Chapter 12
HEL
There was an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I made my way into the hotel and through to the Jinx speed dating event, like I was doing something wrong in coming here, even if I was completely single and had no intentions of changing that.
The room was as brightly decked out as ever, with Jinx's signature pink hearts. It really was obnoxious. Then again, I showed up regularly, as did lots of other people, so it wasn't as if it was putting anyone off.
"Good evening, Hel," Venus said.
"Evening," I responded to the Roman love goddess. She looked as classically beautiful as always, but that had never been enough to tempt me. Not wanting anything serious meant avoiding anything with the other gods. That was a recipe for disaster and one I intended to avoid for as long as I lived.
"So, you know how it goes," Venus said. "Make yourself a name badge, and one of the sheets. Everyone has a number. Just write down if you want the contact information of anyone you're interested in. If it's a match, you swap."
"Got it," I said.
"But are you actually going to write down anyone this week?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Maybe. You never know." I took the items from her and made my way into the room and over to the bar where I was meeting Longmu.
We hadn't known one another that long when it came to the gods, but we'd bonded over our enjoyment of events like this.
Though Longmu was looking for love, whereas I came with more immediate goals in mind.
"Hey," I said as I sat down, not at all surprised when one of her dragons popped up between our chairs in a flash of blue.
"Luilan! You're not supposed to be here," she chided the Chinese dragon even as she tickled him under the chin.
"He's never going to listen to you if you do that." I flagged down the bartender and ordered myself a glass of wine.
Longmu raised an eyebrow. "Wine?"
"What about it?" I asked as I touched my card against the reader to pay for it.
"I thought you didn't drink and have sex."
"I don't."
"Already doubting how good the options are tonight?" she asked as Luilan wrapped himself around her arm, stopping her from drinking more. It was times like this that I was glad to have Garmr and not five mischievous dragons who were incapable of not making a mess.
As if he knew what I was thinking, his tail swept across the bar and knocked Longmu's drink over her.
She jumped to her feet and let out a string of curses in a variety of languages, causing pride to well up within me when I noticed a few Scandinavian ones in the mix.
"That's not very goddess-like," I said as I picked up my glass and took a sip.
She sighed. "Go home," she ordered the dragon.
He gave her a blank look.
She rolled her eyes and repeated the instruction in Cantonese. He disappeared into a puff of smoke, leaving her drenched in white wine.
I gestured to the bartender to get her another one while my friend sat down with a frustrated sigh. "You'd think he didn't understand multiple languages," she muttered.
"Maybe he only knows you're serious when you speak to him in Cantonese?"
"This is the last time I hatch dragons from a stone," she muttered.
"I wasn't aware you'd done that more than once."
"I haven't, and it's already too much." She flashed the bartender a smile when he returned with a new glass of wine and a towel. She dabbed at her dress, but I didn't think it would do much. "Anyway, don't think I didn't notice you changing the subject."
"I'm not changing the subject. I'm just not feeling it tonight."
"Then why are you here?"
"I was meeting you."
She gave me a look that said she didn't believe me at all. It wasn't entirely unfair, I doubted I'd believe me either.
"We're going to be busy in about twenty minutes, I would have survived easily enough with a message. So spill. And not all over me." She tried to take a sip of her new glass of wine and managed to slosh some down her chin. "This is why I'm still single."
"You're still single because you haven't found anyone good enough for you yet," I pointed out.
"Stop changing the subject." She gave me a stern look that was very at odds with her personality.
I sighed. "I had a one night stand the other week."
"Not new."
"Do you want me to tell you, or not?" I asked.
"Sorry, go on." She took a successful sip of wine.
"It was with a woman I never thought I'd see again, and it was great. Honestly, one of the best I've had in recent years." My mind slipped back to what it had been like to be in bed with Clara without me meaning it to.
"And you want to do it again?" Longmu checked, bringing me back to the present, where Clara thankfully wasn't.
"Not exactly. It turns out that she's the cousin of Thor's girlfriend."
"Talk about keeping it in the family," she joked.
I rolled my eyes. "Really?"
"Sorry, it was right there. Go on."
"Daisy introduced us at her gallery opening, and we talked more. Clara wanted to know more about necromancy for a potion she's working on, and so I met her at work and she met Garmr. And then, as if that wasn't messy enough, I went for dinner with Thor and Daisy, and she was there."
"Is she doing it on purpose?"
"What? No. Definitely not. She didn't even realise I was a goddess until the second time we met.
It's just a coincidence. But it's really not helping me get her out of my head.
I'm thinking about her a lot more than I should be.
She was good in bed and all, but surely I shouldn't be thinking about it this much?
" That was the crux of it. I was thinking about her far more than I ever thought I would.
"Maybe you like her."
I snorted. "I don't do that."
"No, you avoid that. It's an entirely different thing," Longmu responded.
"You've decided you don't want a relationship, so you put barriers up to stop you seeing anyone as having the potential for that.
It's why you never actually fill out your card at the end of speed dating.
" She nodded towards where it was sitting on the bar beside me.
"No one meets my standards."
"Mmhmm. So I'm just going to take this, because I might actually want to use it, and mine is..." She waved her hand to where her wine-soaked sheet sat as a victim of Luilan's pranks. "That dragon is a menace."
"You're the one who trained him."
"It turns out that it's hard to train a dragon, especially when you have five. You're lucky to only have Garmr."
"Not when he's teething. He chews everything. He got into my shoe cupboard the other day, and there are casualties."
"Sounds like an excuse to go shoe shopping to me," Longmu said brightly.
The bell went on to signal the start of speed dating and she slid off her stool. "So, are you coming?"
I looked over to where the tables were set up. "No."
"Didn't think so. Say hi to Clara for me."
I rolled my eyes as she flicked her glossy black hair over her shoulder and went to take her seat. Because she knew as well as I did that I wasn't going to see Clara again.
Unless I did.
I pushed the thought out of my head. I'd gone centuries without letting myself get romantically involved with anyone, I wasn't about to start now.