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“I can breathe with you,” he interrupted.
“I can’t.” It wasn’t right. I was well aware that people dated—and they dated more than one person at a time, but it didn’t feel like I was dating Pollux. It was more.
“Leo.” Pollux’s voice traveled up from the second floor before his feet hit the steps. Spinning to the steps, I waited for him to emerge, when he did, he wasn’t looking at me. He glared at Paris. “Will you excuse us for a moment?”
Me.
Had he heard what Paris had said? Worse, did he see our kiss? “Pollux…”
“Go, Leo. Please.” He gripped the banister hard enough that the wood cracked. Coming to stand in the office, he kept his hands at his sides. His posture was loose and relaxed, but he wouldn’t look at me, not even when I went to him.
“I—”
His gaze flicked down at me and then away, and the dismissal there had me sucking in a breath. I let out a quick huff. This had to be the fastest relationship in the history of the world. Kissed in the morning, dumped before tea.
“For god’s sake Leonora, make yourself scarce tonight? Your father and I are having guests and your presence is unnecessary and unwanted.”
Unnecessary and unwanted.
Without another word, I left.
Orestes
Leo was a pale shadow, standing in the dark in the guest room. I hovered at the door, hands gripping the frame as I argued with myself.Go? Stay?
The decision was made for me when angry voices trickled from the top floor.
“You couldn’t help yourself.” Pollux spoke too low for Leo to hear, but not for me.
And when Paris kissed Leo? We all heard it. Pollux included.
How he hadn’t rushed up the stairs was a measure of his control, but also due to Achilles and Hector standing between him and the stairs.
“Calm down before you go up there. Remember. She’s mortal.”
As if Pollux would destroy the entire cottage and Leo with it. I knew he wouldn’t. But it killed him to wait those precious minutes and listen to Paris try to coax her to his side.
Leaving Leo in the dark, I hurried into the office on the third floor. Paris sat in the desk chair while Pollux stood, arms crossed, glaring with enough heat to set the place on fire.
“I’m not trying to take her from you, Pollux,” Paris said.
I huffed. “Please. It’s what you do. It’s whatI’ddo.”
“None of you are doing anything,” Pollux countered.
“You’re not helping,” Paris said to me. “I want a chance, that’s all. I don’t care if you kiss her or hold her hand, I want to do it, too.”
“What?” Pollux was already shaking his head, but something in his posture changed. After a moment, he dropped his arms. “I don’t understand.”
“We have been together for thousands of years,” Paris began, “and it’s not going to change. And this is the first woman you’ve cared about. It’s also the first woman any of us have cared about since…”
Mortal lives.
“So I’m just supposed to step aside because you’ve decided you’re over Helen?”
“That’s a low blow, man,” I argued. Paris carried as much guilt as any of us, and it wasn’t like Pollux to rub it in his face.
He scrubbed his hands over the back of his head, then let them drop.
