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I send a thumbs-up emoji like a fucking prick.
Shane:How’s she doing?
I have no explanation for the sick jealousy that turns my stomach at that text. Who the fuck does Shane think he is? Obviously, he’s been with Daisy long enough to know about her trouble with light and even her seizures, but who does he think heis, asking me this?
Pain at my scalp alerts me to the fact that I’ve taken a fistful of my hair andpulled.
He’s worried about her, that’s all. He’s not trying to get in her pants.
He’d better fuckingnotbe trying to get in her pants, because she’s mine.
She is my…client. My protectee. I haven’t discussed payment with Zeus yet. You know what? Fuck it. I’m not taking any money from this. How are we supposed to sit around and put a price on what her life is worth? I won’t do it. I’d rather fucking die.
I force myself to remember Shane’s face last night. I’m sure he was white as a goddamn sheet. His hands shook. He knew about the seizures, but not about the kit, which means he’s not close enough to Daisy for her to have given him one.
I’ll have to talk to her about that, too. Her head of security should have that on him always. It’s not right that he doesn’t.
Unless she’s hiding this kind of episode from her security.
Hercules:She’s fine, but it’s against protocol to give out personal information about a protectee.
Shane:Of course
Shane:We’re on the same team, though! Don’t forget
I type outback the fuck off, prick,delete it, and send another thumbs-up emoji.
Enough of all that. I leave the phone with the tablet on the countertop and let myself stare at Daisy’s studio door.
She hasn’t cracked it in hours.
Normal, for artist types.
Right?
Not normal for security types to be fine with hours and hours of separation. There’s a case to be made that I’m neglecting my duties by not busting down the door to check on her.
I need an excuse.
Wait—she didn’t eat any scrambled eggs. She made me scrambled egg sandwiches, then flitted off to her studio without eating anything. I didn’t see a mini-fridge when I looked in last night, just a stool and an easel surrounded by a lot of canvases with their faces to the walls.
Food it is.
A switch near the stove brings the lights up enough to see what I’m doing. Daisy has lots of cupboards, but not many dishes and pots and pans. That tracks. If she keeps to herself most of the time and lives alone, she wouldn’t need much.
I find a box of shells in the pantry and put a pot of water on to boil. There’s cheese in the fridge. Butter. A little bit of milk.
I’m tipping the shells into the rolling bubbles when it occurs to me that they weren’t a random choice.
I’m nothing like Zeus, and he’s not my dad, and here I am, cooking his niece shells and cheese because that’s whathedoes.
I donotlove that visual. I was in his house eighteen months, and I can see him at the stove at all hours of the night. He never stabbed the shells this aggressively with a spoon, but he still made them. Sometimes he’d carry the bowl upstairs so one or the other laudable son could keep writing their brilliant college papers. Many times, I’d be sitting out by the pool, hating one thing or another about myself or my life, and see him walk across the yard to Hades’s house with the bowl in his palm like shells and cheese has ever fixed anything.
He even made them for me.
I never asked him why he made shells and cheese.
I’m pissed at him, and stuck at the stove, so why the fuck not?
