Accidentally Aphrodite (15 page)

Archibald grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Don’t you try to soften me up either. Next time you behave poorly, there will be no
Goodnight Moon
for you before bedtime. Understood?”

Carl bobbed his head and nabbed a piece of broccoli, driving it into his mouth and chomping, green stems falling to his shirt where Nina had tucked a napkin into his collar.

Ingrid set a steaming cup of tea in front of Quinn and sat next to her at the table. She leaned forward and nudged her with a shoulder. “You okay?”

“
Zombie
.”

Ingrid giggled. “Yep.”

“He’s so—so—precious,” she whispered in pure wonder.

“That he is. And he’s amazing with the kids.”

“This week has had more fangs and fur than a mash-up episode of
The Vampire Diaries
and
Teen Wolf
.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

Quinn gave her a skeptical sidelong glance, leaning her head on her hand. “Are you shrinking me right now, Ingrid Lawson?”

“I’m just checking on your emotional barometer. It’s in the pamphlet, if you want to read it. I brought one with me from the office. According to the bosses, you should be having some serious swings in your emotional state. You know, the five stages thing Nina talked about. I just want to keep on top of it. So how do you feel?”

How did she feel? Earlier she’d been euphoric. Sharing that moment with Khristos and two people who had no idea anyone else in the world existed in that moment in time was amazing—fulfilling.

But now? Now she was projecting into the future, when she’d have to explain to her parents and her coworkers she was responsible for helping to repopulate the world.

How did you sit someone down and tell them you couldn’t come to work today because you had to make sure the world kept evolving—forever?

Hey, Mom, what did you do today? Wait. No, don’t tell me. Bet it doesn’t beat what I did today. Know what I did today? I ordered Cupid to shoot glow-in-the-dark arrows at people who are soul mates. You know, those things you staunchly disregard as real?

Worse, she worried about when she’d have to do this on her own without someone to share it with. What fun was helping true love along if you didn’t have someone to share it with?

“Quinn?”

She patted Ingrid’s hand. “I’m hanging in there. Everything’s going to be okay.” Okay, okay, okay. She’d only told herself that a hundred times since the day began.

“I heard you were a real superstar today.”

She shook her head as she sipped her tea and tried not to think about the kiss. “It wasn’t me, really. It was mostly Khristos.”

“But I heard it was a total save. Like, you saved someone’s life, Quinn! That’s incredible, and awesome, and you should be proud. Give yourself some credit. So, this must also mean you’re less butthurt about Igor? Maybe some of those old feelings about everlasting love are coming back?”

After the eye-opening conversation she’d had with Khristos, where she’d had her poor choices laid out in front of her and really examined—um, mostly no. “You know what I’ve decided after tonight? I’ve decided that eternal love is for
some
people, and it’s beautiful. God, it was so beautiful, Ingrid. But I learned something about myself this fine evening as well. Something valuable.” And while she hated to admit it, Khristos’s words had clicked.

Ingrid grabbed a cookie from the plate Archibald silently set on the table and took a healthy bite. “Tell me,” she ordered as she munched.

“I discovered that it isn’t that the men I pick suck ass, per se.
I
suck ass at the picking. I’ve invested a lot of time in putting on my blinders. On overlooking some of the things I knew were clear signs that Igor and I weren’t a good match, but ignored anyway because I was sure, in the big scheme of things, he was my Mr. Darcy. That I could turn him
into
my Mr. Darcy.”

“Signs like…?”

Quinn sighed and leaned deeper into her hand. “Like when Igor told me he loved me. Sure, he said it, but I never felt secure in it. Not even a little. Despite what I portrayed outwardly. That’s because I wanted it to be true in my head, but I guess I knew it wasn’t in my heart. I just couldn’t admit it. Apparently, I have a gift for picking men who’ll be whatever I want them to be just to keep from being alone, and then they realize what I want isn’t what they want and they skip off to someone with big guns and abs I could bounce a quarter off of.”

“Wow. That’s deep, my friend. But you seem like you’ve come to terms with it. Though, I still say, it doesn’t mean it can’t happen to you.”

Quinn shrugged, wincing when she tried to stretch out her arm. “But maybe it’s just not for everyone. I mean, this Aphrodite thing is about repopulating the world, right? But some people choose not to procreate for whatever reasons. If everyone procreated we’d have far bigger problems than we already do, don’t you think? I’ve made my peace with the idea I just wasn’t meant to be part of that particular bigger picture.”

Ingrid rolled her tongue along the inside of her cheek, her patience clearly waning. “Look, Igor
is
the shit on your shoe. He didn’t even have the decency to break up with you properly, Quinn. You’re a nice lady. He’s a dicknuckle of a man. It shouldn’t sour you forever.” She waved her hands in a dismissive motion. “That’s beside the point. The point is, despite our complete lack of almost anything in common other than English Lit, and considering our age difference, I still know that a bad breakup takes time to get over. I’m not so young that I don’t get—”

“Why are you always harping on the fact that I’m almost old enough to be your mother?” Quinn planted an indignant hand on her hip with a grin. “I’m so tired of hearing about your youth, I could cry. I’m thirty-five, not three thousand-five. Yes, I decided to continue my education a little later in life. So. What?” Quinn waved her finger under Ingrid’s nose to make her point.

Ingrid gave her a look of outrage, her heavily made-up eyes wide. “I’m not making fun of you. I’m stating a fact. It was me, wasn’t it, who clunked Thor Benson in the head for making fun of your age?”

That was true. Ingrid had. Right after their fellow classmate Thor, who shouldn’t have been given vocal chords, let alone a high school diploma, had called her a wannabe MILF.

Okay. Unfair call. She was picking fights in her touchiness after the diner revelations. “Yes. It was a nice shot, too. Perfectly executed.”

“He deserved it. He doesn’t even know how to spell MILF, let alone identify one. He said to tell you hello, too.”

She’d forgotten all about her class. “What did you tell everyone?”

“That you had a boob job and you’re recuperating.”

Quinn snorted. “You didn’t.”

“Nah, I didn’t. I just told them you had to cut your trip short because you were the new Aphrodite, Goddess of Lurve, and your plate suddenly became full and especially sparkly.”

Quinn giggled. “Thanks for covering for me. I’m not ready to explain about Igor yet.”

“So seriously. Are you really, really going to let that douchenozzle crap on your future dreams? Don’t you think it’s time to let the failures go?”

Youth, in all its impatience, thy name is Ingrid. It had nothing to do with letting go. It had to do with a dream dashed, and coming to terms with the dashing.

“Look, Miss Youthful and Resilient 2015, you’re young, maybe too young to have experienced real betrayal. So while Igor is a piece of limp wiener, we
were
in a relationship for over a year. Maybe at your age that’s no big deal, and maybe the day after you found out the man you thought was your soul mate cheated on you, you’d skip right off to the next available guy with tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. But at my age, a year
means
something. It’s time invested, and it still stings a little. I’m gun-shy now. And it isn’t much about Igor anymore. It’s about all of my failed relationships as a whole.”

“Hey, Old Maid,” Ingrid prodded, swatting at her arm. “First of all, no way I’d date a dude who liked Bieber. Second of all, I’d mourn my lost relationship for at least a week before I even considered dating anyone else. I might even go two weeks, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry and bitter over all that time invested. Not at all. I’m just saying, never give up. It’s what you told me when we had to write that stupid essay about some ancient artist’s perspective of his death. Remember how I struggled with that? Christ, I wanted to raise him up from the dead just so I could kill him all over again.”

Quinn sighed, but she shot Ingrid a fond smile. “One essay and several drastically bad life-choices are exactly the same.”

“You’re breaking me,” Ingrid said mournfully, letting the cookie drop to the plate.

Quinn patted her hand and wiped the side of Ingrid’s mouth free of crumbs. “Don’t be broken. I’m not.” And that was the truth.

Carl stood up suddenly, pushing aside his chair and grabbing a big tote bag from under the table. He stooped in an awkward half-bend of knees and pulled out a book.

Holding it up, he grinned crookedly at Quinn and held out his hand, now duct-taped securely to his wrist, the shiny silver metallic catching the overhead light.

Quinn cocked her head in Nina’s direction.

Nina smiled, and when that smile was in direct relation to someone she loved, it was the most amazing, serene sight to behold. She was so beautiful when she wasn’t threatening to turn your liver into pâté.

Nina ruffled Carl’s dark hair like a proud parent. “He wants to read to you, Lite-Brite. Carl’s an intuitive little dude, and he must sense you’re sad about all this love goop. He loves to read. Reads everything he can get his hands on. It makes him happy. He thinks it makes everyone else happy, too. Don’t you buddy? It’s his way of cheering you up.”

Quinn smiled up at Carl then, her heart tight and melty in her chest. “I love to read, too, Carl. It’s my absolute favorite pastime.”

Carl grunted and stuck his hand back at her with that grin even the hardest of hearts couldn’t deny.

Quinn took it, letting Carl lead her to her bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the bed and patted the place next to him.

And there she sat, on her frilly romantic bed with the plump white and blue lace pillows, right next to a vegetarian zombie who clumsily nestled
Goodnight Moon
on his thighs and grunted out words to her.

And it was the second most amazing thing that had happened to her today.

Chapter 9

T
he doorbell, tinny and obnoxiously loud, had Quinn literally falling out of her bed, stumbling over Carl, who’d fallen fast asleep after they’d read together.

Buffy and Spike stirred only briefly from their spot on the pillows before yawning and settling back in, curling together in a warm ball of contentment.

Grabbing her bathrobe, Quinn made a break for the door in the hopes whoever it was, holding their finger to the damn doorbell as if they were demanding entry to Heaven, wouldn’t wake Nina.

Because she did not want to be the one who ruffled those bat wings.

But it was already too late. Nina held the door wide open, the freezing rush of air whooshing around Quinn’s ankles.

The vampire folded her arms over her red thermal shirt with black bats on it, crossing her long legs covered in matching thermal underwear, and cocked her head in Quinn’s direction. “Ding-dong, parental unit calling,” she growled.

Oh no. No, no, no.

“Quinn?” Her mother rushed in, pushing her way past Nina to stop directly in front of Khristos, whose big body was sprawled awkwardly on her couch, sound asleep. His beautiful face took her breath away, relaxed and serene as though his liver wasn’t in dire danger of being pecked out.

His muscled arm was flung over his forehead in abandon, and his chest, covered in a T-shirt, lifted in a slow, mesmerizing rhythm of rippled goodness.

Her mother stabbed a finger at Khristos without saying a word, her disapproval ringing in the still apartment air as surely as if she’d expressed it verbally.

Nina strolled up behind her mother’s left shoulder, the floppy bunny ears on her slippers bobbing up and down. “Cat got your tongue?”

Her mother’s eyes went wide at Nina’s presence. “What is
this
?”

“Hot dude.”

“Explain!” Helen Morris demanded.

Nina scratched her head, “Um, hot dude I’d consider hittin’ if I didn’t have my own hot dude at home?”

“Why?” she spat, adjusting her yellow and blue fanny pack around her waist.

The vampire frowned. “Why is hot dude on the couch?”

When Helen didn’t answer quickly enough for Nina, she said, “Look, lady, are we free associating or playing charades or somethin’? Because it’s damn early for me, and I don’t have a pen and paper. There’s a hot dude on your kid’s couch. He’s a nice hot dude, by the way. If you’re lookin’ for anything more in-depth than that from me, you’ll have to come back in about five hours when I’ve fed…er, myself and showered.”

Her mother’s lips thinned when she crooked her neck and looked up at Nina, her sharp green eyes assessing the vampire. “And
who
are you?”

Nina grinned. “Me? Not the hot dude, that’s for sure.”

“Nina!” Quinn hissed in reproach, tightening the belt on her robe. “Mom, why are you here? Why didn’t you just use your key?”

Her mother planted her hands on her hips and narrowed her gaze. “Well, the row of shoes outside your door was an indication you might have guests. I didn’t want to just barge in.”

“Since when?”

Her mother’s eyes flashed all kinds of warnings. “I think explanations are in order, young lady. You’re still supposed to be in Greece, but instead you’re here with a houseful of strangers. What’s going on, Quinn?”

“Mama bear’s bowels are all twisted up,” Nina remarked, poking her finger in Quinn’s shoulder. “Looks like someone’s in for a lickin’.”

Archibald flew around the corner from the kitchen, a plate of fluffy eggs in his hand, his usually perfect hair mussed. “Forgive me, Miss Quinn. I didn’t hear the doorbell!”