Chapter fourteen
Aedonaeus
We wait for Persephone in the entrance hall. She always takes forever to get ready. Eris’ engagement party is already dragging my mood down. All I want is to be in my penthouse, waiting around for a certain blonde mythological creature to show up.
After I left her at her apartment the other morning, I’m not sure if she’ll apparate again. I didn’t expect her to let me stay, but I didn’t want her to regret it the next day. She wasn’t well, and she sucked my dick anyways, not wanting anything in return. When Hermes roped me and Minos into helping Vivian move from her apartment, he must have had ulterior motives. As far as they knew, I hadn’t seen Josie since the night at the club.
When I first came into the place it was a mess. Bottles of alcohol were on the floor, and a book was face down in the corner by an open window. Burnt out cigarettes laid on the windowsill next to a broken chair that looked like it had been dragged straight from the trash. Vivian didn’t strike me as someone who smoked, but she had mentioned she had a roommate. She failed to mention that the roommate was her sister. David had made a few passive comments, but Vivian had ignored him, tossing furtive glances at Bella.
I had been assigned the boxes in the bathroom, and when I walked into the shattered bloody mess, I didn’t know what to think. With the area we were in, it was entirely possible someone had tried to rob the place. Especially with how the key wasn’t hidden at all. That, or some sort of wild party had ravaged the apartment recently.
I minded my own business, grabbed the boxes, and left. When Josie appeared in the kitchen, I knew she was the culprit. There was something different about her. Some of her defenses were down. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was in a messy bun on her head.
The thing that Vivian didn’t notice was the blood dripping onto the floor from Josie’s hand. She looked like a caged animal as her sister questioned her, and she didn’t seem to be in her right mind. Josie was no longer the witty brat I was used to, and it created a pit in my stomach. I felt something akin to fear. I was reminded of the first time I met her when her hand was healing and covered with rough flesh. I saw the healing wounds in a new light.
Josie needed someone to make sure she didn’t lose her mind because she was pretty fucking close. I wondered if Vivian had any idea that she was spiraling and how often this happened, but she seemed pretty calm about it once I asked. Josie seems like the sort of person to lose her shit in private even if it kills her. She clearly didn’t want Vivian to know the extent of it, so I sent her back to bed and personally moved all of the boxes past the kitchen. I must have redirected Vivian a dozen times.
Bella had approached me when we finished unloading everything at their condo, a stark contrast from the seemingly dangerous place we had just left.
“Is everything alright?” she had asked.
I played dumb. “Pertaining to what?”
“Please, Aedonaeus.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t insult me. You’re probably the one Josie sees the most.”
Her admission struck me. I’ve seen Josie very little compared to how much I figured her own sister would see her. I wondered again how much they really know about who Josie is deep inside.
“She’s made herself scarce, and Vivian is worried,” Bella said, as if reading my mind. “I’m sure you’re aware that Josie has unresolved issues. That's why she’s so good in our line of work.”
“What line of work would that be?”
“Torture, Aedonaeus. You’re not dense,” she said plainly.
Bella still hasn’t given me an impression, almost as if it’s calculated, but the concern she had was full of true unadulterated worry. A stark contrast from Vivian. I had figured Josie murdered; torture is an entirely new animal. It didn’t make me like her any less. It made me want her even more.
“She seemed off today, didn’t she?” I had been worrying about her since we left.
“She did,” Bella had agreed.
“I’m going over there.”
Vivian appeared, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Going where?”
“To Josie’s.” There was no point in lying. It didn’t seem like there were secrets between Bella and Vivian.
“Oh,” Vivian answered nervously. She tried to hide it, but the concern was finally peeking through the cracks. “She looks like she hasn’t eaten in a week. Maybe we should go with you. I’ll grab some takeout.”
“It’s alright. I’m going to revive her from her hangover.”
“Oh.” Vivian’s lips had parted in surprise. “I see. I didn’t realize it was that serious.”
I hadn’t either. When she was on her knees, I had let the words ‘I’m going to marry you’ slip out. Josie didn’t mention it, but I hadn’t seen her since. It was a rash thing to say. A careless thing that could create complications. I knew she wouldn’t appreciate me showing up at her apartment again after she’s asked if anyone saw me come back, and it felt desperate to seek her out. She could already be gone, and she’s an expert at not being found.
I’ve never been in love before, and I don’t know if I really am. I’m certainly partial to Josie—more than partial. She dominates my thoughts. I haven’t even noticed anyone else since she re-entered my life.
Hades checks his watch and turns to us. “So, what’s new with the three of you?”
I don’t feel like conversing right now. In fact, it’s the last thing I want to do.
Hermes throws me under the bus immediately. “Same shit with us. Not sure what Aedonaeus has been up to. We don’t see him anymore.”
“Really now?” Hades’ eyebrows raise with question.
“I’ve been tired,” I grumble.
“Any chance it has to do with the girl?”
“What girl?” Minos tilts his head.
“I believe her name is Josephine. Is that right?” Hades knows that’s her fucking name.
“I don’t remember a Josephine.” Hermes is deep in thought.
“I do,” Minos grins. “Vivian’s sister, Josie.”
Hermes’ eyes widen, and he swallows hard. “You’ve been seeing her sister?”
“Sex is that good, huh?” Minos wiggles his eyebrows, and I fight the urge to rip them from his face.
“But she’s so—” Hermes starts to say.
“So, what?” I growl.
“Fucking crazy,” Hermes finishes. “And out of your league.”
“Was Vivian right? Does she bite? Sink her teeth into you, and now you can’t get enough of that sweet juicy—”
“Watch it, Minos,” I warn.
Josie swims into my vision. Her scars and her big silver eyes. Yeah, she bit into my soul and dragged me into her depths. She’s on my mind every second of every day, and not just for sex, even though that’s mind blowing, too. She’s a goddess, and I can’t take my attention away from her.
Minos whistles, ignoring me. “She’s out of this world. Never seen anyone like her. Does she taste as good as she looks?”
I start to stalk toward him, ready to choke him within an inch of his life, but Hades throws out his arm stopping me. “Be respectful, boys,” he reminds them, as if he didn’t start this.
“So you’ve seen her again? Even after she rejected you?” Hermes asks.
I look away. Hades is watching me carefully, waiting to see what I say next.
“I’ve seen her,” I admit. “More than once.”
“A toast to our fallen brother,” Minos raises his glass. “He’s lost in a sea of exquisite pussy. The craziest ones are always the best in bed.”
I charge at him, and Hades doesn’t try to stop me this time. I seize him by his neck and slam him against the wall. His glass falls from his hand, shattering on the white marbled floor. Minos’ face is turning purple.
A growl tears through my throat. “Don’t ever speak about her like that again.”
“What is going on here?” Persephone’s’ soft voice floats from behind me. There’s no judgment in her tone. She sounds more like a patient mother trying to sort out our aggressively boyish feelings and the root cause of them.
I release the idiot and let him crumple to the ground. I shouldn’t be getting this angry over a girl.
“It would appear that Aedonaeus has a girlfriend. Minos was a little disrespectful,” Hades explains.
There’s a look on her face that I can’t decipher. “Is this true, Aedonaeus?”
Persephone looks elegant in a pink silk dress, and her brown hair floats around her in soft curls. She wears her pink flower crown and pink high heels. I could tell her Josie isn’t my girlfriend, but a possessive part of me wants to lean into the lie. Josie and I haven’t spoken about any of it, but she did ask me to stay in her apartment with her. That must count for something.
She was upset, my inner voice tells me. Always the devil’s advocate. What is it that she was upset about? She said she has demons, but I knew that long before she told me.
I’ve been in my head for too long. Persephone is looking at me expectantly.
“You three go ahead.” Her soft voice radiates authority.
The three of them know better than to challenge her. They stride out of the place with quick glances in my direction. Once the door shuts behind them Persephone offers me her arm.
I know where this is going. She’s going to make us stroll through the gardens and talk. I feel a little queasy and nervous. She’s the only person I want to talk to about this. I don’t know why I didn’t go to her in the first place. Her advice and opinions are worth more than anyone else’s.
We travel out of the door and into the garden.
“A girl?” she asks, forging ahead.
“A girl,” I confirm.
“She must be quite the woman to snag your attention.” Her curiosity is unnerving. She isn’t betraying what she is truly thinking in her elegant mind.
“She demands attention everywhere she goes. Mine is only a needle in a haystack.”
“But she doesn’t prefer the haystack if she’s your girlfriend,” she gently points out.
“She isn’t my girlfriend. They were only taunting me.”
“So you’re friends?”
“Not exactly,” I exhale.
I don’t know what we are, and I’ve never been on the receiving end of this confusing dynamic. I’ve always made it clear where I stand with people, male and female, no matter their status or my dealings with them. When it comes to Josie, I’ve been careful not to push her in any direction in fear that she might find it too much and not return to me.
“Your father mentioned her to me,” Persephone sighs, finally looking at me with a strange mixture of emotions.
I groan. “Of course he did.”
“You’re misreading me.”
“Then state it plainly.”
“You ask that of me, but not the girl?” The corner of her mouth twitches, the ghost of a smile.
“She’s unpredictable.”
“So she’s been hurt before?”
“I wouldn’t know. She makes it impossible to get to know her.”
“Yet you still want to. Are you trying to solve her mystery, or do you have genuine interest in her?”
My mother always asks thought provoking questions. I think about it. Josie is a mystery; I can’t argue that. But every time she gives me a crumb of herself, I inhale it like a starved man. Sure, I contemplate the words and the small admissions. I wish she would give me more, but not because I want to figure her out. The only things I want to know are how to make her stay, and how to make whatever haunts her go away.
I look away with shame. “Genuine interest.” These feelings are new to me, and they’re uncomfortable.
She nods her head in understanding. “I always wanted to be a bit of a mystery myself, but I was never good at it.”
“It’s an infuriating trait.”
She laughs. “It takes patience. That’s something you have never been very good at.”
“No, I’m not.” I feel a little lighter. It’s easy to talk to her. There’s no blame in her tone, no lecture on responsibility, and no reminder that someday soon I will have to sit on the throne and make decisions for an entire civilization. Just true, genuine concern.
“It’s lonely to live like that,” she ponders. “I have personal experience. It’s like you’re clawing your way through a current just to get a breath of fresh air. You don’t know who you can trust, so you trust no one at all.”
“She has a sister.”
“That doesn’t make her any less alone, Aedonaeus. Sisters are always trying not to be a burden on one another.”
She stops and sits on a bench in her favorite spot. Across from it is a wall of flowers, pink like the ones in her hair. They stretch and bloom bright in her presence.
“You are alone, too,” she continues.
“Hardly,” I snort, thinking through all the women I’ve been through.
“Oh sweet, beautiful boy. You surround yourself with lovers rejecting their love before they have the chance to give it. It is loneliness masked by a crowd. It sounds like this girl has only handled it differently. Maybe she, too, once stood in a crowded room, but she figured out that it didn’t suit her to continue doing so.”
I hate it when she’s right. Josie said as much that night at The Alibi. You use women as a bandage for your loneliness.
That night I had told her that she uses violence instead of words. That she keeps her distance. She had only drunk half of her cup. Now I know which part of it is true, but that begs the question, when did she learn the violence? Josie acts comfortable in it, like it comes to her as a basic instinct not like a trained skill that came much later in life.
I realize it’s a trait born from survival. So why did she flee to Asphodel all those years ago? She and Vivian both mentioned they had been through things—like a blood stain that you can’t get out of pavement. They survived something together that caused some sort of adverse reaction that rooted itself deep inside of Josie. Violence born from necessity. Demons.
“I want her company,” I tell Persephone, begging for her insight.
“Sounds like you're in love,” she giggles.
“I don’t know her well enough for that,” I balk, thinking about the other night when I took care of her.
“I wish you could see everything from where I sit,” she sighs. “These notions, these rules, they mean nothing. They are put in place by people who are afraid. You are no coward.”
I absorb what she’s said. “Then what am I supposed to do about it? I’ve been letting her make the rules. I don’t press her. I just wait around for her to give me the time of day.”
“It sounds like that is what she needs.”
“That’s not comforting,” I grumble.
“I’m not here to comfort you, Aedonaeus. I’m here to guide you. If she has been giving you the time of day, as you call it, then it sounds like she may not be as flighty as she would have you believe. Maybe that’s what she needs you to believe so she can believe it herself. Some people have not been given the chance to be anything other than disappointed. She could be waiting for the moment you rebuke her. For you to stop waiting.”
“And I’m supposed to wait forever?”
“What would you do otherwise?”
I would do nothing. I know I can never stop waiting. The first time we met I was destined to find her. I had resolved that night that I would, and I will bide my time until then. I have been waiting for her for years, and I will wait the rest of my life if that’s what it takes. Now that I’ve had a taste of her, I can never go back. That’s the truth.
“I hate it when you’re right.”
“I will leave you with one last question,” she clears her throat. “When she is ready, will you be?”
“I—”
“Ah, ah, ah.” She waves her finger. “That one is for you to answer, alone.”
Persephone stands and brushes off her lap, straightening her dress.
“You have a lot to think about. I understand if you happen to not make it tonight. In fact, I don’t think you should go at all.” She smiles brightly, planting a kiss on my head and gliding off into the garden.
That was permission, and I will take it. I don’t want to go to Eris’ stupid fucking party. It will only piss me off when I don’t want to be there. I want to wait for the next moment Josie graces my presence, and if she doesn’t, then I will go to her. Nosy neighbors be damned.
Persephone was right. I do love her, and I don’t intend to be a coward. Josie is a hurricane, and I will happily stand in the eye of it. I’m ready. Now I’m just waiting for her to be. I’m not a patient man, but I can last a little bit longer.