“You keep saying that.” He spoons plentiful portions onto two plates and passes me one. “I think we’ve established that I know enough.”
I follow him around the corner to a small formal dining room. It’s just as minimalist as the rest of the house—giant windows, a square steel and marble table, and a wall bare of anything but a large mirror with a geometric black and white frame. He sets his plate down and walks out of the room, reappearing a few moments later with his wineglass and a second one that he places in front of me. It feels very, very strange to sit in this room across from Eros. As if we’re eating in a museum or something. “Are you sure you actually live here?”
He spares me a glance. “Not everyone leaves a trail of clutter behind them as evidence of their occupancy.”
I tense, but there’s no judgment in the sentence, just a simple statement. “I’m not a messy person.”
“I said clutter, not mess. They’re different.” He stares at his plate. “Beyond that, I live here alone. There is no family to imprint their presence in every room the way it is at your mother’s place.”
“You keep bringing that up. Why?” I brace myself to defend my family. We might not always get along, but I’ll be damned before I let anyone disparage us. Even Eros. Especially Eros.
But he surprises me. “It feels like a home. It’s…novel.”
“Novel,” I repeat. “How can it be novel? You’re only, what, twenty-eight?”
“You say that like you don’t know.”
I blush a little, because of course I know how old he is. We might not have known each other before now, but I have at least basic knowledge of everyone who is close to the various members of the Thirteen. “You haven’t been living alone so long that you’ve forgotten your childhood home.”
He fiddles with his fork. “You know who my mother is. Do you really think my childhood home was even remotely as warm as yours?”
“Well, it can’t be that warm if it’s designed like this place.”
“What’s wrong with this place?”
I flick my fingers at the mirror behind me. “What’s with all the mirrors? I can theoretically understand it in the foyer as an art thing, and even in the bedroom as a kinky thing, but they’re everywhere.”
“Ah.” He stares at his plate for a long moment. “I mostly let my interior decorator do their thing. It was easier, and it’s not like I have strong opinions about it.”
This interior decorator is someone hired by Aphrodite. I’d bet a significant amount of money on it. I hesitate, trying to parse my way through this without sounding like a complete asshole. “Eros, this is your home. You’re allowed to put your stamp on it.”
“Am I?” His mouth twists. “I suppose that depends on who you ask.”
I open my mouth to keep arguing, but my brain catches up to my tongue before I can make a complete fool of myself. It’s more than obvious who he’s talking about. Still… “I know Aphrodite isn’t a very good mother, but…”
He gives me a smile devoid of his normal charm. “There’s no ‘but’ in that sentence, Psyche. I’m glad that you grew up in a place that feels like a home and that Demeter preserved that feeling even if things changed after you moved here. It’s just not my experience.” He goes back to eating as if the subject’s closed.
I suppose it is.
I made fun of this penthouse the first night here. I continued to poke at his design choices, assuming that, at least in this, he is as clichéd as he pretends to be. The playboy millionaire with more money than taste, who mistakes minimalism for the peak of style. The more soulless, the better.
Except every time he talks about my mother’s home, there’s a thread of something in his tone that’s almost like…longing.
I look around the dining room again, my mind whirling. “Would you be opposed to my making some changes?” I hold up a hand when he lifts his brows. “Nothing too intense. Just a few things to put a little bit of my stamp on the space, too.” I honestly don’t mind the sheer number of mirrors, but they need something to soften them.
The smile Eros gives me has my heart fluttering in my chest. “I’d like that.”
“Good,” I say softly. It’s a small thing, but it feels very large. Too large for me to look at closely. Instead, I focus on my meal.
I eat slowly. The food is good, but it’s the silence that comforts me. It’s not strained. I have the strange feeling that Eros would be perfectly content occupying the same room for hours without talking if he had nothing to say. He might pretend to be the pretty playboy, but he doesn’t run his mouth for the sole purpose of hearing himself talk.
I’ve always liked silence. I think it comes from living with three sisters and a mother who are all talkers. They talk when they’re happy, sad, angry, or even bored. No one in my family would be content to eat a meal without filling the room with some kind of running commentary. There’s a comfort in that, but when my stress level reaches a certain point, it becomes just one more thing that weighs on me. I like that Eros doesn’t have the same urge. It makes this space feel almost safe.
A feeling I most certainly cannot afford.
I take a hasty sip of wine. Since Eros was in a sharing mood earlier, there’s something I desperately want to know. Now seems as good a time as any to ask. “I’d like to ask you a question.”
“I’ll consider answering.”
That’s fair. I swallow hard. “Why do you do it? All the stuff your mom demands? This isn’t the first time she’s called for someone’s head.”
“Heart.”
I blink. “What?”
“She didn’t call for your head. She called for your heart.” He takes another bite of food without looking at me.
Somehow, I know he’s not speaking figuratively. The thought almost makes me laugh, but I manage to keep the hysterical sound inside. “Your mother is such a bitch.”
“Glass houses, Psyche.”
I start to argue, but the truth is that Demeter is just as scheming and ambitious as Aphrodite is. I have no doubts that Aphrodite would leave half of Olympus to starve if given the right motivation, and my mother is responsible for several individuals disappearing mysteriously. There might be no bodies and no murder investigations, but I’m certain she’s behind them. Demeter just takes more care to ensure her sins can’t be as easily traced back to her than Aphrodite does. I lift my wineglass. “Fair enough. But that’s not an answer.”
He shrugs. “It started out easily enough. She wanted me to ruin the last Apollo. I think I was seventeen at the time.”
Shock nearly has me dropping my glass. “That was you?”
“Yeah.” He says it without any boastfulness or pride. Just a statement of fact. “I didn’t set it up, exactly, but I went to school with Daphne.” His eyes go dark. “She was in a bad situation, and she knew no one would believe her word against Apollo unless there was proof.”
I wasn’t in Olympus then, but I know the story well enough. The old Apollo pissed off Aphrodite for some reason, and the next thing anyone knew, pictures of him and an underage girl—Daphne—were released anonymously to all the gossip sites. With this new knowledge, I can see how carefully those photos were chosen. Just explicit enough that no one could argue what was going on, but Daphne was wearing lingerie. “Did those photos exist before that point?” Or did two teenagers conspire to stage them?
“Yeah.” He doesn’t look at me. “She got them off Apollo’s phone once we decided on a course of action. It wasn’t ideal, but it got him away from her and it made my mother happy to see Apollo punished.”