Chapter 12
CUPID
I wasn't looking forward to the coming confrontation with Hades. He could be prickly at the best of times, but it would seem as if I was messing with him to have put him on a date with Persephone. But there was no alternative. Eloise and I had spent the last couple of days trying to work out if there were potential options for both Hades and Persephone to try and put them on separate dates, but we hadn't found anyone who fit the bill, meaning they were both going to turn up here tonight to meet each other, and they weren't going to be happy about it.
I headed inside, spotting a familiar woman at the bar. With absolutely no thought to why I was here, I made my way over.
"Eloise."
She looked at me with surprise on her face. "Hi." She leaned in to kiss my cheek.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I might have come to spy on the date. I figured that if this was going to happen, then we could at least get some useful information out of it. Are you doing the same?"
"I was coming to explain the situation to Hades," I admitted. "And hope that it didn't go too badly."
"It's a shame Hades has already met me," she said.
"Oh?"
"Well, if he hadn't, then we could have pretended the system had matched him up with me instead of Persephone."
A weird feeling twisted within me at the suggestion, and I found I didn't like it at all.
She put her hand on my arm. "I'd have made sure the date went badly. Well, not too badly. You know what I mean."
I chuckled. "It's not a terrible plan."
"I could message one of my friends, I'm sure they'd do it for us. For a free meal."
"It's probably too late for that," I admitted. "But we should maybe have tried that first." Or gone to Aine and told her about the situation. Though I was still hoping to head it off before it came to that. A simple explanation to Hades and Persephone should sort things out, though I wasn't about to explain to them exactly why it happened, that was between me and Eloise.
"I think you might be too late for intervention though." She looked past me to the dining area.
I followed her gaze, freezing in place when I noticed Hades in conversation with a dark-haired woman who I recognised immediately.
It was far too late to head off any Hades and Persephone drama, they were both already here and knew about one another.
"What do we do now?" Eloise asked.
I grimaced. "Good question."
"We could get dinner," she suggested. "We're already here, and if we're in the same dining room then we can keep an eye on them better. If anything goes wrong, that means we'll be ahead of it."
"Are you just saying that because you want to eat here?"
"Oh, definitely. This place is expensive, and I'd rather eat on Jinx's dime than my own," she joked. "And what else are we going to do?"
"Fair point." And it would be nice to get to eat with her, even if it was technically for work. I put a hand on Eloise's lower back and headed over to the podium where the Maitre d' was waiting poised to assist us. "Table for two, please."
"Of course, sir." He gestured for us to follow him.
"Should I be worried that we're just allowed to walk in?" Eloise whispered to me.
I laughed. "Jinx sets up dates here all the time, they know who I am."
"Oh. I hadn't realised that would be the case."
"Perks of the job. I can get us into almost every upscale restaurant in town," I admitted.
"Almost?"
"I'm not really welcome at Il Cavalluccio Marino."
"Greek-Roman rivalry?" she guessed.
"How did you know?"
"I've looked up all the major gods, and it's a seafood restaurant. I assumed Poseidon owns it."
"Mmm, he's the chef there too," I said.
"Wait, Poseidon is a chef?"
I nodded. "Classically trained too I believe, he's studied just about everywhere he possibly can."
"Huh, that wasn't what I expected."
I pulled out a chair for her and she sat down, touching my hand with hers before I let go and went to my own seat. "Not all of the gods do things related to their fields. You're just used to being around love gods and we love to meddle."
"I've noticed, especially as we're here now instead of just cancelling the date," she pointed out.
"I'm starting to think I should have made a different choice."
"It's too late now. They've already sat down to eat. I'm impressed, if I found myself on a blind date with one of my exes, I'd probably have thrown my drink over them and stormed out already."
"Hmm, well the rumours go that Hades is still in love with Persephone." From what I'd heard, she felt the same, but I had no proof of that. "And she's always been level-headed, other than the whole temper tantrum over going to the god realm to be with Hades for half the year. Though between you, me, and almost every god in existence, I'm pretty sure that was more about getting away from Demeter than anything else."
"So she's actually Persephone's mother?"
"Oh yes, and the entire world knows about it. Anyway, I don't think either of them are going to be horrible about it, but I don't expect them to be happy either."
"So let's hope that nothing goes too badly. At least you can blame me. I've only been at Jinx for a few months, it could just be a case of me messing up because I don't know the system."
I reached out and took her hand across the table. "I'm not going to do that. I meant what I said about making sure nothing happened to your job, I'm not going to go back on that now."
She met my gaze, a lot of emotions lingering there that I didn't expect.
The waiter came over and took our order, breaking through the tension.
"You know, now that we're getting dinner, I realise I am actually hungry," Eloise said.
"You came without eating?"
She cocked her head to the side and toyed with one of the ringlets framing her face. "I guess there was a part of me that was hoping you'd be here and that we could get something to eat afterwards," she said. "As a second date."
"I would have taken you up on the offer," I said. "So does this count?"
"Absolutely not," she responded. "This is a work dinner so we can babysit two immortal beings who have no idea that we're here."
I chuckled. "How could I forget?"
"Now, if you invited me back to your flat for dessert and coffee, that would be a date." She met my gaze, and I could see the hint of challenge there, as if she wanted me to do just that.
"I don't have anything suitable in the fridge," I admitted. "But there's a late-night bakery down the street that makes delicious cannoli, we can pick some out and go back for coffee."
"Good, then we're agreed." She picked up her water and took a sip.
"We are," I murmured, not in the slightest bit confused about what she was suggesting.
"Good, because before Hades called the other day we were having fun."
"We were."
"Good." She looked over to where Hades and Persephone were dining. Unsurprisingly, the two of them seemed to be having a civil conversation. "I'd never guess they were exes. How long ago did they break up?"
"Not that long," I responded. "Maybe two years or so. It's hard to keep track of time."
The waiter appeared and poured us both some wine, putting a pause in the conversation.
"Is it weird?" Eloise asked. "To know you're going to live forever and see all the people you love die?"
"Not all of the people I've loved have died," I responded. "Some of them took the offer of immortality when it came their way."
"You can do that?"
I nodded and picked up my wine. "All gods can. It's just about the only magic I can do, but making someone immortal is easy enough so long as they want it."
"Oh." She leaned back in her seat and I could almost see the thoughts racing through her mind. "So that's why you're not opposed to dating mortals?"
"I've never really thought about it," I admitted. "I've only offered to make one of my partners immortal and he said no."
"Why only one?" She leaned forward, listening intently.
"Some of them were immortal themselves, other relationships ran their course before it was the right time to, and in two cases, I knew how they felt about it and they'd have been insulted if I'd asked. They were very into their faith. I'm sure you can imagine what Rome in the fifteen hundreds was like."
"I'm surprised anyone that into their faith would have dated a Roman god in the first place."
"It wasn't really dating then," I responded. "One of them did it to frustrate her father and try to get him to give her a better marriage contract."
"Did it work?"
"Yes. But she wasn't very pleased with the results. She didn't become fanatical about religion until after her marriage."
"And the other one?"
I cleared my throat. "He was a cardinal."
"Wow."
"Mmhm. He wasn't particularly faith-driven until he got older. The closer he got to death, the more intensely he believed." A pang of sadness travelled through me as I thought about lost lovers. I'd loved deeply before and lost. I didn't regret any of my relationships, but it always hurt when I had the realisation it wouldn't be forever. In an ideal world, I'd find someone who wanted to be with me that long.
"I see." She took a sip of wine. "Would you offer someone immortality again?"
"Yes. But I would never pressure anyone to take it. The choice would be theirs."
"That's very thoughtful. I've heard people say that living forever can be exhausting. I'm not sure I'd agree, but I've not talked to anyone about it before."
My lips quirked up into a smile when I thought back to her answers about immortality from her matchmaking questionnaire. She wasn't opposed to it at all. "I know some of the gods feel that way, but I've never seen it like that myself. The way I see it, I have a long life ahead of me full of people I haven't yet met, things I haven't discovered I like doing, and many people to help fall in love."
A wide smile crossed Eloise's face. "You're one of those people."
"I guess that depends on what you mean by that."
"You're the kind of person who always sees the positives in life."
I shrugged. "I guess. But I don't see anything wrong with that."
"Oh, me neither. My friends used to tease me about that. You should probably know before you see it, but I have Live, Laugh, Love painted on my living room wall. And not ironically."
I chuckled. "I'll consider myself warned. Though I'm not surprised. It takes a certain kind of person to want to be a matchmaker."
"Mmm. My mum told me it was a terrible idea because I'd watch other people find love but would be single myself. I think she was worried that it would depress me and make me think that there couldn't be anyone out there for me. I never really understood what she was getting at. It's a happy thing for me to see people find love, even if I haven't found it myself." Her expression changed, and I could tell that she was thinking something she didn't want to say. Spending a couple of thousand years as a love god had given me a lot of insight into reading people. She wasn't saying anything extreme like that she could be in love with me, that was ridiculous at this stage of our potential relationship, but she was probably thinking about the fact she could see that happening.
Our meals arrived, stopping me from being able to say anything in response, though perhaps that was a good thing. It was better to leave her to process her thoughts on her own, she'd share them with me when she was ready to, and I was glad for that. I didn't want to pressure her into any kind of relationship. Whatever happened between us needed to be because she wanted it, and no other reason.
But sometimes, it was possible to tell when something was real between people, and right now, I was feeling that between us.