Noah,
In my entire life, I had been on six quests.
My first was Sam's.
My second was my own, a small quest to help out a god who screwed some stuff up.
My third was with Austin.
My fourth was Kate's.
My fifth was my own as well, and it was much more serious.
And now I was on my sixth.
In the five prior, we had been very different. We were battered, fighting off monsters constantly, tired, and on the very point of desperation. I didn't get any sleep, rarely got a shower, and barely ate. It wasn't exactly a vacation.
But, had my sister not been in danger this entire time, I could have seen this as a vacation. A night with Apollo in Charleston where we made a new friend. A night alone with Kate in Birmingham while everyone else was away, though not exactly what I would have liked to happen took place. More alone time with Kate. A role, though small, in a film. A beautiful actress flirting with me. And now time with Hermes in his penthouse in Las Vegas at The Lucky Coin.
Looking from the outside, this was an amazing trip with great luxury and a comfortable quest. We were all well-rested, treated the very best by gods who put us up for the night at their vacation homes. We all showered, ate well, and even traveled well in Sam's precious car. The monsters were frightened by the strong scent of Charlie's blood and knew that she was designed for someone else's attacks, and we had time to prepare for what would most likely be a grand battle.
But this wasn't a happy trip, and this wasn't an easy quest.
While the monsters were scared of Charlie's blood and didn't have a hit on her to make their attacks worthwhile, this meant that Olympia wanted Charlie for herself. Our journey couldn't be enjoyed when we were scared that Charlie could be gone forever at any time.
So, like the rest of my quest that couldn't be enjoyed, I didn't have much fun with Hermes today either.
First, he took us for a round of golf. I was pretty good, and Sam was better and had more fun. Aiden took easily to the game, and Chester didn't give it much thought, only beginning to care about whether he lost or won when Aiden started playing better. Hermes won, and he took us to the lounge.
Aiden and Chester, being well under the drinking age, went to the gym instead. And, as we were leaving, I noticed that their rivalry stayed there, too, making them try everything to be better than the other. It was a relief to get away from their constant attempts to beat each other to be honest.
Hermes took us to the longue and ordered a round of drinks as he settled into his chair.
"So, you two," Hermes smiled as the round of scotch was delivered to us each, and he brought his drink to his lips, "You are all grown up. Gods, I remember delivering some of your gifts for your mother's baby shower, Sam! And, to think, it has been over twenty years!"
Hermes laughed.
"You know, my own daughter is about that age, Angelique. She's a New Age goddess, as is her mother. Angelique is only fifty years old. So, so young, I know. A baby. I am trying to help her, to raise her, if you will. That's why she is here with me in Vegas, this is her full time residence. I come to her at most I can, I want her to find someone. For her to settle down. She's changed me, really. I finally have the time to raise her, and it seems just so hard…" he shook his head, making it very clear that Angelique was the problem child out of all of his children, who were usually known for being the problem child in their families.
That explained why Hermes acted so peaceful and family-oriented.
He was raising Angelique.
I decided not to bring up that being fifty wasn't really being a baby.
"I do believe she likes young Aiden," Hermes smiled, "But I believe he is otherwise engaged, am I correct?"
Hermes laughed, and Sam laughed with him.
But my face stayed straight, a sign for Hermes to change the subject.
"Speaking of that, how are you two," Hermes raised his eyebrows, "doing?"
I swallowed heavily, and Sam smiled wide.
"I'd say pretty well," Sam smirked.
We all knew this, me especially because I was his best friend and roommate. But you could pretty much tell just from looking at him. His confidence was apparent in everything from his smile to his walk. And women just always seemed to fall at his feet.
I had been told that they did to me as well, but I never saw it.
But then again, I didn't take advantage of it as Sam did. I didn't know how, I didn't even know how to see it.
"But what about you?" Hermes looked to me, and I shrugged.
"Alright, I suppose."
"Alright? Gods, you haven't been on a date in over a month? In that time, I've already met, dated, and dumped a girl," Sam rolled his eyes as he took a sip from his Scotch.
"But I'm not you, Sam. I don't…" I smirked, raising my eyebrows, "work that fast."
"If I do remember though, you were quite infatuated with a young girl last time I saw you. How did that ever turn out?" Hermes smiled knowingly, and my stomach twisted.
He was talking about the last time I saw him in New York when we helped him deliver a package. When I was missing Kate and anyone willing to open their eyes could see it.
"Infatuated? Hmm, sounds like Noah. Always too scared to ask a girl out," Sam smirked, "What did happen?"
If it was possible, I would have killed Hermes, but it wasn't. And, even if I really did want to reach over and strangle him, I didn't need to be hated by a god.
I wanted to pretend I didn't remember what he was talking about, but that would also take the risk of him announcing to Sam that this "infatuation" they were teasing me about was for his little sister, Kate.
"Well, if I think we are talking about the same person, it didn't turn out. You know, life takes you in different paths. I one way and she another. Typical," I nodded.
"Life, does take you in different places, I will admit. The Fates can take you away," he got a devilish grin, "But it can bring you together as well. Not always at the most opportune times, you have to keep watch."
"I guess we do," I nodded and sat up, desperate to steer the question any other way.
"Who wants to join me in a game of pool?"
"I'm in," Sam nodded.
"Sounds great."
Charlie,
Once I adjusted to the topic of our conversation and learned not to turn bright red, I realized how easy it was to talk to Kate. Maybe it was that she was older than me and had been through the trauma of being thirteen, but it also had a lot to do with the fact that she had known me forever.
Whenever there was a subject I didn't want to talk about with my mom or just wanted a second opinion, I went to Kate. I had known her my entire life, and I adored her. She was basically my older sister, and I was the little sister she always wanted.
We always talked about stuff like this, only it had always been Kate talking to me about boys and love triangles. Kate was eager to jump right in to the role of older sister, and it was like a movie montage.
Shopping for beautiful outfits with an unlimited credit card of a woman who had no concept of money. Playing around by laughing at each other in funny outfits or accessories. Talking about our boy problems. And we even had time to stop and order hot chocolates and talk together in a coffee shop before Angelique got back.
It felt perfect. Well, it would have been completely perfect if we had been talking only about Kate's troubles.
While it felt good to get mine off my chest, it also stirred up thinking about them. And it made me evaluate it even more.
Aiden had become one of my closest friends even though we hadn't known each other long. He understood me, made me laugh, made me smile, and still kept me with feelings towards him (though I couldn't exactly decide what). He was the perfect man, the one girls talk about trying to find all the time. There was an age difference though, which wouldn't be such a problem if we were older, but was a problem here. And he was secretive, lived in New Rome, and kept what he did there under wraps.
The attraction to Chester was immediate. He has that sultry smile, intriguing eyes, and kept you guessing at every turn. I didn't know him as well, but he was easier to get to know. He was friendlier, charismatic, and there didn't seem to be many things that he kept a secret. He was also a girl's dream, though the secret one our parents didn't approve of.
As I compared them, I kept seeing points go to the other again and again, making one seem more favorable until the other got a point for something else. The winner kept changing, and it was beginning to get me dizzy.
That's why, as Kate was sipping at her second hot chocolate and I was nibbling at my strawberry muffin, I changed the subject from my woes to hers.
"So, how have you been carrying along?"
Kate knit her eyebrows in confusion.
"I mean, with guys. When you're in love with my brother, how has your love life been carrying on?"
Kate seemed to blush, which was almost silly after how deep our conversation had been before now. We had gone into worse subjects than how our love lives had been getting along.
"Fine, I suppose," she looked down to her cup of hot chocolate.
I wasn't sure I believed her.
"Who was the last guy you dated?"
Kate closed her eyes to think about it, which was already a bad sign.
"Humphry, that was it."
"Humphry?" I raised my eyebrows.
"British, you know. He was in my Literature class last semester. We were together for a while," Kate shrugged.
"How long is a while?"
"Four months," Kate smiled proudly, knowing I was expecting it to be shorter.
"And how long ago was that?"
Now Kate was silent, taking a sip of her coffee and not meeting my eyes.
Finally, as he played with her hands, she shrugged with an answer.
"About three months."
"Any dates since?"
"Well, I was busy with finals," Kate tried.
"In high school, you would have dated about three guys since then and already have broken their heart."
"I didn't break their heart, and I wasn't really dating them. It was a few casual dates, nothing serious," Kate explained, but I shook my head.
"They didn't think so."
Kate sighed.
"I don't know. I was super social my senior year. Always seemed to have a date on Friday nights whenever I wanted one. Relationships started faster and lasted longer, and there wasn't a big gap in between them like now. But then I went to college, and I just…"
Kate leaned back in her chair, trailing off as she got lost in thought.
"Kate, if your love for Noah is going to prohibit you doing stuff, just man up and tell him."
This Kate heard.
"I can't, Charlie," Kate sighed dramatically.
"Why not?" I crossed my arms, getting angry at how dramatic the two of them were.
I just wished they would get together already! Whenever I decided to give them a push, it did the opposite of what I wanted. I tried to explain all the time that the other was in love with them, but they always thought I had misunderstood and saw stuff like that because I wanted to see it and wanted to get them together.
No matter what I tried, it ended the same way. They told me that it wasn't meant to be, name off a few reasons why not, and then say something about how they had to suffer and how I shouldn't dwell on it, too.
They had to get together on their own, but they just wouldn't do it!
"I just can't. He's my best friend-"
"But you said it yourself, you can't really be friends with him when you are so much in love with him!"
"I grew up with him-"
"That's nothing, Kate."
"He's my cousin."
"By marriage, not blood. And it's basically distant anyway. His step-mom was your father's half-sister."
"My big brother is his best friend!"
"Sam could move on from it, unlike you apparently."
I would have kept interrupting if she hadn't decided to put an end to the conversation.
"It just won't work, Charlie," Kate gave me the look to let it go, and, while I didn't want to, I did anyway.
I nodded and leaned back in my chair.
Kate pointed and made a deep frown.
I turned around to see Angelique walking towards us, loaded down in shopping bags and talking on a cell phone. She made a motion with her hand, and the limo that brought us here drove up to meet her.
"Is she planning on leaving us?" I asked, crossing my arms.
I didn't like Angelique.
Why I felt so angry when she was with Aiden, I wasn't sure, but I was. And it made me hate her.
Angelique's eyes suddenly looked to us, peering through the other patrons at the coffee shop straight to us. She seemed to be annoyed, as if we should have known that the sight of her meant running after her, and her eyes told us to come to her now or she might leave us.
"Well, there goes the fun part of the day," Kate moaned, standing up, and she balanced her bags on her shoulder.
I followed after her, and I did my best not to glare at Angelique as she gave us each a once-over.
She was so self-important, so righteous, and so…. Annoying.
Even if she was a goddess, though minor, I wanted to slap her as hard as I possibly could for as long as I could, even if that only meant messing up her make-up.
"How'd it go?" she asked finally.
"Fine," Kate shrugged, speaking up first because she knew I wouldn't be exactly polite if I was the one to talk to her instead, "How did it go for you?"
"Fine," Angelique flipped her hair, "I found the perfect dress."
I felt sick as I realized that the "perfect dress" was going to be used to impress Aiden.
Suddenly, my strawberry muffin and hot chocolate felt like it was climbing up my throat.
"I even got a few gifts," her dark eyes sparkled as she looked at me, and, while Kate was smiling and silently claiming that she was right that she wasn't as bad as we had earlier thought, my stomach felt worse.
I nodded, unable to speak without the fear of puking all over Angelique.
"This'll be fun, going out to the club together."
"Yeah, fun…" I muttered.
Kate,
I smiled to myself as I ran a brush through my wet hair, still smelling the sweet lilac bubble bath I had just been soaking in.
Today I had been fun.
I loved Charlie, she was the little sister I had secretly wished I had instead of Sam. When I went to college, I still saw her, and we still talked on the phone. But things seemed different, there seemed to be less time to see each other. And Noah was usually coming to see her, and I didn't want to see him…
I had always wanted to be there with Charlie to talk about boys, and I might have been a little too happy to be talking about love triangles. But I couldn't help it.
Charlie had liked boys, I guess. But it was always a crush, nothing more. It was never serious, which I was happy about because she was only thirteen and Noah couldn't handle it ever being serious. She didn't want to rush into growing up like people her age.
But it was clear that this was different.
The way she spoke about them…
She didn't just think they were cute or easy to get along with. She actually liked these boys, she liked them more than I had ever really seen her like anyone before. And I had never seen her so confused either.
Like the rest of our bloodline, Charlie usually had things figured out. She was faster and smarter about things than people her own age. In her other crushes, she would have decided by now, especially when there were such life or death situations going on.
Her mind would have been made, a poor boy's hopes thrown away, and a crush completely formed any other time. But this was different…
Other than talking to Charlie though, my day wasn't so great.
A long drive. Awkward lunch. And a horrible drive where we got stuck in traffic with Angelique.
When we got back, we all went to our rooms, and I settled in for a nice relaxing bubble bath, partly to relax me and partly because of how long it had been since I got a shower.
In the bath, I finally felt free. Free of thought. Free of worries. And free of everyone else.
There were things I needed to think about, possibilities I needed to consider, and people who needed special attention in my head.
Noah. Olympia. Charlie. Chester. Aiden. SoccerGuy18…
All of it was important, and it demanded my special and undivided attention.
I needed thought, I needed ideas, and I needed time.
I had time. I had thought, and I could think of ideas.
But I didn't want to.
No, I refused to.
I wanted peace, I wanted tranquility.
And, even though it wasn't for long, it was absolutely perfect.
But it couldn't last forever, and I finally climbed out of the tub and into my plush robe to dry off.
As I blow-dried my hair, my thoughts drifted back to me.
Particularly Soccerguy18 stayed with me, and I kept thinking about the fact that he was also right around here and that we were going to the same place. It was tempting to see him, to tell him that I think we should meet, and to choose him over Noah.
But I wasn't sure.
It was the wrong time to make such a move, and I wasn't even sure that I wanted that.
Too call on SoccerGuy18 and meet him would mean giving up on Noah completely and forever. It would mean picking a man I didn't know, a man who I got close to because we were in love with different people. Could he really chose me over Dianna?
…Could I choose him over Noah?
It had always been my fear that I couldn't let him go and be happy without him. I always worried that I would end up in an unhappy life or not really have one at all. And this felt like the biggest test, asking me the big question.
And I wasn't ready to answer it yet…
I was snapped out of my thoughts by realizing that I had already changed back into my clothes from earlier and had nothing else to do unless I wanted to begin getting ready for tonight, which I didn't.
Not wanting to have to just sit here, I got off the bed of my room and started towards the living room.
The penthouse was expansive, it was a palace fit for a god squeezed into a penthouse. There was clearly a magic on it to grant it so much space, and I was a little scared of what I might find if I decided to go and explore.
We were put in what Hermes had called the "Guest Level" in six of the many bedrooms around. Each seemed to be fit for a god. There was a common area, offices for personal use, sitting rooms, a game room, a pool room, a media room, and access to the pool on the roof as the servants had pointed out
On the next floor, there were the more important rooms. Hermes favorite office and usual center of business, his room, Angelique's, (as the servants had gossiped to me) Photreppa's room because she wanted to see her daughter and help raise her but had a rather messy break-up with Hermes and had demanded her room be on the opposite side of the floor, and other such amenities for the masters who lived on that level.
"Hey, Kate."
I looked over to see Charlie leaving her room, and we went down the stairs together.
"Where's Angelique?" Charlie asked, her arms crossed and her face full of distain.
It was almost funny to see Charlie so jealous.
"I don't know, what does it matter?"
"It doesn't, just wondering," Charlie shrugged, "I don't care."
"Oh really?"
"Why should I care? We don't get along, but I do not dislike her or like her."
"You don't?" I laughed.
"What? I don't."
"Sure, Charlie."
"I don't!"
"Keep telling yourself that," I shook my head as we walked into the living room, and we would have kept bantering if the elevator door didn't surprise us and open.
Five men were standing it in.
Sam and Hermes wore the only smiles. He and Sam were talking about their good golf game and something about a longue.
Noah looked nervous and a little on edge. He didn't talk about golf or the longue or anything about their day, but he still slightly stayed in the conversation like he was prepared to steer off a uncomfortable subjects at any moment.
Then there were Aiden and Chester.
They didn't speak, they didn't even look at each other. Their bodies looked tired and worn out, and their skin showed they had recently been sweating a lot, even if they had changed into sports clothes with the logo for some longue (the one Hermes and Sam were talking about I guess).
I looked to Noah as if to ask what happened to them, and he let out a small, silent laugh and made a motion that he would tell me later.
"Oh, Katherine! Charlotte!" Hermes smiled wide as he walked to us.
It almost shocked me to hear both of our real names after being called "Kate" and "Charlie" for so long.
"Where is Angelique?"
"I'm here, Father," Angelique's voice carried through the house as she came down the stairs, her heels clacking against the stairs, and I looked back to see her.
You could tell she enjoyed being a goddess and definitely loved being "High and Mighty" about it as well.
Her long brown hair was tied into a complicated bun, and she was wearing a black and sparkly black toga. It was loose on her thin frame, and it was clear that it would never look as good on anyone, unless you were Aphrodite, as it did on Angelique. It could almost make you hate her…
I suddenly understood why Charlie hated her.
Jealously of Angelique trying to take Aiden compounded with the jealously of Angelique alone could make you really hate her.
Angelique's cold, vacant stares turned brighter and interested when she caught sight of Aiden.
"You look ravishing, my Darling," Hermes smiled at his daughter, and Angelique smiled her thanks.
She looked back to Aiden, and I couldn't blame Aiden for being a little mesmerized by the beautiful goddess showing interest in him, even if it did make Charlie so mad.
"Let's all get ready for dinner. And then we can get ready for our night out on the town," Hermes smiled wide.
"Sounds great, Hermes," Sam smiled wide.
He had been excited for going out. After so much stress, he wanted to get it all out, which I understood. But I would have preferred relaxing to pounding music, people going crazy, and drinking to make it all go hazy. I was still going though, and I was determined to have fun like Sam said, if anything to prove to him that I could.
"How did it go with you girls?" Hermes asked as he and the boys started to the stairs, and Angelique smiled wide, her brown eyes full of mischief as she looked to Charlie.
"Wonderful! I even got to pick something out for Charlotte."
Charlie swallowed heavily.
"Y-You did?"
"Of course, Charlie!" she smiled like they were friends, "You'll love it, I have it sitting out on your bed."
"I actually have something picked out-"
"But this is a gift, Charlie," her eyes turned to a puppy dog look, "Please, you have to wear it. I sneaked away to pick it out myself, especially for you. Please wear it."
Charlie was trapped. As she looked to everyone, she knew she had to wear it.
"Of course, thank you, Angelique."
Angelique smiled gracefully, and I looked back to Charlie as her jaw tightened.
"Stay calm. How bad can it be?"
