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“Hey, I thought that was you.” I offer her a smile, effectively cornering her.
“Paris, hi.” She gives me a wary but polite smile.
“Would you care to join me?” Before she can make an excuse, I add, “I was actually hoping to catch you outside of the manor so I could talk to you about a few things. About Perseus, and why he has been—”
“A huge asshole?”
“Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck. She is blunt. I’m not used to women being so upfront.
“Sure, I have a few moments.”
We get our drinks and head back to my table.
“Come here often?” I ask.
“You had something you wanted to tell me?” She takes a sip of her coffee. “About why you and your buddies have decided that being giant dicks is the best way to honor my mother’s wishes.”
“Well, I honestly don’t think that, but it’s not my inheritance on the line. And you have to understand—”
“Do I though? Do I have to understand?”
“Okay, well let me explain why Perseus is the way he is, and maybe it will make more sense.”
“Sure,” she says, sitting back. I can’t help but notice the way the light is catching her hair, giving her a halo, making her blue eyes seem bigger and brighter. She looks so innocent, like an angel.
“Perseus met your mother when he was a young teen. He had been living in a box with Heph. Literally a cardboard box. Anyway, one night he was attacked by some asshole who thought Perseus was moving in on his turf. He was just a scrawny underfed kid at the time and was pretty much getting the shit kicked out of him. When your mother stumbled out of a bar, drunk with some fresh bruises of her own on her jaw, she saw what was happening and pulled a gun. Without a warning, she fired four shots into the drug dealer. Then she panicked, screaming and crying. So Perseus grabbed her and ran. He took her back to his makeshift house, and they hid there next to some dumpsters while the cops searched the area.”
I stop to take a drink of my coffee and see how Athena is taking all of this. She is chewing on her lip, so I keep going.
“They fell asleep in that box, but when Perseus woke up, she was gone. He was sure it was a dream, and she would never be back. He just lay in that box nursing his broken ribs for who knows how long when Freya finally found him again. Heph tried to scare her off, but he was skinnier that Perseus was. She gave Heph a few hundred dollars and told him to go shopping, get food, and head to this shitty little motel. She handed him a room key. She said she was taking Perseus to the urgent care, and then she would meet him there. Heph didn’t want to, of course, but Perseus told him to go. It would be okay.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, the way Freya told it, Perseus looked her in the eye and said, just to do it. Just kill him and get it over with. He thought she was there to kill the only witness to her committing murder. She pulled him to his feet, put him in the back of a Town Car, and took him to the hospital, paying a lot in cash to make sure there was no record of either being there.”
“So what? She saved him, then he saved her, then she saved him again?” Athena is leaning forward in her chair like she is hanging on every word.
“Pretty much. That was the start of a long friendship. He actually didn’t see her again for a few months. She would send money, keeping both the boys in that motel room, and they were able to start taking care of themselves a little. Eros had moved in with them a while after. Then one day a man shows up. They think they are finally getting the boot, but he tells them Freya is in trouble and needs them.”
“When was this?” she asks.
“About ten years ago,” I answer, having already put the dots together in my head. I wait for her to come to the same conclusion.
“After my father banished her.”
“Yeah, apparently, she was a mess, but having her boys there to take care of gave her purpose.”
“Okay, so where do you fit in?” she asks, catching me off guard.
“I met them at school.”
“There is more to that story.” She narrows her eyes at me.
“A lot more,” I admit, “but I agreed to share all Perseus’s secrets. Not mine.”
“Well, that’s not fair.”
“It has been my experience that life is usually not fair.”
“Which side of that equation are you on?”
I set down my coffee, trying to figure out what she means. “I’m not sure I—”
