Chapter nine
Aedonaeus
After my reconnection with Josie, I tried not to think about her, despite the fact that I have spent years secretly dreaming about her. She’s somehow more than I remember. Witty and charming without trying. She commands a room without even thinking about it. Who is she?
Josie admitted she isn’t from here, but she didn’t divulge where she originates from. I do know the most important person to her is Vivian. That’s her sister without relation, and she said that they’ve been through things together. That could point in any direction. Usually when I hear that sort of sentiment it means that they’ve just been through routine everyday life together or that they were roommates, but the way she said it was haunted. She doesn’t strike me as shallow. I mean, she bashed a man’s face in because he bothered her.
The way she had posted up on her side of the booth said that she was confident. She challenged everything I said, which tells me she’s speculative. Her frustrating demeanor only attracts me that much more, like a fly caught on a web. I just want to see her again and prove to myself that I’ve been building up this girl in my head. She can’t rival a version of herself that she doesn’t know exists.
I recall that Hermes’ boyfriend, David, introduced Vivian as his coworker. If I go to the clinic, I can ask about her sister, track Josie down, and move on from it all. I can focus back on work and continue filling my bed with thoughtless women. If Josie can’t be the woman I imagined her to be, then I can realize that doesn’t exist, and find some woman that will fulfill the basic role of being my future wife. My future wife can do whatever it is she wants, and I can go about my own business.
Sounds fucking miserable.
By the time I look up from my engrossing thoughts, I’m in front of the clinic where David works, with Hermes. I was here the day we opened it. It was meant to help the citizens of Asphodel. Had I seen Vivian there at the opening? Was Josie only one person away all this time, and I am so arrogant that I never spoke to someone I couldn’t sleep with? How many times have I passed off the job of checking in and dropping off funding to Hermes?
I run around in circles thinking and thinking, even as we open the door and the cool air conditioning blasts me in the face. These sorts of places are always so fucking cold.
People are scattered around the waiting room. Some are severely injured and others look ill, doubled over in pain. I follow Hermes up to the desk where he begins chatting with the receptionist. Not chatting, but flirting. I roll my eyes already tired of his bullshit.
“Is Vivian here?” I interrupt too eagerly.
The redhead behind the desk looks at me, her eyes lighting up. “Oh my gosh, Hermes, who do we have here?” she asks in a nasally voice.
I’m already tired of this interaction.
“This is Aedonaeus. He’s just dropping off the check with me.” Hermes cocks an eyebrow, asking me what the fuck I’m doing.
“Vivian?” I repeat to the woman. “...and David.” I add, trying to throw him off my trail.
“Oh, yeah. They’re about to go on lunch,” the receptionist continues, now ignoring Hermes entirely.
“Lucky me,” Hermes grumbles to himself.
“Since they’re heading out, I can probably help you with whatever it is you need, handsome.” The receptionist winks.
“Not likely,” I say more to myself than to her.
From two swinging doors off to the side, David and Vivian, dressed in burgundy scrubs, emerge with messenger bags slung over their shoulders. They’re in deep conversation. From the way they have their heads together whispering and giggling, I think it may be gossip. Vivian steals a quick glance at the receptionist and mid-whisper her eyes land on me. The two of them straighten up and David bounds over, throwing his arms around Hermes' neck. Hermes grimaces over his shoulder.
“Oh my gosh, Hermes!” David plants a kiss on Hermes’ mouth.
He shifts uncomfortably. “Thought I would surprise you.”
David looks me over, lingering on an area that isn’t my face. “This is a surprise. And you brought the handsome one.”
“We’re going to take you to lunch.” Hermes tries to rope me in. I deserve that, but I’m not going to indulge him.
“Shit, I just remembered that I have to bring some paperwork that I left at home to the treasury.” I pretend I’m disappointed, and Hermes glares at me.
“Next time. What about you, Vivi? Are you coming with us? Hermes always takes me to this little place around the corner, and their saki is to die for,” David gushes.
She shakes her head no, eyeing me again. “Oh, I couldn’t intrude. I’ve got lunch in my bag.”
“Ugh, please. We both know you have, like, three granola bars and an apple.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “I like my granola bars.”
“It’s your funeral.” David shrugs, but as Hermes leads him away, he turns around and whispers. “I’ll bring you something back.”
She gives him a polite grin before he disappears out of the door.
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m only interested in women,” Vivian says jokingly, but there’s an underlying curiosity.
Compared to Josie she seems polite, maybe even kind. I smirk and place my hands in my pockets. They are so innately different that it’s amusing.
“She’s engaged,” the receptionist tries to throw herself into the conversation, hoping I’ve made some sort of grave mistake.
“I was wondering if you had a moment to talk?” I ask Vivian, ignoring the redhead.
“Is this about a rabid dog that you fed dinner to the other night?”
So she does have wit just like her sister, and they talked about me. I gesture toward the door. “If we could.”
“I guess I can spend my break soothing a broken heart.”
“You know, I might go to lunch soon,” the receptionist announces loudly.
“You already took yours, Jess. It would probably be best if you did your job instead of ogling every man who comes in.” Vivian rolls her eyes.
Jess’ face reddens, deeper than the shade of her hair, and she glues her eyes to the paperwork in front of her.
I follow Vivian out onto the street, and she leads me to a group of tables around the back. It looks like a sort of break area for the clinic. I lean against the table.
“Please sit. You’re making me anxious.” She starts to unpack her bag, pulling out a sandwich and a few other items. Granola bars and an apple included. I oblige, sitting on the plastic bench across from her. Some of the paint has been worn away, exposing rusted bars. The area around us is overgrown, and ivy creeps up the walls. “So, why are you here?”
I’m at a loss for words. I didn’t think this through before coming here and now I don’t know what exactly to say.
“Hello.” She waves her sandwich hand in front of my face. “I like to eat my lunch in peace.”
I take another look around. “Not very peaceful out here.” The sound of people shouting in the street, and construction on the next block over, are distracting.
“I like it,” she says indignantly. “You can find peace anywhere. Not all of us are rich snobs who get our condos paid for by our boyfriends. Some of us work for a living.”
I don’t know if that’s directed at me, but it doesn’t seem like it. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“I know, because you’re here obsessing over my sister.” She shoves the sandwich into her mouth and takes a massive bite. A pickle falls out of the back onto the wrapping she left laid out as a plate.
“I’m not obsessing,” I defend myself. I am.
“Yeah, and I’m Aphrodite.”
“I’ve never seen her. You could be,” I offer.
She shovels the sandwich into her mouth. “Is this all the charm everyone was talking about? I’m disappointed.” Some sort of sauce runs down her arm.
“Do you both eat like starved dogs?”
“Excuse yourself,” she admonishes me through a mouthful of bread.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
She gives me a small smile and offers me a cookie she pulled from a package. “First time being nervous?”
I want to argue, but I am nervous. It’s uncomfortable. I take the baked good and shift in my seat. Vivian gave me a cookie like a child so I wouldn’t feel so much like this. It’s a kind gesture, unlike one I’ve ever received. People have done nice things for me, but it’s never simple. I can see why Josie cherishes her so much.
“Thank you.” I take a bite. I can’t remember the last time I had a cookie, and the flavor explodes in my mouth. “This is really good.”
She smiles wide. “I made them.”
“Well, it’s really fucking good.”
“I’m a pretty good baker if I do say so myself. I give cookies to the patients after we fix them up. I cook, too, but I only learned because we would starve if I didn’t.”
“Josie doesn’t cook?” I’m not really surprised.
“She used to,” she says with a ghost of sadness. “I don’t mind. I rather enjoy it.”
“Well, the patients are lucky if they’re getting these cookies. This could mend just about any broken bone if you ask me.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that. David is always trying to hijack them from the break room,” she giggles.
“There are a lot of people in that waiting room,” I say. It’s heavy on my mind.
“Oh, yeah.” Her face falls. “We don’t have enough staff for the demand.”
“Why not?” I take another bite of the cookie.
She picks at her food. “Not enough money.”
“I thought the crown sends money every moon? We came here to drop it off.”
“This isn’t my place to say.”
While I’ve mostly fucked around when it comes to work, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to make a difference. I’ve been selfish, but I don’t want to see Asphodel fall apart. Hades doesn’t want his people living in squalor. He wants to protect them. Sending Hermes to bring the money has clearly been a mistake. This entire time he has probably been doing whatever he could to run from David. He must have been too busy to notice the place is in disrepair and needs help.
I look into her eyes and show her I’m being serious. “I can do something about it.”
Vivian sighs and looks around quickly. “The crown donates money, but the demand is going up. More people have been moving to Asphodel, and most of them don’t have money. We can’t get any healers to work here because the pay isn’t enough to survive in this city.”
“Why is David employed here then? He doesn’t strike me as a charity worker.”
“Because Hermes pays for everything. He’s a great healer, and he likes to help. Without Hermes he would leave.”
“How do you afford it?”
Her face contorts. “That’s rude.”
“You’ll dish David’s business to his boyfriend’s best friend without issue, but not your own?”
“My sister would kill me if I told you this,” she warns.
“I’ll take the chance.” I wink.
She huffs and shakes her head. “People don’t know this, but Jo contributes sixty percent of our funding.”
“David said she’s an escort.”
Vivian chokes, coughing until she washes down the sandwich with a bottle of water. “You could say that.”
“So she really is an escort?”
Vivian starts to laugh maniacally to the point she is gasping for air, as if I have said the funniest thing she has ever heard. “An escort of violence, sure.”
I narrow my eyes at her and ignore the comment. “Why does she donate that much?”
“She says that it’s her way of contributing to society without having to be a part of it. Where we came from there wasn’t really medical care. It was all do it yourself.”
“How much does the crown contribute to funding?”
“Probably about ten percent,” she shrugs.
Ten percent? What the fuck? I make a note in my head to discuss the allocation of funds with Hades. I feel like shit. This is something that could have been taken care of ages ago if I hadn’t spent all this time chasing pleasure.
“I’m going to talk to Hades about it,” I promise her.
“Wow, first name basis. Didn’t realize I was sitting in the company of a royal asshole. Are you the king’s treasurer or something?”
“Something like that.”
“Anyways, enough about my work problems. You’re here to ask me something.”
I clear my throat, finally getting my bearings. “I was wondering if you could tell me where to find your sister.”
“And let you get murdered? I can’t have that kind of blood on my hands.”
“I had a good time with her the other night. I just wanted to tell her that.”
“You mean like you did in the alley a few years ago?” she snorts.
Josie must have told Vivian everything. I’m not sure what I expected. The closest thing to siblings that I have are Minos and Hermes, but they’re idiots. It makes this conversation a little easier if I don’t have to dance around things.
I relax a little. “So you know about that?”
“Oh, I know all of it. I’m not telling you where to find her. Hell, I don’t even know where to find her half the time.”
“She said you were close,” I mention, confused.
“We are.”
“And you don’t know where to find her?”
Vivian clears her throat and sets her sandwich back on the wrapping. “Jo is like the sun,” She uses her hands to speak. “You can look up at it, but if you touch it, it burns, right?”
I thought it was a rhetorical question, but she waits for me to nod.
“But sometimes clouds cover it and it can get dark. It dips below the horizon at night to recharge away from everyone and everything it touches. Everything. So do I know the sun will rise eventually, even if I can’t see it? Yeah, of course. Do I worry it might not? Also, yes. Maybe one day it doesn’t. I can’t control that.”
“You would let your sister disappear?”
“Think of me what you will, but Jo is a big girl. She can handle anything on her own. I wouldn’t have survived this life if it wasn’t for her.”
“She said you two have been through things together.”
“That’s an understatement,” Vivian snorts, then covers her mouth as if she just gave away a monumental secret.
“I want to ask her on a date,” I admit.
“You and everyone else.”
“Comforting.”
“Yeah, and you’re some saint? Tell me something, if I told you Jo wasn’t interested, I’d bet you’d go get Jess’ number.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I answer earnestly.
I fucking hate what Josie is doing to me. It would be so easy to go inside, grab the receptionist’s number, and see her later, but the thought of it already makes me want to gouge my eyes out.
Vivian opens a granola package and takes a bite out of it. “What do you really want with her?”
“Like I said, a date.”
“You don’t know what you want with her. Yeah, maybe you take her on a date, which fat chance she says yes, by the way, but after that? Say she does sleep with you, then what? You don’t see her again? I’m not saying that Jo would be upset. Most likely she wouldn’t even think about it, but that’s not what I want for my sister. I can’t contribute to that,” Vivian explains.
The girl is analytical. Either she’s had this conversation dozens of times, or she spoke to Josie about this specific scenario.
“You’d be stupid to think that I’ve never had this conversation before.”
She can read minds, too. Great.
“I don’t…I…” I try to piece together my thoughts. “She’s one of the most interesting people I have ever met.”
“She is.” Vivian nods in agreement. “She’s complex and closed off. I’ve known her a long time, and I still haven’t figured her out. She’s kinda terrifying and recklessly impulsive. She probably plucks people’s eyeballs out for fun. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“And that makes her not worth it?” My voice rises in anger even though I don’t mean for it to. Vivian’s mouth pops open in shock before she snaps it closed.
“Listen, Aedonaeus, I’m pulling for you. I really am. When she was with you it was the first time I’ve seen her enjoy herself in a long time and forget about things.”
“So she enjoyed herself the other night?” I grin.
It feels kind of pathetic to need validation that Josie likes me in some capacity. I’m not insecure, but then again maybe I am. Josie is the first girl I’ve ever had to chase.
“I’m not at liberty to say.” She gives me a sly smile. That would be a yes.
I chuckle. “Are you at liberty to say anything?”
Vivian’s tone turns serious. “Jo doesn’t appreciate people speaking for her. There was a time where she didn’t get much say.”
More half-explained statements. It’s more than I’ve gotten from Josie, but she only confuses me further.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Enough about my sister. Unless you’re here to discuss how you want to be a healer, I’ve gotta go.” Vivian eats the last bit of her sandwich quickly, and tosses the rest of her uneaten lunch in the bag.
“That wasn’t a long lunch.”
“Did you see the waiting room in there? If I don’t go back we’ll be here late into the night, and my fiancé is cooking dinner for me. Don’t wanna keep her waiting. She’s a stickler for time.”
“You’re really not going to tell me how to find Josie?” I ask incredulously. I thought we were playing a game that would end in Vivian caving. She’s nice with the same edge that Josie has. I should have known better; she’s loyal.
“You found her once, who says you can’t find her again?”
“Say I do. How do I get her to agree? You said it yourself, she’ll probably try to get out of it.”
“I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” She gives me a soft smile. “It was good to see you, Aedonaeus. I’m glad you’re not actually a full-on jerk.” Vivian disappears around the corner, leaving me sitting there.
I will see Josie again. I know that much. It happened once, it could happen again. Still, I’m not patient, and knowing that I finally had a possibility of finding her through her sister kept me confident. I figured she might give Josie up to me with how awestruck she seemed at our interactions. I’m no closer than I was before I came here. Instead, I’m leaving with questions, and the understanding that I’ve been failing the very people I vowed to help.
Part II
One for our Inhibitions