Chapter 5
LAILA
Listening back to a recording of myself flirting was cringeworthy.
I clearly needed to work on my game if I was going to impress Poseidon.
He, on the other hand, sounded as smooth on the recording device as he'd been in reality, and I could feel myself responding every time he said something that had affected me last night.
This was foolish. He was an immortal god, what interest would he have in me?
Except that it had felt like he made it fairly clear last night that he was interested in me.
I cursed myself as I realised I'd been too distracted by Poseidon's voice to make any notes and slid the bar on the recording so I could start it again. It was going to take twice as long to write my article as normal at this rate.
I'd managed to write down a few things when the door opened,
and Ivy stepped into our flat carrying a bag of groceries. I hit the pause button, but not before she'd noticed what I was doing.
"Are you still listening to the recording?" she asked, amusement shining through her voice.
"I'm just doing my job," I said.
She laughed heartily. "That's what I was telling myself whenever I checked one of Nick's emails, even though he was never the one who emailed me about actual work."
"How does he run his toy business if he doesn't email about work?"
"Pieter does it all. Nick's the creative type, he'd rather be making the toys than doing all of the, as he calls it, boring business stuff." She shook her head, amusement written all over her face.
"He's lucky to have you to do his marketing for him."
"Until my boss finds out we're dating and I get fired, anyway," she murmured. "Why do I work for a company that has a no dating your clients rule?" She set the bag of groceries on the kitchen side and started unpacking them.
"Probably so that you could say that there was one when a creep hit on you," I pointed out. "They weren't to know that the creep was Santa and you were into it."
She rolled her eyes. "Nick is not a creep."
"I know, it just sounded good that way."
"And we met before we knew we were working together. We were even going to go on a date..."
"I know," I assured her. "It was just bad luck that you have the clause in your contract."
"I know I'm going to have to deal with it eventually. Nick suggested that I go work for him directly, but it's too soon for that." She let out a sigh.
"Are you stating that as fact, or asking for confirmation?"
"Fact," she responded firmly, putting the almond milk in the fridge door a little too enthusiastically. "Sorry. I guess it's just getting to me more than I thought. Things with Nick are going great, I just wish that we didn't have to think about all of that kind of stuff."
"Maybe you should talk to your boss about it?" I suggested. "The clause is there, but maybe it can be taken out and replaced with a new one?"
"Do you think they'd do that?"
I shrugged. "Maybe sound them out first if you don't want to risk losing your job. But I imagine you'll probably be able to find another one. Maybe Jinx is hiring, they'd probably benefit from your marketing knowledge."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're suggesting I work for the dating agency?"
"I just meant that there are other companies out there," I responded. "You don't have to work for this one if it's making you miserable in a different part of your life."
She sighed. "I know you're right."
"I often am."
"Is that how you're going to deal with it when you fall afoul of the no dating clause in your contract?" She closed the fridge and turned to look at me with a knowing expression on her face.
"There isn't a clause like that in my contract," I pointed out. "I don't have clients."
"Just chefs you interview."
"Not just chefs," I responded. "Sometimes I'll be interviewing sommeliers, restauranters, gourmets...chefs are only part of it."
"Mmhmm. So that's what you're going to say instead of saying that you have no interest in anyone?" Her mischievous expression is impossible to ignore.
"If you're talking about Poseidon, there's nothing going on."
"The fact that you know I'm talking about Poseidon says it all."
I rolled my eyes. "We had one bottle of wine while I interviewed him for my job. That's nothing approaching dating him, or wanting to date him."
"You can say that all you want, but I saw you flirting with him."
I shrugged. "He's an attractive man, with a nice voice, and an interest in food. Why wouldn't I flirt with him?"
"Maybe we'll be going on triple dates next time you have to review a restaurant," she teased.
"Not likely. And even if we did, can you imagine the disaster of having Poseidon and Cupid at the same table? Both of them have mentioned the feud between their pantheons."
"They'd get over it for love."
"Well, it's not going to be an issue," I said.
"So you keep saying." She opens the fridge again before shutting it. "Why is it that every time I buy food, I don't have anything I want to eat in the house?"
"You used up all of your good sense shopping, so now you want to please the more impulsive side of you by getting something that you didn't buy. Probably something bad."
She wrinkled her nose. "I hate it when you're right."
"I know food," I responded. "But you're also in luck. One of my next pieces is supposed to be about what makes a great takeaway, so you can pick what you want, and the Paranormal Gourmet will pay."
"I love your new job," Ivy said, pulling out her phone and tapping through to the takeaway app.
"I know you do." My phone screen lit up, and I grabbed it, assuming that it was going to be Ivy sending through the link for me to add my stuff to the order.
Except that it isn't her. The unknown number and the preview of a message made my heart skip a beat. I glanced over at my friend, happy to see that she wasn't paying me any attention. I clicked on it.
Without thinking, my fingers skipped over the keys as I typed my response.
I should say no. My friends were making it work, but I knew that getting involved with a god was going to complicate things. I hit send before I could think twice about it.
"Earth to Laila!" Ivy waved a hand in front of my face.
"Hmm?"
"I asked if you'd added what you wanted," she said.
"Oh, I haven't even looked."
"So what were you staring at so intensely?"
"Poseidon messaged me," I said after a moment.
"Aha, I knew it!" She almost dropped her phone in her hurry to clap her hands together.
"You don't know anything," I corrected. "It's just about food and my review." Even as I said the words, I knew that it wasn't the case, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of being completely right.
"Mmhmm, so when are you going on a date?"
"Not a date. But Tuesday."
"I guess I'll stay at Nick's on Tuesday then."
"Ivy!"
"What?" She grinned at me in a way that said she knew exactly what. "Running into Poseidon at two am because he's just used our bathroom ruins a bit of the illusion of the big, bad god of the sea."
"And for some reason that doesn't extend to when literal Santa is in our flat for me?"
She shrugged.
I rolled my eyes. "I am not going to sleep with Poseidon on Tuesday."
"Interesting that you're not saying never."
"I have hundreds of years of life left, saying never to anything seems somewhat reductive."
"Mmhmm. Now, order your food. I'm hungry, and clearly we need to make a game plan about what you're going to wear to your not-a-date." She gestured to my phone.
I knew there was no arguing with her. And while it wasn't a date, I did want to look good, so planning my outfit wasn't the worst idea.