Connor spoke with his mouth full of sno-balls. Eirene imagined what it would be like: She'd never gone shopping before. She barely wore anything other than that flimsy white dress Zeus had gifted her.
They walked and traveled on, stopping at several different department stores until they found one with cheap enough clothes. Although, Connor claimed, they could have afforded better clothes with Andrew's money.
"All I'm saying is—" He started, but Andrew cut him off.
"Do you honestly expect me to carry around hundreds of dollars in my pocket?
"Well…maybe! Kind of like all those rich white kids in the movies."
Andrew gave a heaving sigh and brought his hand to his head. "You're ridiculous."
Connor seemed to take this as a sign to continue. "Are you denying that fact, then?" Eirene could tell he was itching to learn something about Andrew from Andrew himself, even if he already knew it to be true or not.
"Of course I am." He said with mock dignity. Then he took on a serious face and looked straight at Connor. "I have not, nor never will be, in a movie."
This time Eirene decided she'd pip into this small chit-chat. "So you are rich?" She wondered what it felt like, to live in a big mansion, endless clothes and food at your disposal. Though Andrew read her expectant expression and rushed to correct it.
He looked uneasy. "No, I'm…I mean my family is just more well off than others. That's all. We don't live in a mansion or drive fancy cars, if that's what you're thinking."
"Oh." She felt slight embarrassment. "Do you have a butler?"
Now he looked embarrassed. "What? No! Do I look that spoilt to you?"
Eirene looked at him. His hair was extremely ruffled and in dire need of a combing, but she suspected all of their hair looked like that. His face was covered with dirt and soot, and he had a scar running across his cheek that looked like it'd been there since he was a child. His clothes were filthy, as dirty as she imagined all of their clothes were. And she looked around, and saw that multiple people were staring at them; the filthy kids with bags full of clothes and sno-balls. So she stopped walking.
They both turned to look at her; confused. "What? What is it?"
"I think, I think we should hurry to find a hotel. We're drawing attention to ourselves..."
The boys too looked around, not seemingly surprised to find multiple eyes on them. Connor shrugged. "Spend enough years at camp half-blood with all the physical games we play in the forest, you stop noticing when you're dirty." He nodded at Andrew. "Come on, pretty boy. Flash that psychic paper and find us a decent hotel."
Several minutes later, Eirene was bouncing on top the biggest bed she'd ever seen, and she could hear Connor belly-flopping onto another mattress in the next room.
"Awesome man! How'd you get the royal suite?"
"I guess the psychic showed them something that made us…important? I don't always know what it says."
"So how do you know when to trust it? It could say something that might get us killed."
"No, it always helps; it says whatever will most help me at the time…"
She let the boys chatter fade out and focused on her own thoughts. A part of her was still boiling over her ring, and the bandit who'd stolen it. She was still trying to work out how she was going to find him in a city this big. She remembered what he looked like vividly; his hair, not really dirty blonde when she thought about it, but a light brown. His skin was slightly tanned, he has a faint dimple on his cheek and his eyes were green. His clothing…she recalled jeans and a black trench coat. But she knew he'd abandoned his clothing and change into something else if he was smart, so that information was useless…
Connor walked in on her hard thinking, and read her expression. "Are you still on that ring?" He weighed down the bed next to her.
"I can't help it; I don't know what he's going to do with it!" Her grip on the covers tightened as her voice rose with fear. "What if he sells it?" '
Connor brought his hands to her face and smoothed out her furrowed brows, then unfurled her hands and took them in his. "Eirene; Look at me."
With reluctance, she brought her eyes to his. They were a light brown, very warm and welcoming. "We'll find your ring. We'll find the guy, and we'll make him pay." Connor smiled and nodded at her, and she forced one back. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and she didn't know the cause of it.
Andrew decided that he'd walk in at that moment, and Eirene quickly dropped Connor's hands. "Alright, who's taking first wash?"
"I am!" Eirene shot her hand up and jumped off the bed, avoiding Connor's glare and rushed into the shower before anyone else could react.
Andrew gave him a strange look. "What did you do to her?"
Connor let out a laugh. "She's like a female version of you." Never lets anyone get close. He thought bitterly. And then he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
Eirene slapped herself multiple times as the cold water poured over her. Bia's words kept replaying in her mind, and she didn't want them to be true. You're going to fall in love with one of them, Eirene. You won't be able to help it
Well I will help it. She told herself. Neither Connor nor Andrew, it won't happen. She quickly showered and exited, leaving the door open for Connor to enter. They didn't spend long at the hotel, and quickly got a move on after they finished changing into their new clothes. Andrew was able to figure out where they were, and they quickly hurried to get back on track.
While walking, Eirene noticed two females who were yelling at passersby and gesturing to their shop, while motioning to their hands filled with free samples. Eirene initially thought it was food, but upon closer inspection discovered they were shampoo bottles.
"Free makeovers here! Get your free makeovers here at Gorgon-no-more; where we turn the ugly into the beautiful!" One of the two females was redheaded, and was grabbing at random people and yelling "You there! Aren't you ugly?"
"Dear Zeus; she's never going to get any business if that's her hook-line." Andrew commented.
The other sister was holding a box of shampoo samples and offering them to passersby. "Don't want to come in? Fine! Have a sample of our best hair de-tangler!" She had very long black hair, and was being ignored horribly.
"I kind of feel sorry for them," Connor whispered as they got closer to the strange ladies. "They look sort of pathetic."
"Best to ignore them," Andrew said, while trying to direct them away from the girls. Though it seemed they had already spotted the trio, and went full-force in trying to convince them to enter their store.
"Please! Just one!" The redhead begged.
"We just need one customer!" The other pleaded. She grabbed at Eirene's hair and sighed sadly. "Our mother runs this business. She'll punish us if we don't get at least one customer."
Eirene looked into their eyes, and they seemed sincere. And then she started to feel a bit bad for them. Andrew looked at her face and knew that she was started to get soft. "Eirene, we have to remember why we're here!"
"But…" Going into their store for a few moments couldn't be that bad, she thought. So she agreed, much to Andrew's protests. Both girls looked ecstatic and rushed to pull the trio into the store, despite the protests from the males.
The inside of the store was huge, frilly and pink. The lighting had a faint fuchsia tint to it and the chairs were a bright purple, ordained with light pink lace. The mirrors also had a faint pink light, and the walls were painted hot pink. Everything was either pink or purple, and Andrew slowly felt his vision go weary.
"Everything is…" He struggled for words. "Everything is…such an eyesore."
"Don't you mean incredibly stylish?" The one with red hair corrected. Connor shook his head.
"No, he meant an eyesore."
Eirene was still looking around in awe. She'd never seen such a vibrant explosion of colours before. Her eyes landed on one of the sisters; the one with black hair was staring at her intently. Eirene decided to be a bit friendly.
"Um, this is a very…nice store you've got. What're your names?"
"My name's Eurial. My sister's is Selen…o." The one with black hair finished awkwardly, as if she wasn't really sure. Andrew's eyes immediately narrowed.
The redhead looked briefly irritated at her sister, but regained her happy composure. "Seleno: at your service!" She rushed to Eirene and grabbed her hair, tusking at the ends.
"My goodness, look at those ends! So singed! We have to get you a split-ends revival treatment, stat!" She started pulling Eirene to the back room, but Andrew grabbed her arm and pulled back.
"Just one moment—"
"Oh but of course!" Eurial nodded. "You boys would want a makeover too!"
"We don't need makeovers!" Connor exclaimed, but he and Andrew were already being pulled away by Eurial, leaving Eirene alone with Seleno.
She lead Eirene back, strapped Eirene into a chair and leaned her head back into a sink, and Eirene instantly started to freak out when the hot water touched her forehead. "Wait! Wait! What are you doing? Stop it!"
"Oh don't fuss!" Selena was pouring some type of purple liquid all over her hands, and then rubbing it into Eirene's hair. "This'll just soften up your hair and make it nice and bouncy!"
So she sat back while Seleno tried to pry into Eirene's skull with her fingers. "Um, Seleno? That kind of hurts."
"Oh, sorry!" Seleno giggled. "Almost done: I'll be moving up to the de-tangler next!"
Eirene didn't know how much more she could take. She wondered how Connor and Andrew were dealing with this.