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His grin is the nicest thing I’ve ever seen.
I only have a few seconds to memorize it, and then my tears are being put to good use.
* * *
“We’re staying here,”Hercules announces the next day at dinner. It’s chaos in Zeus's giant living room, everybody walking around with plates and bickering over the best places to sit.
On the opposite side of the room, Zeus’s mouth drops open and his eyes go wide and he looks so genuinely, childishly delighted that I laugh out loud. My uncle turns his back, pretending to be interested in the drinks fridge.
Nobody else answers.
“We’re staying here,” Hercules shouts.
“We get it,” Castor shouts back. “What did you want, a round of applause?”
“Kind of,” Hercules answers, equally as loud.
Pollux jumps to his feet and starts clapping. Artemis cackles, grinning at Calliope, and joins in. Apollo looks at Artemis like he’s never been fonder of another person in his life, catches himself doing it, and beams at Hercules instead.
Poseidon starts a pirate chant that seems mostly directed at Zeus until my dad slaps him on the back of the head.
“No chants,” he orders, but he looks happier than I’ve ever seen.
Ares claps the longest with my mom and Brigit and Ashley.
Demeter wanders in from the dining room, Gio trailing behind her, looking flushed and satisfied. I look away on instinct and pretend I didn’t notice.
“What’s all this?” Demmy looks over the room with a skeptical arch to one eyebrow. “A collective hallucination? It’s brunch, isn’t it?”
“Hercules and Daisy are staying,” my dad tells Demeter as my mom comes to his side and wraps her arms around his waist.
Demeter stares at him, shaking her head slowly, as if she can’t believe she’s still putting up with him after all these years. “Obviously? They’ve been here two weeks. Did you think they left?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Demeter.”
“No,” my mom says. “I think he means they’re staying in the city. They’re staying close to us.”
“Isn’t that lovely.” Demeter shoots Gio a look. “People make the most interesting choices, don’t they?”
“Demmy, do you want some food?” Zeus asks, grinning at the plates in his hands. “Shells and cheese, if you want.”
“Ooh.Yes.” Demeter goes toward the plate, and my dad breathes a sigh that sounds relieved.
“Were Demeter and Gio fucking in the garden?” Hercules murmurs in my ear.
“Probably.”
“Good for them.”
“Oh my God. Stop.”
“No,” he says. “I won’t.”
* * *
After we’ve spenta week house-hunting and twenty minutes deciding to move across the street from my dad and fifteen seconds signing paperwork on my phone, he announces that we’re having the annual end-of-school pool party at Zeus’s house, the way we always did after we moved to the city.
“Dad, it’s July. And we’re not in school.”
