Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(65)
“Harmonia,” he said. “She warns that they’ve focused their efforts on the queen, doing everything in their power to send Hera over the edge, so much so that Zeus has now banished them to Etna to try to remove them from Hera’s presence.”
“But they can get back from Etna,” my mother said, fiddling with a golden A pendant I hadn’t seen before. “There are the tunnels. . . .”
“Of course they can,” Hephaestus snapped. He wheeled closer to the staircase and looked up at me, desperate. “If they get back to Hera and she loses her temper, those two will be here in no time.”
“Well, what can we do?” my mother asked. “Appeal to Hera ourselves?”
“How? We can’t communicate with her,” I replied shakily. Then I looked at Hephaestus. “Unless you know of a way.”
“To communicate with the queen? How would I know that?” he demanded.
My fingers closed around the second half of the spy cam in my pocket. I had my suspicions, but as of now they were only that—suspicions.
“We can pray to her,” my mother said bitterly. “Offer a sacrifice. Perhaps that will get milady’s attention. Perhaps she will take pity on my wrongly banished daughter, and that will purchase the time you need.” She walked over and laid her hand over mine. “?’Tis a dangerous profession, this.”
“Indeed,” I replied with a small smile.
At least I knew that my mother had finally come around. If she was willing to pray to Hera, her archenemy, then she definitely had my back. But with Apollo and Artemis coming after me, I had the awful feeling her pleas wouldn’t be enough.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Peter
“Saturday night was pretty sick, right?” Josie said, lifting her legs across my lap at the lunch table. She took out a lollipop, unwrapped it, and then brought it to her tongue. “When are we going to do it again?”
“Which part?” I asked, sliding my hand up her thigh. I felt nervous doing it, which was weird. We’d done a lot more than that on Saturday night. But then again, I wasn’t exactly sure how far we’d gone. We hadn’t had actual sex, though. I was sure I’d remember that. But when I concentrated as hard as I could, my memories were nothing but flashes. Flashes of her closed eyes, her open mouth, and her naked upper body.
After that, nothing.
“Every part,” Josie replied. “God, I wished I lived in the city. This stupid town is so boring.”
Oh. So she was talking about the driving-into-the-city part. Not the being-with-me part.
The double doors to the cafeteria opened, and everyone turned to stare. Ten guys in tuxedos walked inside in a straight line and over to a nearby table. They made a semicircle around a couple of girls, someone blew into a harmonica or something, and then they started to sing. It was the latest boy band ballad that was played every fifteen seconds on the radio, and when they were done, one of the guys pulled out a rose and asked Ashlynn Simone to homecoming.
“Yes!” she screeched, jumping up to kiss him.
Some people applauded, and then the guys split up and went to their lunch tables. I guess they went here, but I didn’t recognize half of them.
“See?” Josie said, sucking on her lollipop. “Boring.”
“You’re not into homecoming?” Gavin asked from across the table.
She lifted one shoulder, and her feet rubbed together on my leg. “It’s not that I’m not into it, if someone wanted to ask me.” She looked away casually, but I could see her trying to check my reaction out of the corner of her eye.
My pulse started to race. Did that mean that she wanted me to ask her, or that she didn’t want me to ask her? Automatically, I glanced over at Claudia’s table. She was eating a yogurt as she talked with her friends. The sunlight streaming through the windows brought out the golden strands in her hair. I started to feel this awful sort of pit open up in my stomach, and I heard True talking inside my head.
Saying that Claudia wasn’t over me. That Keegan Traylor was just her rebound.
But then I saw Keegan Traylor with his tongue down her throat, and the pit closed up.
“I just wouldn’t want them hiring the frickin’ boys’ choir to do it,” Josie finished finally. “I mean, how unoriginal can you be?”
“So you just want something bigger? Better?” I reached over and tugged her chair closer to mine, forcing her knees to bend. She screeched and laughed as she careened into my side.
“More creative,” she clarified. “Why? You have someone in mind?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure I’m creative enough for you.”
Josie’s smile slowly curled across her face. “Oh, I think you’ll do fine.”
I grinned back. So there it was. Like a pre-asking. I was going to homecoming with Josie Morrissey. Not Claudia Catalfo. And knowing that for sure felt like a true ending. Like it was really over and there was no going back.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
True
“Is this something I can get arrested for?” Wallace asked.
The receiving end of my spy camera was in his hand, the connector hovering right next to the side of his laptop. Classes had just ended for the day, and we sat in the back corner of the library, my palms itching like crazy.