Fuck.
Marty was setting the table. Wanda was laughing about something with Carl. Archibald was waving his finger around with Darnell following his instructions. Ingrid sat in a corner, curled up with one of her medical books.
And Quinn was lying on the couch, a gel pack over her eyes.
Clearly, dumping him had been exhausting.
And that longing he’d once described to Quinn assaulted him once more.
He was going to throttle his mother’s pretty neck when he got ahold of her for ever giving him the damn apple to guard in the first place.
His mother was…
His. Mother.
A memory slammed into his brain all at once. How could he have forgotten that screaming match with her over a decade ago?
Jesus. He could fix this insane longing for a woman who didn’t want him in no time flat. All he had to do was find his mother, and if the forums weren’t deceiving him, she was happily posting under the alias she thought no one knew about.
Except he knew about it, and it was time he and his mother had a long talk about apples and her lack of grandchildren and making him fall in love with a woman who very clearly had no interest in him.
Sending a quick text to Marty, Wanda and Nina, with a warming to keep a sharp eye on Quinn, he snapped his fingers. Because ending this shitty brand of suffering needed to happen now.
“Mother!” he bellowed, storming through her bleached-white, rose-filled cottage on Mt. Olympus. “You can’t hide forever!”
His mother appeared from behind the column on the small patio overlooking the ocean, her hair piled on top of her head, her reading glasses perched at the end of her nose. Wind chimes tinkled and the ocean breeze wafted in on a perfumed breeze.
“Khristos! Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you!”
He stopped short in front of her, pulling off his jacket and knit hat and letting them drop in a wet puddle to the floor. “First of all, don’t you ‘it’s so good to see you, pookie’ me like I haven’t been trying to get in touch with you for almost a week,” he growled.
She patted his cheek with a warm smile. “Don’t get in such an uproar, it does ugly things to your skin, Khristos. And pick up those clothes. I just washed the floors and you’re dripping all over them.”
Patience. He pleaded with the gods for patience so he wouldn’t throttle her pretty neck. “Where have you been?”
She shrugged her slim shoulders and said evasively, “Around. Resting, discovering a life that’s all mine now to do as I please.”
“How could you just abandon your duties like that?”
“They were no longer my duties, precious. You fixed that. Besides, you know how to take care of business. I taught you well. I trusted you’d teach that adorable Quinn everything she needed to know. And you did. Just look at her, making matches faster than Match.com.”
His gut stung. He didn’t want to hear about matches or love. He just wanted this ache in his chest to damn well go away.
Khristos sucked in the sea air and clenched his jaw. “Okay. That aside, I need you to make it stop. Make it stop now.”
His mother’s beautiful face, like creamy porcelain and peaches, looked astonished. “Make what stop, darling?”
“That overbearing, controlling, give-me-grandchildren-or-I’ll-make-you-miserable love spell you put on the apple. You know, I almost forgot about it until today, when I was having my ass handed to me by my never-gonna-believe-in-fairytales-again Quinn. And then I remembered that argument we had, and it all made sense.”
Her look of bewilderment almost had him. Almost. Damn, she was good. “A love spell on the apple? Argument? I didn’t do anything to it but leave it in your care, Khristos.”
“That’s crap, and you damn well know it, Mom!” he thundered, glowering down at her, his jaw tight. “You’ve used that apple to keep me in check for centuries. You said so yourself.”
She made a pouty face, crossing her arms over her chest. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You just watch your tone there, son. How dare you come storming in here and yell accusations at me. Just who do you think you are?”
He tried to remember his father’s words—to be patient with his mother. To love her for who she was, not who he wanted her to be. But goddamn it, this loving someone who didn’t love you back was pretty shitty.
Knock it off, good man, next you’ll be playing Air Supply and wandering around sniffing Quinn’s frilly pillows. Fight for your man-card.
He had to fight not to seethe his next words. “You’re joking, right? How can you stand there and tell me you had nothing to do with what’s happening to me?”
“What is happening to you, honey?”
“Have you already forgotten what you said to me?”