"Come home with me," said Liv, blissfully unaware of the end of this story. I tried to cringe only inwardly, but could not help myself from wincing slightly as the other girl's face turned stonier than her previous icy expression.
So much for not coming on strong.
"Who are you?" asked the stranger, and despite the entirely unimpressed look she was giving Liv, my sister still melted a bit at not yet being dismissed. Such is the heart of youth: willful and stubborn.
"The woman who's going to marry you," she said with confidence, and at that I began to choke and splutter into my drink, attracting attention from a few tables around me; I waved them off and swiftly moved to aid Liv in removing her foot from her mouth.
"I'm Olivia," she continued, and I placed a hand on her back to alert her of my presence, although there was no need; I am not a man of small stature, and to miss my being there would be quite a feat. She looked up at me and smiled, altogether unbothered, and I half admired her bravado, while the other half of me was much tempted to drag her across the room, sit her down, and stop inflicting her childlike enthusiasm on the unamused stranger.
"Is she always like this?" the girl said, looking up to where I was. I was stunned to find the beginnings of a grin on her face, and watched some of the brusqueness melt away.
"Yes," I replied smoothly, and made an honest attempt to not attack her for anything less than adoration for my sister; still I kept quiet, for I knew the tactless approach Liv had made well warranted this abrasion, and Liv would not be soon to forgive me if I strangled the new object of her affections.
"I'm Adalia," the girl said in an odd voice, her head cocked to one side as though attempting to solve a difficult puzzle, which she really might have been. Liv continued to gaze at her with puppy dog eyes and a complete lack of restraint that most would have found appalling.
"Your name is like a melody," Liv said, and Adalia drank from a glass of wine. I watched Liv's eyes follow the journey of the blood red substance up to Adalia's soft pink lips, and the slight twitch in her throat as she swallowed.
Had Aphrodite been around, I might have cursed her. As it was, I merely gazed on.
"A singer," Adalia said with a laugh that was much less warm than her face had turned to. Liv did not recoil. "Is that what you are?"
"I also play the lyre," my sister said, inviting herself to sit in the chair opposite Adalia.
The girl's face shifted to something sour, yet she did not close herself off. How queer this was, that she was still responding positively to Liv's clumsy advances. I found myself wondering for the first time of many if Adalia was the one for my darling sister; I would wonder this again and again throughout all the time they knew each other, and still some days I ponder this quietly to myself; but then there are errands to be run and messages to be delivered, and I am reminded I cannot let this tale entirely consume me, no matter how regularly the weight of it tries to engulf me.
"A liar and a player, too," said Lia without much real venom. Liv's brows drew inward as her bottom lip pulled into a familiar pout, one that she usually wore when she had been wrongly accused of breaking some rule or another. "I've met too many girls like you."
Genuine alarm filled Liv's eyes, and I cursed the sweet thing for being so vulnerable. Again that instinct flared, and again I pushed it down; she was a woman, not a child with a skinned knee, not anymore.
"Oh no—no, I'm not like that."
My hand curled into a fist and I consciously relaxed my fingers before speaking; I did not take kindly to those who made Liv's face twist with that kind of hurt and fear.
