“There aren’t too many ways into this city,” Hermes replied. “I played the odds.” He eyed Odysseus as he stood, teeth chattering. “Let’s get going. I picked up some new threads for you. They’re back at my room.”
“Your room?” Athena asked.
“It’s a Motel 6. I figured that would be an appropriate compromise between the Hilton I deserve and the dirt burrow you’d have wanted me to dig.”
He stalked off with attitude to spare. Athena and Odysseus followed, smirking.
“There isn’t even a Hilton here,” Athena said.
“Believe me, I know.”
They walked quickly up the side of the highway, the Motel 6 sign visible a quarter mile up the road. When they reached it, Hermes let them into the room and got them towels from the bathroom to sponge off with. Odysseus skinned gratefully out of his wet jacket and went in to take a shower without another word. Hermes tossed Athena a bag from Nordstrom. She looked inside and promptly threw it back.
“There are sequins,” she growled.
“Not on everything! Besides, you can’t walk around looking like that.” He pushed the bag back. It tipped over and spilled its contents on the garishly colored bedspread. There were a few t-shirts and sweaters and a couple pairs of jeans. The sequins comprised only a small patch on the front of one of the shirts, winking at her in red and silver.
Athena sighed and ran the white terry towel over her hair.
“Thanks, Hermes.”
“Don’t mention it. How was the road?”
Through the bathroom wall she heard the shower turn on. The road. He asked about it so innocently. What would she tell him? That everything had been screwed? That she’d almost fallen to one of Aphrodite’s plots? That she’d allowed herself to cross a line with Odysseus that should have been a brick wall? No. Some things could be omitted. She looked at Hermes regretfully. If he’d have been with them, none of it would have happened, and there wouldn’t be this uncomfortable tension.
Athena leaned against the dresser. “Aphrodite sent someone to kill me.” She shrugged. “Well. ‘Kill’ might be a strong word. I suppose she just sent someone to maim me.”
“Aphrodite?”
“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised? You knew she was with Hera.”
Hermes shifted his legs and pulled a pillow out from under the comforter. “I didn’t know that. You thought so because of the glamour, but we didn’t know.”
“And you didn’t think so.”
He shrugged. “Are you sure it was her?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
She bit down hard to keep from snapping. When had she become so easy to doubt? Why didn’t he just trust her? The details came forth slowly, laid out with logic from a careful tongue.
Don’t argue. Please don’t argue.
“She used the only weapon she ever had. Lovesickness. Obsession. And it felt like her. Deceptive and wild.”
Hermes shrugged again. If he did it one more time, she’d reach out and throttle him.
“She was never like that to me. She was always sweet and kind.”
“Of course she was. You’re a boy.”
“And you’re not?”
Athena snorted. He was right. There was no reason for Aphrodite to dislike her. She wasn’t beautiful like Aphrodite, and she didn’t fall in love. There should’ve been no contention between them. But they’d disliked one another anyway. Even before the debacle with the damned golden apple.
“She told me once that she could make me fall in love with the Minotaur if she wanted.” Athena smiled, thinking back to that day, when some slight too small to remember had brought them nose to nose yet again. “She said I’d have ugly little Minotaur babies and suckle them at my breast. Then she’d looked at my bronze breastplate and said the poor things would probably starve.” And then she’d gone, in a flash of gold gauze and white skirts. She could say awful, childish things, but no one thought less of her. Certainly not any of the gods. Even Hera would go to Aphrodite when she needed something beautiful.
But I wouldn’t. Her ways were never my ways.
“See, now that sounds more like her. Petty and pouty, but harmless.” Hermes grinned. “I mean, you never did have little Minotaur babies, did you?” He laughed at the look on her face. “When you said Aphrodite was with them, I thought she’d only be along for the ride. That she went to Hera for shelter, because she was afraid.”
“I’m sure she is afraid. Like you were afraid.”