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“Yes, Ms. Godwin.” The waiter shuffles away, and I can’t help feeling a little emasculated.
“I can pay for my own meal.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can, but a few years ago my father and I had a bet going, he lost badly, and now I get to come here whenever I want, with whomever I want, and he foots the bill. Trust me, this will be one of the smallest he has seen from me.” She gives a devilish grin. “You’re actually doing me a favor. I like to jab at my father whenever I can.”
That does make me feel a little better.
We sit in silence for a bit. Not awkward silence, however, and I’m finding myself getting more and more comfortable.
“So what was your question?” I prompt.
“Right! You asked why I am looking after Ellen. Paris told me how she and Perseus met, and that for a while she put you and him up at a little apartment when you were young.”
“Yes.” I’m not sure where she is going with this, but I am treading carefully.
“Right, well. He then told me that you guys were brought to the estate when she needed someone. It would have been right after she left my father, and he banished her.”
“Yes.”
“He said that you, Perseus, and Eros took care of my mother in a way I couldn’t. I’ve read a little of her journal and letters she wrote during that time, and I know that she was depressed and you three helped her get out of bed and eventually became the reason she started living again.”
“A lot of good it did in the end.”
Athena reaches across the table to take my hand. “It did a lot of good. You helped her in a way I wasn’t given the opportunity to, and I am forever grateful to you for that. Showing Ellen the same generosity is my way of paying that back. Maybe not for Paris, but for the universe. I am putting more of that kind of energy into the world. Maybe I am paying it forward.”
“Don’t tell anyone this,” I say leaning forward, “but I fucking love that movie.”
Her eyes light up with laughter. “I won’t tell a soul.”
“I may have misjudged you,” I say once the waitress drops off our steaks and ton of little bowls piled high with all kinds of side dishes.
“No, you got it right. I’m a bitch. I’m proud of that fact. I was there to take what should have been mine. Granted, if Perseus just talked to me, and had given me what I was after, then maybe I would have let him have it, but probably not.” She takes a sip of her whiskey. “I have made it my life’s mission to be the one person you do not want to put against in this city. We were on opposite sides of a problem, and if you hadn’t come at me the way you did, I wouldn’t respect you.”
Her words take me by surprise. Apparently, I’m not the only one who can use the truth like a war-hammer. I don’t know what to say, so I take a bite of my steak, which of course is the best steak I have ever had.
“But, in light of everything, I hope we can be on the same team.”
“You mean with Paris.”
“I mean with Perseus.” She sets her fork down, so I do the same, preparing for this to go very bad very fast.
“What about him?”
“I am calling the lawyer and seeing what options are available with my mother’s estate. After reading her journals, I can see that he was just as much a son to her as I was her daughter. So, I am looking at options where we can split it all. Equal distribution without selling the estate. I know it’s your home, and I’m not taking it. The lawyer is to come up with several options that he can present to Perseus and me. Then I intend to come up with a solution that we are both amenable if not content with.”
“Why would you do that? As of right now, everything would be yours.”
“Because it shouldn’t be. I may be a badass bitch, and trust me I am, but that doesn’t mean I am unreasonable, some of the time. That, and I like you. All of you. I envy the family you have built. The bond.”
“Don’t you have brothers? Don’t you have a real family to go home to?”
“Let’s just say there are reasons my mother left.” She gives me a tight smile. “But yes, I have two brothers and my father. It’s complicated. I’d die for them. I’d also kill for them. But that doesn’t mean we have the same bond that you have with Perseus, Heph, and even Paris. I have an extended family that is a nightmare, and my family owns an island where it’s fair to say the occupants of Heathens Hollow hate every single Godwin. So, I’ve never really felt… at home.”
