Chapter 11
Persy
“I don’t like him,” Nikolas said for the millionth time that day, causing my headache to surge powerfully in my temples. I dropped my pen, rubbing my fingers over my skin and trying to regain even a second of composure.
I hadn’t felt steady since I saw Sebastian’s bare back that morning. The low note of fear that always threaded through my chest around him flared dangerously at that sight.
There was something so … primal about the way he’d ripped his shirt over his head with one hand. Like he was preparing to walk into a fight. Pick someone up and throw them to the ground.
I’d barely been able to make it through the walk to Calpurnia’s office, so much so I was tempted to postpone Sebastian’s session with her and demand that hour for myself.
She was going to see right through me, especially since I’d done an awful job of listening to her other demand—that I start getting comfortable delegating.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know how or didn’t think it was necessary. It was just that I’d grown so used to the control. I had to do everything at the start, just to prove that I could.
In fact, I didn’t really care to control that much at all. The small, minute details, not unlike steering a ship through rough waters and having to calculate the exact path and coordinates to safety, was what gave me a pounding headache.
It was much easier for me to come up with a more abstract solution.
Luckily, the nuisance sitting across the desk from me was very good at the stuff I wasn’t. “I know you don’t,” I said, keeping my eyes closed. It was easier to think like this. “But can you please try to remember that you were once friends?”
Nikolas sighed so heavily that it forced my eyes open. He ran his hands down his face, looking so much like Lukas for a second I thought they’d switched places. If you really analyzed them, Lukas took after their mother a bit more, while Nikolas almost eerily resembled their father.
Nikolas had just gotten around to talking about his father without tears welling in his ocean-blue eyes.
“He doesn’t give a damn about whether or not we were friends,” Nikolas shot back and I tried not to react to the bite in his tone. “He had no consideration for our friendship when he targeted me to betray my brother.”
All fair points, but that didn’t mean Sebastian didn’t deserve the grace of a second chance. “Niky, I don’t mean to pry, but are you sure it’s him you’re mad at for that?”
Based on the look of guilt that flicked across Nikolas’s face, I was— “You’re right.”
I couldn’t help my smile, the corner of my mouth ticking up.
“Don’t you dare smile,” Nikolas shot back, affection in his tone. “I’m growing and changing and all that. I can admit when I’m wrong.”
I leaned back in my chair, pulling my knees up to my chest. “I’m proud of you.” It was half a light-hearted jab and half an earnest statement. He hadn’t grown so much as uncovered who he really was. His natural state certainly wasn’t the drunken, hollow version of himself Lukas pulled into Prometheus all those months ago.
“But that fact remains,” Nikolas said, grabbing his water glass. I wasn’t going to tell him that the condensation building on the glass jumped into his hand inches before his palm actually connected with it. Siblings of gods often had little pieces of their full power, but Nikolas had lost it entirely after he abdicated. He needed to notice for himself that it was coming back. “I still don’t like him.”
It was not lost on me that I had the urge to defend Sebastian, but I intentionally chose to ignore that. “Noted.”
Nikolas scoffed, the sound half a laugh. “You know he thinks we’re dating, right?”
I straightened slightly in my chair. “Why do you think that?” I mean, I knew that was true, but I was still … curious.
“He wouldn’t be half as combative with me if he thought we were just friends.” Nikolas was staring at me like he was expecting me to spill about something, but he’d find nothing but a paper thin rapport that consisted solely of me talking and Sebastian trying to restrain a threat every time I thanked him for something.
I waved a hand in dismissal, this topic making me feel slightly … more terrified, I guess. I couldn’t do this now, not when I had an entire night ahead with him. I’d have to go right to my side of the studio if I was going to handle that.
“More importantly,” I said, pointedly ignoring the look Nikolas gave me that screamed I caught that diversion. “He’s giving me a list today of all the high-ranking members.”
Nikolas lurched forward in his seat. “Already?”
My eyebrows scrunched together. I didn’t know Sebastian that well, but I didn’t think that was out of character for him. “He said he knew when he’d lost.”
Nikolas smiled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t make me respect him, I swear to the Fates, Persy.”
I laughed rather than telling him that was my goal. He knew what the end goal was.
Sebastian leaving.
Well, Sebastian back as Apollo.
“Can we please try to finish this?” I looked down at the stack of files on my desk, trying to finalize a proposal for placing former residents at one of the universities in Rome. I knew how to handle this, at least. There was a clear path forward.
Nikolas hit me with another look I chose to ignore, leaning forward to take the proposal out of my hands. “Go home, Persy. I can finish this.”
“But, I—”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Nikolas said, wrestling the papers out of my grip. Unfortunately, he was naturally stronger than me and I didn’t really feel like using any of the maneuvers Lilah Ares taught me on him. “You’ve done enough for me today.”
I frowned at his insinuation. “I don’t consider having lunch with two friends to be a chore.”
Nikolas’s mouth curved into a smile that was surely intended to be self-deprecating. “You were my support system because I have yet to keep my head on straight around Kostas.”
I moved my hand over my mouth to cover the purely gleeful grin on my mouth. Nikolas knew how excited the prospect of him and Kostas getting together made me, but I didn’t want him to feel even more pressure than the weight he was already placing on himself.
“I thought it went really well,” I said, trying to hide the excitement in my voice. Nikolas and Kostas would have to come together on their own, even though I knew—from their own admission—they were both half in love with the other.
Nikolas brought Kostas freshly cut flowers at least once a week. Kostas had made every single dish, pastry, or small bit of food that Nikolas had ever mentioned for him.
But there was still a bit of hesitation on both sides, both of them still working through the reasons they ended up in Prometheus.
As a friend, I wanted them together as soon as possible. But as someone who might be in a position of authority, especially for Kostas, I didn’t want to risk either of them thinking getting together was something they had to do.
“I was a blubbering idiot,” Nikolas cried, dropping his head back.
“If you won’t listen to her, at least listen to me,” a kind, but confident voice sounded from the door. “I do have the gift of knowledge after all.”
Nikolas straightened right as a smile broke across my lips. My throat prickled with the threat of tears at the uninhibited excitement that sprang across Nikolas’s face at his sister-in-law’s voice.
He all but jumped out of his chair to go give Daphne a hug. Daphne returned it freely, letting him rock her back and forth. Once Nikolas gave her an inch of slack, she pushed back and grabbed his face with her hands. “Kostas loves you and you know it. Take your time, but at least be confident in that.”
Nikolas’s shoulders dropped an inch in relief, and the same emotion spread through my chest. “Right as always, sister.”
Daphne smiled at the endearment. The first time Nikolas had called her that, I was pretty sure she’d almost cried. Her eyes had looked like amber leaves covered in morning dew. She stepped aside slightly to meet my eyes. “Do you mind if I steal him away?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, I can finish his work before catching myself at the last moment with a breath.
“What did you have planned?” Nikolas asked Daphne. “I have some work to finish.”
I had to clench my hand over my pencil, hard enough that it bit into my skin, to draw my attention away from the prickling in my throat.
“That’s perfect, actually,” Daphne said, pushing her crimson hair behind her shoulder. “Lukas decided to abandon me for the day, so I could use the company while I do my own work.”
Nikolas’s shoulders tensed ever so slightly. He and his brother still weren’t on the best terms—half due to Nikolas’s guilt over his actions and half from Lukas’s remaining rage over the harm he caused Daphne. He pushed through it, responding, “And by abandon you mean…?”
“He’s simply doing his job and I’m choosing to be dramatic about it,” Daphne said, smiling as she said it, like she could do nothing but when she was talking about Lukas.
Nikolas and I both released a laugh at that, but it was him who responded, “Well, I’ll be damned if I don’t save you.”
Daphne tapped the side of his face affectionately, stepping around him to fully face me. “Hi, Persy.”
“Hi,” I said, before picking up one of the biscuits I stole from Kostas and dipping it in my tea.
“Did you make that?” Daphne asked.
My eyes were on my teacup, so it was easier for me to respond, “Not these.”
Daphne made a humming sound that tightened the muscles in my back in suspicion. “What is it?” I asked, looking up to find her studying me.
“Nothing,” she said, with a small shake of her head. “It’s just that when I was working on the antidote with Sebastian, he seemed to be under the impression that you don’t bake.”
He was right. Whether he’d figured that out through observation or the fact that I hadn’t touched an appliance in my kitchen since he moved in wasn’t important. What was more important was respecting Kostas’s wishes. “I’m not sure why he would think that.”
Oh, no. I knew Daphne well enough to know she didn’t believe me. Thankfully, she pushed through. “Reyna is doing well,” she said, prompting a considerable sigh of relief from my lungs. “And, of course, your dear brother is jumping around for joy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a February as sunny as this one.”
Seeing as Prometheus fought tooth and nail for every ounce of sunlight we got, I didn’t know the weather was that pleasant. Sebastian’s power kept the sun healthy and bright all year long, but Adrian’s control over the weather could mask it.
It seemed when his wife was healthy, he let Sebastian take over.
“I’m glad Sebastian was able to help,” I said, trying not to cringe at how light my tone sounded. That was odd.
Nikolas scoffed loudly, but I ignored it.
Daphne nodded, a ghost of a smile on her lips, like she knew something we didn’t. “Rose asked me to invite you both to brunch next weekend. Everyone will be there.”
By everyone, she meant all the friends Sebastian had betrayed. I wasn’t sure that would go over well, but I had to try. “I’ll talk to her. Adrian, too. I’ll only bring him if everyone is willing to give him a chance.”
I’d talk to Sebastian, too. Though that conversation would be entirely different than the one I’d have with my brother. My brother didn’t make me want to yell. Sebastian did, which was still a desire I was working through.
Daphne nodded, jabbing Nikolas in the stomach. It was only then that I’d realized Nikolas looked two seconds away from a quip. Before he could, Daphne looped her arm through his. “Come on, Nikolas. We have work to do.”
Nikolas let Daphne drag him towards the door, waving at me over my shoulder. With one last goodbye, Daphne whisked him away to the sea.
Once they were gone, I let myself sigh back into my chair.
This was good. Nikolas would have time to reconnect with his home. I’d have a moment of peace. Sebastian would…
I snuck a peek at the clock, realizing it was already well into the afternoon.
It wasn’t wrong of me to be done with work. Even though I’d be walking back into a house with Sebastian inside of it, I didn’t consider that work.
It felt wrong to … for some reason.
Deciding that I’d done enough for one day, and that it was at least something positive I could tell Calpurnia at our session tomorrow, I replaced files back in their proper stacks. While it was a type of organized chaos that surely would have given anyone else—my brother, for one—several health problems, I found it manageable.
It was how my mind felt sometimes, and there was something comforting about seeing it represented in reality.
I decided to walk through the marketplace, soaking up as much of our pale sun as I could get and taking the opportunity to chat with residents packing up stands. It was one of the earlier things I’d added to Prometheus—helping people find a job, a craft, or something in between that made them motivated.
They started here, then took it with them back into the world.
Once I stepped outside, I realized it was slightly sunnier than I’d expected. Like my clock was thirty minutes off or I’d misread the hands. I would never complain about more sunlight nor could I, when everyone was smiling at me like I’d just given them a present.
There were a few muttered thank yous as I walked by, more than normal to the point where I stopped and asked if something particularly of note happened today.
One older woman, with a short pixie cut styled in strands as sharp as her cheekbones, answered me. “Your Lord Apollo was such a treat today!”
He wasn’t my anything.
I steadied my breath and answered with a causal, “I’m glad.” And then I spent the entire walk home trying to figure out why I’d reacted to her calling him mine rather than the idea that he had been kind to everyone today.
I was so caught up in my thoughts I didn’t even brace for Sebastian’s presence when I walked through the door.
And brace, I needed.
There was something disturbing about the image of him covered in paint. Splatters of soft grays and violets and bright whites and golds all over his shirt sleeves. Little dots scattering over his chest, highlighting all the ways the fabric stretched over his form.
The streaks of color in his hair, like he’d ran his hands through it without realizing they were wet with paint.
I almost ran straight out the door like I’d just discovered an intruder in my house.
My hand tightened on the door knob, feeling like I needed it for support. “Hello,” I said, my voice rough and scraping.
“Persephone.” Yeah, running seemed like a good idea.
There was no way I was going to think straight if that was how his voice was going to sound for the rest of the night.
A pleasant smell trickled up my nose, distracting my thoughts. “I was going to tell you that you didn’t need to cook every meal, but I think I’m going to hold off,” I said, walking towards the stove like it had hypnotized me.
Sebastian tracked me the entire way over, arms crossing and muscles straining against his shirtsleeves. When I got close enough, and his cologne started overriding the smell of the food in my brain, I realized that everything I had planned that night was likely about to go up in flames.
It was just really hard to think around him, pesky fear and all. Maybe exposure therapy would work. The more time I spent with him, the less twitchy I’d be.
A nagging voice in the back of my head told me that would only make it worse.
“I don’t have all that much to do,” Sebastian drawled, the sound of his voice making my awareness of his presence even worse.
“I don’t see a list anywhere.” I looked around my kitchen and living room dramatically, passively noticing that it looked like someone had tidied up. I could have sworn that throw blanket on my couch was haphazardly thrown over the armrest, and now it was folded neatly in the corner.
Sebastian grinned, lowering his face closer to mine. I breathed in, hoping the movement would keep my head in place. I felt the urge to flinch … but towards him, for some reason? “It’s right here, love.”
He reached behind his back, pulling out a neat white envelope that had my name scrawled on the front. Huh, so now I knew what his handwriting looked like. That felt important.
I grabbed onto the other edge of the envelope, and even though there was paper separating our hands by several inches, it was like I could feel his skin as though his palm was nestled against mine. “I’m about to say thank you. Prepare yourself.”
Sebastian’s grin split into a smile, and my chest expanded like I’d just won an award. “I’m growing used to it. Might have to try harder.”
I tilted my chin up defiantly, and the motion pulled Sebastian’s attention for a moment before his eyes trailed back to find mine again. I felt my lips curve into a grin on their own accord. “I deeply appreciate it,” I returned, shocking myself with the teasing lilt to my tone.
This really wasn’t all that natural for me. Well, it felt natural with him, but this easy banter never felt like this with anyone else. There were times that I felt like I had to choose every word carefully, but with Sebastian it just … flowed.
I guess that rapport meant there was a good chance we’d work well together. Work, a voice in my head said, the word sounding almost like a reminder.
Sebastian breathed out, tilting his head on a forced wince. “That one hurt.” He clapped a hand dramatically over his pectoral, sounding like he’d just slapped granite. I guess he might as well have. His chest certainly seemed that solid.
Suddenly, I had to get some space from him. A fresh wave of fear pooled low in my stomach. I couldn’t flinch away, and moving around to the other side of the counter top would make it harder to talk to him.
I stepped back, pushing myself up onto the counter top next to the stove. Sebastian snapped straight, his eyes widening, but he didn’t move. In fact, he looked like he might lunge at me.
Oh, maybe that was a bad idea.
We didn’t know each other before this. He didn’t know that I had grown up doing this to keep my parents company in the kitchen and had never stopped.
“I sit like this in a lot of kitchens,” I said quickly. “Especially when I need to talk to whoever is cooking and I need to talk to you.” It was a clunky explanation, though true. If it was anyone else, I might have been concerned about it being perceived as odd, but I’d already abandoned any self-preservation around Sebastian.
Sebastian’s eyes surveyed my body, going from the steady hold of my shoulders to the hinge of my hips to where my knees hooked over the counter. Reflexively, I crossed them, if not to give into the urge to squirm.
The motion kept his eyes on my legs for another beat longer, and then another. Finally, he said, “I can imagine no one has a problem with that. I certainly do not.”
I felt my cheeks warm considerably, the heat of the stove finally catching up with me. Though it felt nice next to my legs, and this heat was rather internal.
“I wanted to talk about your session with Calpurnia and see how your day was,” I said, needing to talk about something other than sitting on counter tops. That conversation felt borderline lewd.
I was also under orders from my lovely brother to try to pry some of Sebastian’s backstory from him, but I was reluctant to do it in any way that felt dishonest. Eventually, if the conversation didn’t occur naturally, I’d have to figure out a way, but that was a far off occurrence.
Sebastian eyed me skeptically, then turned his attention back to the pot in front of him. Something was bubbling aggressively and he moved to snatch up the stirring spoon like that rapid rumble of liquid wasn’t supposed to happen.
After a quick stir, he lifted a bit of the sauce up to his lips to taste it. I heard, rather than saw, his contentment, communicated by a quiet hum, because my eyes were on my knees.
“My day was fine,” he finally responded. “Calpurnia was actually one of the better parts.”
I smiled, even though his voice got pretty thin at the end, clasping my hands together under my chin. “I knew you’d like her.”
Sebastian’s grin bordered on a wince. “Like is a strong word. I’d say at this point I respect her, with a small note of fear underneath it.”
I small laugh trickled from my chest. “I felt the same at first. She has a rather disturbing way of cutting to the core of things.”
“Is that what you intend to do to me? Flay me open for inspection?” Sebastian’s eyes shifted away from the contents of the pot and to me. I did the opposite, tearing my eyes away from where they had been pinned on the side of his face and down. I watched him methodically move the spoon around the pot twice before I chose the lesser evil and looked back up to his eyes.
“If that was my plan,” I said, pausing to try to refresh my sore, dry throat. “I would have used that knife on you earlier.” Not that I would tell him, but we’d almost encountered an issue, and I likely would have risked losing a finger had he not interfered. I could handle a knife just fine, it was just that walking while trying to wrestle with a fruit as hard as most people’s heads was a different story.
I didn’t even want to think about the force that it required to wedge that knife through that fruit’s thick skin as easily as Sebastian had.
“That was a sharp little thing,” Sebastian said, as those he could read my thoughts. A sharp little thing that he’d taken with him when I’d gone to lunch with Nikolas.
Oh, that was my mother’s. If she found out I lost it, she was going to— “Wait, where is it?”
Sebastian nodded towards the sink on the far end of the counter. I sighed a breath of relief, the weight off my chest dismantling completely.
I bet it wasn’t even in there. I would probably find it gleaming and resting in it’s original place, but I figured telling Sebastian that I noticed he’d been cleaning the dishes to an almost surgical level wasn’t that smart. “I never thanked you for the pomegranate earlier.”
“Unnecessary.” He said it with such force that I was tempted to apologize for even attempting to thank him. It was the type of force that came from trying to rip away your most beloved possession. “Then I went to the market.” There was a heavy beat where Sebastian breathed in, then muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out. “I met Penn.”
For a moment, I thought he was referring to Penelope Artemis. That was the only Penn that I knew was important to him. Then I realized he’d likely not be bringing her up, and the name clicked. “Penn!” I said, possibly a little too enthusiastically, shifting my legs an inch closer to the stove and a touch too close to the flame.
Sebastian looked down at my leg like it was his own arm that had almost been burned. I changed the cross of my legs to move my thigh away from the burner, but that didn’t seem to be good enough. He switched to stirring with this left hand, using his elbow to bump me slightly out of the way.
I scooted over a little farther, rather than tell him that the point of his elbow pressing into my thigh burned hotter than the flame had.
Or that now every time he moved that wooden spoon around the pot, the loose fabric of his shirt brushed my leg.
It wasn’t his arm, not really. He was wearing a white, linen button-up that was rolled slightly at the wrist. Just enough to expose the ghost of one thin, black line circling his forearm.
But also enough to give the material slack to hang down from his arm and torture me. The fabric was still warm from his skin and with every rotation of that spoon, it brushed up against my leg and set my nerves on fire.
It was like an animal letting a known predator lick their coat over and over, hoping that it didn’t decide to take a chomping bite out of their neck at the next moment.
I got that familiar dip of fear in my stomach, but this time it settled lower. Noticeably lower.
Oh. Oh.
It wasn’t fear at all. The signs were similar, to be fair.
The increased heart rate, the awareness of him in the room, the way I didn’t know whether to shrink away or lean into him…
It was attraction.
Oh.
That was very inconvenient. No, severely inconvenient.
That was fine. This was fine. I’d be fine.
Sure, I’d never been attracted to any residents of Prometheus. No one was quite so … well, quite so Sebastian.
And all the attraction I’d felt in the past felt quite different than this. That’s why it had taken me so long to realize what it was. Everything in the past was just so very mellow. It was a quiet appreciation, a flame that would flicker on the edge of a candle.
This felt rather violent.
Even now, staring at the line of his nose, at the curve of his shoulders as he worked at the stove, I had the strangest urge to try to flay his skin open and try to crawl inside of it with him.
There were so many things wrong with that. It was gross, for one. It would be completely insane. And yet, it didn’t seem so bad.
I shifted on the counter top, hoping the cool marble would dispel the war raging in my chest. It did no such thing.
I would just have to hide it. It was clear he had no interest in me, beyond making it very clear that he thought living under the same roof as me was equivalent to torture in his eyes.
Let alone the fact that he was leaving in less than five months. Let alone the fact that this was wrong. Let alone the fact that nothing could ever happen between us.
Not even a kiss.
Oh, goodness, now I was going to start noticing his lips in a way that was unavoidable. Before, when I thought it was fear, I could tell myself that I was focusing on his mouth to catch his words the second they left his lips, preparing for an attack.
Now, I would think of kissing. That was bad. Very bad.
Rolling my shoulders back in an attempt to regain some much needed composure, I wracked my brain for a reminder of what we’d been talking about.
Sebastian was involved, I knew that much. He’d said a name that had shocked me at first.
Right.
I didn’t think I’d been lost in my thoughts for all that long, but I would never have been able to discern one way or another from Sebastian’s face. He was staring at me with that artist’s gaze again, looking down to the individual brushstrokes, while also maintaining that methodical stirring movement.
The heat from the stove was the least of my worries. Actually, it was probably wise for me to stay here. At least then I’d have an excuse for the fiery blush on my cheeks.
“You met Penn?” I said, tucking my hands under my thighs so I wouldn’t fidget.
Sebastian nodded slowly, like he was trying to remember if he was recalling the memory correctly. “I did.”
There was something more there. Something he was hesitating telling me. I really hoped that it wasn’t bad, but my gut was telling me that Sebastian had been kind—even if he wouldn’t admit it.
Penn was young, too young to have been caught up in what he had. My heart ached for him more than others. His brain worked differently than most, making him sensitive to changes in his environment.
He’d told me once it felt like he saw too much, like he saw things through a microscope and when he tried to explain the minute differences to people, he’d receive nothing but confused looks and, at the worst, shame.
While I didn’t understand exactly what that was like, I could empathize with it.
And hearing that his gift for observation had been weaponized by classmates of his, that they’d preyed on his desire for inclusion and convinced him that his eye for detail was best applied to forging sensitive documents … it still made my heart clench with anguish for him.
He’d known it was wrong from the second he started doing it, but he didn’t know how to find a way out without destroying the only social contact he’d ever had, positive or otherwise.
Penn’s time in Prometheus was focused on learning how to communicate boundaries and ensure he understood signals—verbal and nonverbal—that meant someone didn’t have the best intentions.
If he was openly kind to Sebastian, that said everything I needed to know about the way he treated Penn.
“What did you talk about?” I pressed carefully, my voice softer than normal.
Sebastian made an odd sound in the back of his throat. “I somehow got myself roped into being his art teacher.”
My heart swelled so much I thought it might burst right out of my chest. I had to clamp down on my jaw to catch the rush of appreciation that was about to jump out of my throat.
Sebastian would freeze up if he realized how deeply affected I was by that.
“Scoot over,” Sebastian said, nudging me with his elbow. “The steam is making your eyes well up.”
It wasn’t the steam. I was about to cry.
But I was smart enough to take the excuse when it was given to me. Trying to explain to Sebastian that I happened to cry quite often and it was a rather mild emotional reaction in my book seemed like it would go over about as well as spilled milk.
I wiggled my hips over an inch, but didn’t feel all that keen to completely pull away from him.
Oh, goodness. This was going to be bad. I wished I still thought I was scared of him.
“You’re teaching him to paint?” I asked, when I was somewhat confident my voice wouldn’t quiver with the threat of tears.
Sebastian nodded slowly, and I could tell he was still deciding whether he’d lost his mind. I was pulled toward him like a magnet, needing to know what happened even if it burned me. “How did that come up?”
Sebastian scoffed. “I was buying paint from him, then I blacked out and the next thing I knew, I was offering to teach him how to paint.”
Well, that was a mischaracterization of what happened and we both knew it. I’d let it slide. For now.
“That was very kind of you.”
“It wasn’t kind at all,” Sebastian said, lifting his eyes to meet mine for one, loaded second. “In fact, it was rather selfish.”
“Why’s that?” My voice sounded far too breathy. I’d have to lock myself in my bathroom and practice regulating my voice if this was going to be an issue. I needed to keep this attraction locked so far in the recesses of my mind, not even light from Sebastian’s hands could reach that darkness.
“You were going to place him with someone you knew in Rome,” Sebastian said. I didn’t know whether or not that was intended to be a question.
“I was,” I said, curious who he was going to say. I didn’t need to clarify that it wasn’t someone I knew and rather someone Reyna knew. I wasn’t sheltered by any means, but I didn’t really have a circle outside of the gods and Prometheus.
Sebastian snorted, the sound still somehow sounding lyrical. I didn’t make it a habit to swear often, but that thought made the word asshole jump into my mind, playful and teasing. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep it inside. “I don’t know what this Roman guy’s qualifications are, but while I’m here, I might as well give Penn a proper education in art. I have nothing better to do.”
He was intentionally distancing himself from his kind gesture. “Don’t do that,” I said, deciding to call him on it. “You wanted to help him. Admit it.”
Sebastian stopped stirring, resting the wooden spoon against the side of the pot. He set his right hand down on the marble, right next to my thigh. He stepped in front of me like he planned to do the same with his left hand, caging me in.
He stopped at the last minute, the only movement was his fingers curling in on the counter. Good. I didn’t know what instinct had made him move towards me like that, but all I knew was that it was dangerous.
After a moment and a noticeably thick swallow of his throat, he said, “I didn’t realize this was an interrogation.”
“When are you going to learn that I’m just asking you questions?” I shot back, though my voice didn’t have an ounce of bite to it.
Sebastian tsked and the sound did something odd to my stomach. “You didn’t ask much of anything. You demanded I admit the real reason behind helping Penn.”
“Is there a real reason?” Even up on the counter, he was still so much taller than me. So much so it only felt natural to tilt my chin up towards him.
Sebastian’s perusal of my face was slow. Then he did something that surprised me. “I reacted rather poorly upon hearing his name.” There was a note of regret in his voice. “The offer to teach him was the least that I could do.”
“What did you do?” I asked, careful to keep the judgment out of my tone. It was clear there was a lot of pain where Penelope was concerned. I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost Adrian.
“Broke a paintbrush.”
I gasped, saying, “The sacrilege,” dramatically before I could decide whether or not it was a bad idea.
Thankfully, Sebastian seemed rather delighted by the fact that I’d chosen that path. My chest eased a bit. “Bought some paint off him for good measure,” he added, a slight smirk on his lips.
“I didn’t give you enough?” Goodness, where was this tone coming from? Unfortunately, I had an answer, but not one that could have any solution. My words could venture as flirtatious as they come, but that would change nothing about our situation.
An evil little voice in the back of my head whispered that there wasn’t any harm in a little light banter. I was inclined to listen, though I knew it wasn’t true.
“You gave me plenty,” Sebastian said, picking back up the wooden spoon and returning his attention to the stove and traumatizing me by wafting the delicious smell of the food up my nose and making me wait to eat it. “I’m just going through some colors quicker than others.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the words died in my throat when the fabric of his shirt scraped back over my leg. After a moment to collect myself, I said, “I’m sure Penn appreciated it, but you can always ask me if you need more. For whatever it is you’re painting.”
Sebastian’s grin widened enough to expose a dimple. “Curious?”
Yes, but I wouldn’t admit it. “I just want to know when my landscape will be done,” I said instead. Based on the wild look that entered Sebastian’s eyes, it might of been wiser to just admit that I was curious about what he’d been working on.
“You wouldn’t want a half-done painting, now would you?” Sebastian said, cocking an eyebrow at me. That was a very unsettling trait. The muscles in my stomach tightened to an almost painful degree.
“No,” I said, so hoarse I almost stuck my face over the bubbling pot in hopes the steam would ease the gravel in my throat.
Just as the thought struck me, Sebastian’s eyes darted back the stove, a low curse falling from his lips.
Over the course of our conversation, the grains in the pot had expanded in size, absorbing some of the liquid. I didn’t really understand what was wrong with the food—it looked and smelled great—but Sebastian’s eyebrows were drawn together in disgruntlement.
I’d never tell him, but he looked quite … cute like that.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Sebastian’s mouth quirked. “Stop distracting me or I’ll burn this.”
“Okay,” I said through a laugh, the sound pulled from me by his grumbly tone. “I was in the middle of a book anyway.”
I flattened my hands on the marble, preparing to move myself off the counter and head to a more appropriate location to read and let Sebastian finish cooking. It was the least I could do. I was the one reaping all the fruits of his labor.
I looked down, but just as my weight transferred into my hands, the very book in question appeared in my lap, held by Sebastian’s paint-splattered hands.
The only appropriate solution was to stare at it like I didn’t recognize it. I was still trying to figure out how he knew that was the book I’d been referencing. I had a bad habit of reading multiple books at once, and they were scattered all over my kitchen and living room.
“I said stop distracting me,” Sebastian said, paying no mind to the way I was gaping at the book in his hand. Did his hand really have to span the entire length of the hardcover? “That doesn’t mean I like silence.”
Another small laugh rumbled from my chest. “Want to talk about that more?”
Sebastian let out a short breath of laughter. “I’d rather you read.” He punctuated the words by shaking the book slightly.
“That’s what I was planning to do,” I said, my confusion drawing out the words.
“Out loud.”
My head snapped up, and I almost jerked back into the cabinets behind me. When you weren’t braced for him, seeing his face—especially this close—was a shock to the system. More intense than any lightning bolt I was capable of conjuring. “You … you want me to read to you?”
Sebastian shrugged, which only drew attention to the breadth of his shoulders. “It’s for self preservation. I’ve been meaning to re-read that book and watching you read it, knowing you’re getting to the good parts, sounds rather torturous.”
I’d never met the Fates, but it sounded as good a time as any to introduce myself to them while begging for answers on how this was what they had planned for me.
Even though part of me wanted to run away from Sebastian until my heart rate calmed down, a large part flared in response to his challenge.
Stay. The voice that spoke inside my head seemed confident. Might as well listen to it.
“Alright,” I said, carefully taking the book out of Sebastian’s hands and making sure our hands didn’t touch. Unfortunately, the same phenomenon as the envelope happened, and I could have sworn I felt the heat of his skin through over four hundred pages of parchment.
Sebastian grinned, relishing in his victory. I was too enthralled to tease him about it. The only thing my body seemed capable of doing was to crack open the book where I’d marked it with a necklace I’d taken off the night before and find my place.
My heart was beating like I was about to give a speech in front of thousands of people. I’d never done that, but I imagined this is what it felt like. After a deep breath to make sure I didn’t keel over and fall into the stove, I started reading.
It donned on me far too late, as in multiple paragraphs in, that I was reading to the literal god of poetry.
I stumbled over my words, cutting myself off.
Almost immediately, Sebastian said, “Why did you stop?”
If I wasn’t so nervous, I would have noted that he sounded like a child who had their favorite toy ripped from them.
And he was doing that thing where he stared at me so intently, it was like he physically ripped the truth out of me. “You’re the god of poetry,” I said by way of explanation.
“And?”
Goodness, he was going to make me say it. “Maybe you’re used to … experts reading to you or something.”
There was a moment where Sebastian looked at me like rainbows had decided to sprout out of my head and dance around.
Then he laughed. As in head tilted back, full-bodied, chest-rumbling laugh.
It made me feel like rainbows might start shooting from my head.
Fuck.
The curse felt clunky in my own thoughts, but appropriate. I’d never seen Sebastian laugh like that, even in the moments where I’d observed him in his element at the balls or galas I’d been dragged to by my brother or another god.
“I’m serious,” I said, feeling my lips pull into a frown.
Sebastian sobered, his eyes bouncing over my face. “You were doing well, love.” He nodded down at the book, and the motion almost felt like a physical nudge. “Keep going.”
I did, picking up right where I left off. The story was just building, the drama and tension coming together slowly. I focused on the pages, trying to keep track of all the different characters in this story, which only reminded me that there was a scene later on between two characters that would have me blushing to my hairline if I had to read it to Sebastian.
Despite that punch of nerves, my mind got away from me, lulled and calmed by the words and the smell of Sebastian’s food and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
The night had gotten away from me. I had walked in, intending to try to talk to Sebastian about his motivations. That could come while we ate, I promised myself, selfishly holding on to this moment.
I just hoped that when I did address it, it didn’t shatter this precious moment.