger spiked along her spine at being exposed. “And you know this how?”
“Because Igor transforms himself every time some pretty woman catches his eye. You could have been into breeding scorpions and sword swallowing, and he’d have said he was, too. In the end, it all comes crashing down around his ears because he’s not really into sword swallowing. In fact, it bores him to tears. His reasons for beginning a relationship with you or anyone have little to do with anything other than the desire to have sex. At first, anyway. You saw the signs, you just chose to ignore them.”
