“Bravo then, because it did make her pause,” Quinn commented as the wind began to pick up. Khristos had been very clever, smart, funny, but her mother would have none of it until he’d dropped that bomb right in the middle of her second helping of eggs.
“Listen, if she thinks all men are out to get you for one thing, and one thing only, I don’t want her uncomfortable. We have to do this, Quinn. In light of the fact that our situation is urgent, knowing you’re out with me and thinking I’m some kind of rebound after Igor would only upset her. She’s your mother. I don’t want that.”
So the playboy was decent, too. These little insights into his personality were so enlightening, coming from a man who was, according to Nina, known worldwide for his talent at wooing women with a prowess so strong, it’d make your libido spin.
She shrugged, fighting off the warmth his sensitivity to her situation created, and sighed as they came to the crosswalk. “She’s not upset about me or my feelings. She just loves to carry on about how awful the opposite sex is. Give her a platform, and she’s on the highest tier, waving her hands in the air. I don’t think she’s ever gotten over my father leaving her.” Like ever.
Khristos shook his head, the ends of his dark hair just peeking out beneath his knit cap. “She loves you, Quinn. Not a doubt in my mind. It’s her way of protecting you even if comes off a little Femi-Nazi. I’m not sure what her reasons are, but she has them.”
“A little? Did you hear her, Khristos? Like, really hear her? She doesn’t just take an inch; she takes the hundred-yard run. She’s a zealot with a cause. All she needs is a tinfoil hat and a pitchfork.
Nina scoffed, pushing her glasses up her zinc-slathered nose. “I’m here to tell ya, I don’t give a shit what her reasons are. She’s a shark. It’s a beautiful thing to witness, friends. So damn beautiful, if I wasn’t the baddest ass we got, I would have opted to go to the bird sanctuary with her instead of playing bodyguard to Lite-Brite here. Marty and Wanda always get the good shit.”
“I don’t even know why she’s here. She drove in all the way from Jersey, still thinking I wasn’t even back from Greece yet. Something’s up. I just don’t know what.” Her mother didn’t love the city. She didn’t love it when Quinn had decided to move here after college, and she continued not to love it almost fourteen years later.
She’d considered Quinn’s move to Manhattan flighty and irresponsible, full of whimsical dreams that would never come true.
And okay, she’d mostly been right. Most of her dreams hadn’t come true. But she was happier away from the oppressive blanket of negativity her mother smothered everything with. It gave them distance, and time for her to store up her energy for their next visit.
“Well, she’s here, and I’m gay for the moment, and I’m good with it.”
Nina knocked shoulders with Khristos and cackled. “You’re a chicken-shit.”
“I prefer to call myself testicle-saver, thank you very much.”
“You got a cape?” Quinn teased, basking in the warmth of his lighter banter.
“If it means your mother’s teeth won’t be in my ass, I’ll even wear tights.”
Quinn laughed until she remembered something Nina had mentioned. Something she’d avoided or purposely tuned out the night before in order to keep her sleep nightmare-free. “Question?”
“Go,” Nina prompted as they stopped in front of an art store where classes were being held and, allegedly, where someone, somewhere, needed Quinn’s power.
“The bad-guy thing. Tell me about it. I can take it.”
Nina’s face changed, going from taking intense pleasure in the wrath of Storm Helen and the path of its debris to serious. “Look, kiddo. I’m not gonna lie, this whole paranormal thing is fraught with danger. Not always, but sometimes. Do I think someone might wanna kick your scaredy-cat, teeny-tiny ass? I dunno. Can’t say for sure until we dig deeper into this thing. But I do want you to pay attention. All the GD time. I’ll always be right here. So will Khristos, no matter what. But sometimes, shit happens that we don’t know about. And that’s just the truth.”
Visions of supervillains danced in her head, supervillains like the one Katie, Ingrid’s old boss had experienced, and it made her shiver. “So there could be someone out there, someone who actually wants to be Aphrodite?” Who?
Khristos’s lips thinned. “I don’t know that for sure, but it’s like Nina said, better safe than sorry.”
“So they’d have to get the apple from me in order to steal my powers, right?”
Khristos’s face became grave. “No. You took the power from the apple, Quinn. The power’s in you now. The dynamics of the apple have changed.”
She scrunched her eyes shut and clung to her scarf. She was pretty sure she knew what that meant, but because she was taking this stab at hitting things head-on these past few days, she was going to ask anyway. “So that in turn means what?”