Chapter 25
APHRODITE! APHRODITE! BEETLEJUICE!
Addie
Addie pulled the puffy blanket over her head and sank deeper into her mattress, wishing the damn thing would swallow her whole and she wouldn’t have to listen to the insistent knocking on her apartment door. It stopped for a short minute before starting up again with renewed vigor.
Do-Re-Mi huffed next to her, their three heads tunneling beneath her blanket fort to give her identical judgmental looks.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Addie demanded. “I deserve a day or two off with how much I work.”
Do chuffed and Mi took a big sniff before wrinkling his nose.
Addie gasped in indignation. “I don’t stink! I showered yester … wait, no. The day before yesterday, but it’s not like I’ve been doing any strenuous activities where I’ve sweat.”
The person on the other side of the door knocked again, this time more aggressively.
Addie shoved her face into her pillow with a groan. “I give you permission to eat whoever is making that horrific noise … or at the very least scare the shit out of them so they go away.”
Do glanced at his brothers as if contemplating her offer before they all three released doggie sighs and trotted away, way too timidly to be heading to scare the crap out of any uninvited guests.
With a dramatic fling of her comforter and a string of curses, she stalked to the door, already preparing to give the person on the other side a piece of her damn mind.
“Unless the building is on fire, I suggest you go away,” Addie yelled, opening the door with a flourish.
Bailey and Maxi stood on the other side, Bailey’s fist poised to knock down her door with another series of bangs.
“Holy shit.” Bailey’s nose wrinkled as she snuck a quick glance to Max. “It’s worse than we thought.”
“Excuse me?” Addie propped her hands on her hips.
She got a whiff of something … unpleasant …
and took a quick sniff of herself, her face nearly matching Bailey’s expression.
“Whatever. I’m conserving water. Why are the two of you here?
I took some personal days. I’ll be ready to go tomorrow for Naiomi’s big day. ”
Just the thought of Naiomi’s big day … and running into Phoenix … nearly sent her running back to her blanket fort. Seeing the uncertainty on her face, Bailey and Max pushed their way into her apartment.
“Okay, first things first.” Maxi looked all stern business as she closed the door. “And first is you getting into the shower and literally showering the stink off you. While you do that, Bailey and I will open windows to … air the place out.”
“It is not that bad.”
At their matching scoffs, Addie glanced around her apartment. A few empty takeout cartons from the Chinese restaurant down the block sat on the kitchen table, and a pizza box that may or may not have been empty rested on the counter. The dishes piled in the sink almost teetered onto the counter.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the greatest, but she’d get to it all … eventually.
“Look, I appreciate the concern.” Addie half-heartedly began picking up empty cartons.
“But it’s not necessary. I got a little tingle of pre-sickness ick, and wanted to head it off with some extra sleep and vitamin C.
I can’t afford to get the full-blown icks with Naiomi and Easton’s big day on the horizon. ”
Both Bailey and Maxi stared at her with twin looks of disbelief.
“That’s what you’re going with?” Bailey challenged. “Staving off the icks?”
Addie shoved the takeout boxes into an already overflowing garbage bag and contemplated jumping in after them. “Yes. Because that’s the truth.”
Exchanging a frustrated look with Maxi, Bailey threw up their hands. “Tag! You’re it!”
“Addie”—her sister used her soothing voice—“you know we both love you, right? And we want nothing but the best for you.”
“Same.”
“What would you do if the roles were reversed, and it was me or Bailey who’d been holed up in our stinky apartment after breaking up with our fake boyfriends, only to realize that at some point during the fauxmance, it started becoming real and we realized that perhaps we were wrong about love not being real? ”
Addie glared at her sister. “That’s a really long run-on sentence, Max.”
“You’re making me do it, aren’t you?” Maxi’s eyes narrowed.
“Do what?” Addie asked warily.
“Just know that I do this out of love. And because you leave me absolutely no choice.”
Max commandeered Addie’s full attention now, her heart galloping in her chest like a thundering herd. “What are you—”
“Aphrodite,” Maxi blurted unapologetically.
Addie’s eyes bugged. “No, no!”
She chased her sister around her coffee table. On the second round, she stubbed her toe and yelped. “Maxine Sonnet Whitlock! Don’t you dare summon her!”
“Are you going to admit that love exists?” Maxi walked backward, easily staying out of her reach while Addie hopped after her.
“Look, there’s more to it than you realize and—”
“Will you admit that you fell—hard enough to give yourself another concussion—in love with Phoenix Cross? And that’s the real reason why you’re hiding under your weighted blanket and avoiding all forms of personal hygiene?”
“No,” Addie growled.
“Aphrodite,” Maxi drew out their mother’s name like a freaking song lyric.
“Please, Maxi,” Addie pleaded. “Bringing Mom into this won’t help anything. It’ll actually make things ten times worse.”
“Actually, Ads, I think this is probably the one time that Mom really can help. I do this for your own good.” Maxi took a deep breath before finishing her summoning of Beetlejuice—er, their mother. “Aphrodite.”
Addie’s groan didn’t fully escape her throat before their mother blinked into the apartment.
Wearing a white fluffy robe and slippers, Aphrodite sported gold under-eye gel pads and a hydrating face mask. She dangled a water bottle at her side, notably filled with water and cucumber.
“Sorry it took so long, my dear. I was in the middle of a much-needed massage and—” Aphrodite turned toward Addie and froze. “What on Hades Hellscape happened to you?”
“Nothing,” Addie answered too quickly.
Max sighed. “She fell in love.”
Aphrodite’s eyes widened before she beamed wide, her skin practically radiating with her goddess glow.
“No, I did not,” Addie denied, dimming that glow.
“Then explain why you’ve been hiding in your room and not showering, and by the smell of this place, haven’t so much as cracked a window?” Maxi demanded.
“My allergies are acting up,” she retaliated without much heat, arms folded over her chest.
“Adalyn,” Aphrodite said in a soft, knowing whisper. “Sweetheart.”
“It’s not love,” Addie denied, the denial sounding weak even to her own ears. “It’s … something else.”
Her mother shot her a sympathetic look.
That’s what did it.
The tears she’d barely held at bay escaped in a tsunami.
Floodgates opened. Snot running, Addie flung herself into her mother’s open arms and immediately felt her mother’s warmth seep into her skin.
She held on tighter, fingers latching on to the back of her terry robe until she probably resembled a red-eyed zombie from The Walking Dead.
She hiccupped, accidently wiping her snot-laden face on her mother’s lapel.
“Sorry.” Addie grimaced, trying to swallow around the lump lodged in her throat.
“Not a worry.” Aphrodite snapped her fingers and the robe, the gel pads, and the face mask disappeared, leaving her in a pair of chic pink sweats. She ushered Addie to the couch and wrapped a supportive arm over her shoulders. “Now tell me what happened, and then we’ll brainstorm ideas to fix it.”
“There’s no way to fix it, Mom.”
“Sometimes the impossible seems that way. It’s what entices you not to try. Now, talk to me.”
“I thought I was falling in…”
“Love…?”
She nodded and took a deep, cleansing breath. “I seriously thought maybe I had it wrong … that maybe it does exist, and … then it was brought to my attention.”
“What was?”
“Muse Sickness.”
Aphrodite paused as if waiting for more.
“You do know what Muse Sickness is, right?” Addie asked.
“Of course I do, but, sweetheart, I don’t think it’s possible for you to have it.”
“Well, it’s possible because I have it!” She yanked the Muse for Dummies text she’d gotten at the library and flung it open to the pages listing symptoms. “Phoenix and I have every single one of them. Every one. Inexplicable attraction—check. An intense, severe need to be in the other’s presence—check. And that’s just—”
“Honey.”
“Don’t honey me, Mom. I know what I’m feeling and that’s all of this.” Addie shook the book.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this, yeah? It’s always best to go right to the source.” Aphrodite cleared her throat and called loudly, “Eunice. Eunice. Eunice.”
Bailey muttered next to Maxi, “Do all goddesses get called like in Beetlejuice?”
Eunice popped into the room right next to Bailey, making Athena’s loin-spawn jump. “My, my, are we having a party and I wasn’t invited?”
Aphrodite kicked up a golden eyebrow. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Ah. That I am.” Eunice looked toward Addie and did a double-take, her mouth opening to say something. “Oh, my…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Addie beat her to it. “I look like shit, but it says here on page ninety-two that that can sometimes happen during Muse Sickness’s first withdrawal wave.”
Eunice glanced to Aphrodite with a silent question, the two goddesses seemingly having an entire conversation telepathically.
Finally, her mother nodded. “That’s why I called you here.”
Eunice took a seat on the other side of Addie, her face pensive as she reached for her free hand. “First, I want to remind you that I told you that a crash course in Musing in one single afternoon isn’t exactly ideal.”
“You did,” Addie admitted.
“And I told you that being a Muse is a little more complex than the average person thinks.”
“You told me that, too, yes.”