MASKS

Chapter thirteen

Apollo

"Suprise!!" 

 I'm not ashamed to say that maybe my heart skipped a beat, and maybe I squeaked,, and okay, perhaps I jumped a little. I can admit that as long as it's in my mind and doesn't leave the sun chariot where I had previously been alone.

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a morning person. When I get out of bed to raise the sun, I usually nap until mid-day, then put it on autopilot until it's time to drive it home. So I wasn't expecting Hermis to show up; he usually gives me a two-day notice before we both hang out.

"What are you - doing here?" I asked while yawning. 

"I got a day off, and I'm electing to spend it with my favorite brother," he answered with a megawatt smile that did not match my mood right now.

"Come back at a reasonable hour," I answered with 0.1% of his enthusiasm. Of course, we didn't need to sleep, but it's a habit I picked up from the mortals the last time dear ol' dad punished me but never dropped. 

Hermes doesn't get off days; he gets days where things are slow, and he can let his helpers cover it while he rests. The problem is that resting for him isn't sleep like a reasonable (read mentally stable) person; he prefers going out and pulling pranks. There's nothing wrong with that, except it was seven in the morning, and I wanted to sleep.

"Come on, Apollo, who knows when I'll get another day off," he exaggerated while shaking me.

I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and snuggled into my blanket more, "Hermes, I don't care when you get another free day. It could be tomorrow, or in two weeks or even two years, we have eternity, so we can do whatever you want at a reasonable hour," I was not leaving this chariot before midday if I could help it.

                                                                        <<<<<<<>>>>>>> 

" So where do you wanna go first?" he asked smiling. I was glaring at him and giving him the silent treatment. He had no right to be walking beside me right now: and he didn't even apologize!

"Oh, come on, you're no fun like this," he dared to roll his eyes at me and pout like I hurt HIM.

"You threw me out of my chariot," I whisper-yelled. I would blast him if we weren't walking through Manhattan. 

"How was I supposed to know you don't remember how to use your powers in the morning," he asked, looking all too innocent for this conversation. 

When I cuddled back into my blankets and refused to move, Hermes thought the best way to go was to push me out of my car. While I was falling, I could hear him laugh while I flayed around uselessly trapped inside my blanket, I crashed into a dove which I'm sue pissed Aphrodite off, then a raven which pissed me off, and finally, Hermes noticed that maybe there was a problem when I was screaming and crashing through trees in the Hallet nature sanctuary which I'm sure I'll be hearing about from my sister. He laughed before taking us back to Olympus for Asclepius to heal me. 

"Come on, I know somewhere to get you good coffee," he said. As gods, mortal food didn't have an appeal to us. The food's taste was always dialed down because we were used to nectar and ambrosia, so his claim for good coffee was worth checking out.

We walked into a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. The inside was warm with a light draft. It smelled like sugar and coffee, the walls were milk-white with a brown wave-like pattern representing spilled tea, there were a couple of bright paintings along the wall, and in the back, a raised platform surrounded by black music notes like a raised platform. "You brought me to a music cafe?" I asked, looking at him while we walked to the counter.