Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(37)

Another laugh. Hephaestus’s laugh. And it was coming from his first-floor bedroom. Thick, black, unctuous dread filled my body from head to toe. The laugh sounded flirtatious. Possibly passionate.

If he was in there with my mother, I was seriously going to set them on fire.

Clenching my fists, I crept through the parlor and down the hallway behind it on my toes, cursing the warped floorboards of this decades-old house. The door to Hephaestus’s room was closed. I leaned my ear toward it, and he laughed again.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that,” he intoned, his voice throaty. “No idea.”

My lips pressed into a tight, angry line. I thought about walking right through the door so I could catch the two of them in flagrante, but then I imagined what that might look like and I paused. Better to knock. Better to not have that image burned on my brain for eternity. I lifted my fist and pounded on the door.

Silence, followed by a slam. Was it a window? A door? A drawer? I couldn’t tell. Too bad I couldn’t conjure up a hole in the wall so I could see inside. Well, I could have, but I wouldn’t.

“Hephaestus, it’s me.” My voice sounded like it was going to shake apart.

He dropped something. Cursed under his breath. I imagined him trying to get dressed and back in his chair before I opened the door.

Ugh. I had already vomited once since becoming human, and I didn’t want to have to do it again.

“Are you well?” I reached for the doorknob, figuring that if I barged in I could explain it away with my supposed concern.

“I’m fine. Come in.”

I shoved the door open. Hephaestus sat not five feet away at his desk, his cell phone held to his ear. Hung on the wall in front of him was the large mirror he’d brought with him when he’d moved in, about the only personal item he had other than clothing. He’d clearly worked his magic on it. The glass was rimmed by an intricate frame, thousands of thin slivers of various metals woven together to look like a tangle of grass and leaves. I bent forward to check the rest of the room. His queen-size bed was perfectly made, not a throw pillow out of place, but the doors to both the attached bathroom and the closet were closed.

“What’s going on?” I asked, taking a tentative step into the room.

Hephaestus held up one finger to me as he listened to whoever was on the phone. I took the opportunity to edge to the closet. I opened the door quickly and peeked inside, expecting to see my half-dressed mother standing there, but instead I was greeted by perfectly organized shelves of T-shirts and a low bar hung with a couple of leather jackets and jeans. Hephaestus glanced over his shoulder at me as I closed the door. I tried to look casual.

“Yeah, I understand,” he said into the phone. “Of course. I’ll be there.”

I backed toward the bathroom and shoved that door open too. The light was out, but the room was empty. The glass door on the shower stall was pristine enough to tell me there was no one hiding inside. The window was closed and locked from the inside. Nothing amiss.

Oddly, my spirits sank. I didn’t want to not trust Hephaestus, but I suppose the thrill of the hunt had gotten into my veins.

“What’re you doing?”

Hephaestus had wheeled his way over to the door, and now sat looking at me like I might be in need of a lobotomy.

“Nothing,” I said, sashaying past his chair and back toward his desk at the foot of his bed. “Just making sure everything’s okay in here. You are our guest.”

“Is that what I am?”

I glanced at his cell phone, which rested atop his right thigh. “Who were you talking to?”

“Guy from work,” he replied, lifting one shoulder. “He needs me to cover for him this weekend.”

My brow knit. A guy from work? That wasn’t what it sounded like to me.

“True.” He fixed me with a steady gaze. “What the hell is going on?”

I hesitated, my hand on the footboard of his bed. Part of me wanted to tell him what I knew and give him a chance to explain, but I talked myself out of it. If he was here to find a way to get back at me or my mom or dad, then he couldn’t know that I didn’t trust him. He would just try even harder to hide whatever it was he might be hiding.

And if he wasn’t hiding anything, I didn’t want him to know I suspected him. Because then I’d just look like a jerk. Gods, I hated my father. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I’m sorry about before. There’s just a lot going on.”

“I know,” he replied, looking relieved over my apology. “But it looks like the Claudia and Peter plan is starting to come together.”

“Yeah,” I said lightly. “Hopefully.”

He nodded. I looked around the room again. If he wasn’t talking to my mother, and I knew he wasn’t talking to some dude from work, then who the hell had he been talking to?

“Well, I was going to turn in,” Hephaestus said suddenly. “Unless there was something else?”

I sighed. “No. Nothing. Have a good night.”

I walked out and closed the door behind me, feeling like a suspicious nutcase. Like a failure. And somehow, even more certain that Hephaestus was keeping secrets from me. Big, fat secrets.