My Date From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #2)

Theo's Giant Surprise (Part 2)

I raised bleak eyes to Kai and Festos. "Theo needs us."

I got up and headed for his voice.

They were in the kitchen. "Hearts," Deukalion said, slapping an eight down beside the remnants of their tea.

"You played that card already," Theo said.

"Did not," his son disagreed, eyes shifting off to the side.

"Now you're lying."

"I hate you!" Deukalion shouted, in a roar like a bull.

Kill me, Festos mouthed at me. Aloud he said, "Deuk, what I think your father means is that you are very smart to have figured out how to play that card again." He clapped Theo on the back.

"Are you the parent?" Theo asked him, twisting around in his chair. "Because in this family, we don't cheat."

That brought a snort of disbelief from me, Kai, and Festos.

"Life and death? Yes. At games, no," Theo amended.

"Unless it's Scrabble," I said.

"Papa cheats?"

I nodded. "Like a seasoned crook."

"Just because you're illiterate," Theo retorted.

I nodded emphatically. "Old English is cheating. Since you were around when the word was invented."

Theo shot me a level look. Like I was the unreasonable one. "It's in the dictionary."

"Whose? Shakespeare's personal copy? Twenty-first century English, Rockman. Play it."

My voice had been steadily rising, as it usually did when Theo and I fought, but this distressed Junior.

"Don't yell at him," Deukalion yelled at me. "Take that bad woman away, Papa."

"No yelling at guests. Say 'sorry,' buddy."

Deukalion's chin jutted out stubbornly.

"Okay, how about we play a different game?" Theo asked.

His son brightened. "We can wrestle now." He swept the table, dishes, and chairs away in one forceful gesture, picked Theo up by the scruff of his neck, and slammed him to the linoleum.

Kai, Festos, and I all winced at the bone-crushing thud Theo made upon impact.

Festos stepped forward wanting to help, but Theo held out a hand as he looked up, dazed. "Outside. All of you."

I started to protest, but he cut me off with a withering glance. He pushed to his feet, took off his glasses, and set them on the counter. "Now."

"Ooh, sexy, threaty voice," Festos murmured to me as we left out the back door.

We sat down on the forlorn pieces of lawn furniture in the tiny yard. Wherever we were, it was early evening, which by my reckoning meant we were probably in the same time zone as Hope Park. The air was slightly warmer and dryer here, though. Factor in the dwarf avocado tree and lilac bush in the back corner of the yard, and I figured we were in California.

The crashes and roars inside sounded awful. I had no idea how to help Theo or Hannah. Just a sick feeling that both of my friends were going to suffer terribly.

I stood up. "I'll fight him. It's not great but—"

Festos cut me off with a sharp shake of his head. "Theo would never let you."

"But he shouldn't have to—" We heard a crash so loud, the ground shook. "... take this. And Hannah ..." My voice cracked in distress.

Kai pulled me down so I was sitting pressed up beside him. He slung an arm around my shoulders, murmuring into my hair. "Worst case, it's one strike. She won't die. I promise."

I snuck a look at him. Kai leaned back against the chair cushions. He shifted enough to throw a leg over mine.

I sighed. Easy wasn't in my future with this one. Which kind of relaxed me. At least I knew what not to expect. Plus Kai was touching me, which felt good. Arrow or no.

Wish I'd known to appreciate my easy pre-goddess life of peer harassment and the occasional pimple disaster, but there you go. Youth, wasted on the young.

We hung out in tense silence for a while, waiting. As much as I could, I let myself be soothed by Kai's rhythmic stroking of my back, only glancing at the back door about a billion times. Jack couldn't have given us a worse challenge. I wondered who the next one would be aimed at—me or Festos.

I was betting it would be me.

I tilted my head, gazing up at Kai through my lashes. He caught my look. Time froze for a second. A wonderful second, in which I thought that maybe I'd be given some indication that he was swimming in the deep end of us as well. Instead, he broke eye contact.

But his hold on me tightened.

Talk about mixed messages. Unless, again, it was just the arrow.

I was making myself crazy. And this was just focusing on the more positive aspects of my life!

The back door flung open and Deukalion stepped outside grinning. "Papa is down!" he announced triumphantly.

We raced back inside. Theo was a bruised and bloody mess. He was propped on a wooden kitchen chair, tunic ripped, the stiffness in his pose belying how much pain he must have been in. He pressed a bag of frozen peas to his left eye.

Deukalion bent over to peer at his dad. "I did good, yes?"

Theo reached his free hand out to ruffle his son's hair. "Yeah, kid. Really good."

Deukalion beamed. "I'm going back down to the store now." He left.

I shot Festos a glance to see if he wanted to take the seat beside Theo but he just stood there, tight-lipped. So I sat down and laid my hand on Theo's. "What happened?"

Theo didn't speak and I thought he was going to ignore me. "He was a really great kid."

Not what I meant, but he looked like he needed to say more on the topic, so I let him. "Did you raise him?"

Was this conversation insane to be having with Theo here and now? Absolutely. But if you couldn't support your best friends through the crazy, then you had no business calling yourself one.

He shrugged. "Enough. His mom had him most of the time, but I was definitely around. He grew up. It was all good. He was a king."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Theo sounded proud. "Good at it, too. But stuff happened. The kingdom turned corrupt and Zeus sent a flood down to punish them." He laughed bitterly. "Always Zeus."

I squeezed his hand. "What happened to Deukalion?"

"He drowned. I thought he was dead. But he wasn't. Just different. I couldn't stand to see him like that. So I stopped. I stopped seeing my own kid."

He closed his eyes.