She had to be Aphrodite, there was no question in my mind.
I arranged and rearranged the treats on the table as I heard the door behind me open and close several times. The voices got louder behind my back and I finally grew the nerve to turn around and face them all.
Growing up in a family of 12 made it easy for me to talk to people, but here I felt out of place. Especially around someone like Nicola, who had obviously had everything she could ever desire in her life. She exuded glitz and glam and I was a farm girl. I felt naive and sheltered, more of a child than I had felt in years. I was 18 but to these people I was 12, the eternal little sister.
With a small plate laden with a cupcake, a mini cheesecake and some quiches I moved back over to the growing group of people and began to introduce myself. Some knew who they were and others were like me. They were moving listlessly through the days trying to source their God out. It was comforting to be around nonbelievers, people who felt this was all a crazy dream. But those who had united with their Gods, as they called it, talked about the wonderful experience it was to finally blend with the voice in their head that they hadn’t known how to deal with. The trouble was: I didn’t have voices in my head, the one that had kept me company since arriving here. Unless the one I thought was my own all along wasn’t me.
Thinking hard about these things made my head hurt, it was far too complicated and did it matter all that much? Atlas was sure he had the right person when the time came I would know, wouldn’t I? I repeated this to myself repeatedly hoping to silence the doubt that festered in the back of my mind.
Jed was late getting to the party, but when he arrived the garden suddenly seemed alive. He brought everyone together, flitting around the room seamlessly making everyone feel comfortable. I wanted to be able to do that, I was still too awkward and nervous.
When he came to me, he scooped me up in a hug like we were old friends and grinned down at me.
“It’s perfect! I knew you would do a fantastic job Val. I could sense you were an amazing person when we met.” He winked and I knew I was blushing but I tried not to think about it. He wasn’t flirting with me. He was nice.
“Thank you, I had a lot of fun doing it.”
“Well, count yourself as my official party decorator. How can I ever repay you?” I knew he was teasing, but it seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask.
“Maybe, you could teach me... how to, you know, be social and welcoming as you are?” He grinned at me and nodded his head.
“Absolutely kiddo. Easy as pie.”
Chapter 6
Jed didn’t waste any time teaching me his ways. He barely even let me finish my food before taking me around to introduce me to everyone. In between meeting people, he explained the “foundations of being social,” as according to him.
They weren’t hard concepts: be present, be real, be honest and be nice. People liked knowing that when they were speaking to someone they were genuinely listening to whatever they were saying, Jed said to always reply with something thoughtful. He also said when striking up a conversation it was critical to start it with a compliment. It didn’t necessarily have to be about something right at that moment. But if they had done something earlier that you knew of like a different hairstyle, a recipe they gave you to try, a pair of shoes; whatever it was, you needed to compliment them first. People especially this kind of people enjoyed being flattered.
But Jed said it was important not to be flattering in a false way. People will know when you’re doing that too and resent you for feeling obligated to tell them how wonderful they are. They want to believe it’s an innate thing, your compliments need to seem real and natural.
But being honest with someone when they ask for your opinion is also important. As much as these people wanted to believe they were important and perfect, they also wanted to know what their flaws where they could fix them. Being honest, while being nice, was paramount.
I asked Jed how he knew all this and he told me about his upbringing. His mom hadn’t been well off when he was a kid but then she ended up marrying his stepdad who was a blue blood. He had to learn quickly how to fit in with that kind of people. he taught himself by trial and error. He was pleased to be teaching me the things he’d learned because he hated seeing someone thrown to the dogs not even knowing they were a bone. I certainly didn’t like thinking I was a bone.
The rest of the party went by smoothly, everyone had a good time and got sufficiently drunk. Except for me, but with everyone else being drunk it was easy to pretend I was too even if all my drinks were virgin. I think Jed knew, but he didn’t say anything or pressure me to have some. He merely mentioned at one point that what might’ve been illegal back home wasn’t in this world. Except I wasn’t illegal back home either, I didn’t like it thanks to my uncle.
People slowly began to filter out of the garden after a while. I had expected to find a mess to clean up once they were gone, but there wasn’t even a napkin to pick up. I was left with the serene tranquility of my garden. I could get used to living in a place like this, it was certainly a nice change of pace from back home.
Over the next few days, there were more parties and more lessons from Jed. I was getting more and more comfortable being social with people who were certainly a class or two ahead of me while also narrowing the field of possibilities for my Goddess.
But the more people began to show up the more anxious I felt myself growing. What if my Goddess never made an appearance? I seemed fixated on this idea, obsessing over it more than I was on Griffin. His rudeness had left a bad taste in my mouth I hadn’t gone back to his apartment in days. I wasn’t even sure what had happened to him without my help because he never seemed to be at any of the parties either. However, not thinking about him gave me lots of time to go through all the books in the library on my hunt for my Goddess.
One afternoon I was crossing through the hallway, carrying a load of new books to try out for clues when a door opened and Griffin stepped out. We both paused in our step, staring at each other awkwardly. I didn’t want to be the first one to speak, I wanted him to know exactly what I thought of his called gratitude, but I didn’t have to worry.
“I’m sorry, about the other day.” He said sheepishly, running a hand through his long, messy blonde hair. “I wasn’t myself, I’m sure you can understand. The drugs... they messed with my head pretty bad.” I nodded my head and smiled tersely before carrying on my way. There was nothing for me to say anyways.
“Can I help you with those?” He nodded at my books and I paused, taking a deep breath before finally nodding and holding them out to him. He smiled, making my stomach knot slightly as he crossed over to me and took them from me.
“Doing some light reading then?” He teased as he took the massive tomes and tried to adjust them in his arms.
“Trying to figure out who my Goddess is,” I said, making him frown.
“No leads then?”
“No, no one seems to be biting yet,” I said, pointing the way to my doorway. He nodded and smiled in a way I presumed was meant to be comforting.
“I’m sure she’ll make herself known when the time is right.” I nodded and pushed the door open, stepping through before letting him in.
“Me too. You can set them down over there.” I pointed to the living room table before closing the door behind us. He ran his hand through his hair once more, a nervous gesture no doubt, before smiling.
“Well, it was nice to see you. I’m sure carrying your books for you doesn’t make up for the whole... helping me with rehab thing, but it’s a start.” I nodded slightly and looked down at my feet, unsure of what else I wanted to say to him. The awkwardness hung between us before Griffin cleared his throat and crossed to the door.
“Well, again, nice to see you Valentina. Good luck with the research.” I nodded and smiled, turning to the tomes with more interest than I had for him. I shouldn’t have been cold, it wasn’t in my nature, and I regretted it the moment the do
or closed behind him. But I was afraid he might yell at me again if I said too much. He had started out nice last time too and still ended up biting my head off in the end. He was strange anyway; that’s what I told myself.
I had settled in to reading one of the tomes when another knock came and I twisted in my seat, looking at it. “Come in!” A trick I had learned: the door opened
itself to reveal Jed standing there with a pack of flowers in his hand and a cheeky grin on his face. “I hope those aren’t from my garden,” I said in a teasing tone making him look down at them worriedly before looking back up and flashing me another grin.
“What? These? Never.” He smirked as he entered the apartment and switched them out for the wilting arrangement he had given me two days ago also taken from my garden.
“There is a party tonight.”
“There’s a party every night with you Jed.” He grinned at me like I had told a funny joke before nodding.
“This is a unique party.” I raised my eyebrows slightly, intrigued by his definition of unique. I wondered what he could possibly mean considering he told me every night was going to be special and every morning he confirmed it had been.
I liked how close I had grown to Jed; our relationship reminded me of how I had once imagined one with my brothers would be like. Of course, my actual brothers and I were distant in age that it made it hard for us to be close or to even understand each other. But Jed was a few years older than me, at least, and yet he made me feel like I was his favorite little sister out of the hundreds he had (but didn’t).
“Alright, I’ll bite. Why’s tonight going to be special?” “Zeus,” he paused for dramatic effect, “has arrived.”
He grinned, bowing with a flourish to add to the level of drama his statement had already possessed.
Zeus, huh?
This guy had to be certain he was the King of Gods to claim he was Zeus; that, or arrogant.
“Have you met him then?”
“Yes, and he is the one and only almighty one.”
“Not entirely the one and only.” I pointed out, it rarely surprised me anymore how different my opinion was from the one I had held in my mortal life.
“Well, you get what I’m saying.”
I smiled and nodded, “Of course, now what are we going to do to celebrate the King of the Gods then? To make this night even more special.”
“We need a venue better than the garden, one he’ll like.” Jed was looking at me with puppy eyes like I was the one who came up with everything for our parties.
Finally, I sighed and nodded, “Alright Dionysus. I’ll see what I can do.” He scrunched up his nose and shook his head.
“Don’t call me that.”
“But why? It’s true, isn’t it? You’re the God of parties and drink. It is rather fitting.” He thought about this and tilted his head from side to side.
“Guess I was hoping for someone more important.”
“And what’s more important than a good party?”
He smirked at me, tapping his nose and then pointing at me, ”you’re right little bird, you’re absolutely right. Nothing is more important than a great party. I can trust you’ll come up with an appropriate venue?”
I nodded and smiled, “of course you can. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Same time, different place.”
“You got it Pontiac.”
He whistled to himself happily as he walked out of my apartment, leaving me again with my thoughts and my books. When I first read about Dionysus during my studies, I couldn’t even imagine anyone else being that God but Jed. I thought that maybe because we were close I might be a Goddess close to him but narrowing down that list was like trying to narrow down the list of Zeus’ lovers. Which seemed to be never ending.
Closing the book in my lap I set it down and left my apartment to go venue hunting. I had better thoughts when I was walking and my mind could run rampant. Plus, the magic of the mountain could do the rest of the work, it always seemed to take over from my thoughts and find exactly what I was trying to come up with.
I thought about drinking, parties and women because these things seemed to be the root of Zeus’ immortal life and I found myself walking right into the underground of a club. It was dark and damp, but the music pounded loudly it was impressive I hadn’t heard it before.
Across from the door, there was a bar, chiseled out of stalagmites (or were they stalactites?) lining the entire left side of the room. I walked further in, knowing that this was the kind of place people couldn’t speak but they could have a lot of fun. I was sure Zeus would like it too; girls would dress more inappropriately for a place like this than they would a garden party. It would get drunk and sweaty fast, making for easy targets if he desired. And then I saw him, standing by the bar helping himself to a bottle.
“Griffin?” I said, moving closer to him. “What are you doing here? Why are you drinking that?” I said, pointing accusingly at the bottle like it was a line of coke or a syringe of heroin.
“It helps keep the voice at bay.” He muttered, I was barely able to hear him over the sound of the music.
“Is this your club?” I asked with a frown, wondering now if I had intruded on something that didn’t belong to me.
“I like to come here because it’s loud and there’s an endless supply of booze.” He waved his hand at the wall in front of us, lined with bottles that I both recognized and that I didn’t. I frowned more and felt my hand twitch with the urge to reach out and take his drink from him.
A recovering addict shouldn’t have alcohol, that’s what the voice in my head was saying. It was the same voice that had led me into his room to take care of him and help him get better. It was the voice he had squashed when he had been unnecessarily rude to me.
“Oh,” I said, unsure of what else to say because he might’ve been thankful I helped wean him off the drugs but he didn’t seem to want help to fully recover. My jaw had tightened in frustration slightly, before I forced myself to smile and remember what Jed had taught me.
“It’s beautiful, you have a fantastic imagination.” I complimented as earnestly as I could. Griffin turned to look at me, the look in his eyes was a little different than before as he reached out and touched my hair. I felt his fingers replace it behind my ear, letting them linger for a little longer than necessary before he finally spoke.
“I tried to make it as beautiful as you... dark, mysterious and yet loud and all-encompassing of the world around me. But I could never be lucky as to capture such beauty in a world as dark as mine.” His voice sounded different, almost strangled like he was fighting someone choking him. I frowned slightly and stepped away with a smile.
He created it for me? But why? It didn’t remind me at all of myself...
“Thanks, it’s wonderful.” I used my backward momentum to act like I had a better look around the place, moving past the carved booths of rock. I twisted back around to face Griffin, “would you mind hosting a party here? I needed a place to throw a party tonight.” He grimaced over his drink, taking another long sip before saluting me with the empty glass and setting it down.
“Of course, anything for you. I owe you.” I smiled, suddenly feeling like I was taking advantage of him in some way. I hated to think he didn’t want a party here but was obliging me because I had helped him with recovery.
I wasn’t even entirely sure anyone else on the mountain had even met him, I had never seen him at a party. I knew that if Jed knew about him he would’ve invited him if only for the fact that Griffin was a drinker as much as Jed.
But it disappointed me that Griffin, after everything, was here nursing an entire bottle of alcohol to himself. He was clean now; didn’t he want to stay that way?
“Well, thank you much for this. I appreciate it.” I said, taking my eyes off the half empty bottle that I had possibly been staring at it rather judgmentally. “The party will be at 9, I hope to see you there.” But I doubted he would come.
W
ithout waiting for his reply, I turned and quickly hurried off out of the club and back to a room where I could hear myself think. I wanted to be angry with him for the way he had treated me the first time we had properly met.
It had stung, being rejected quickly like that by the boy I had shared everything to. I knew, deep down, I couldn’t hold it against him. He probably didn’t remember any of the things I had told him, he didn’t know that I had considered us friends and regarded him highly.
Shifting my thoughts from one boy to the next I thought about Jed and walked myself right into his apartment. When he had come calling earlier, I had been surprised to find he was awake even. I knew how late he stayed out partying. While sensible people woke up before noon, he had a rather bad habit of sleeping until about five o’clock in the afternoon or was it considered early evening at that point?
It came as no surprise to me when I knocked on his door and found a scruffy hair, watery and wide-eyed boy looking back at me when it opened. I had woken him up.
“Napping?” I teased with a grin, watching him suppress a yawn as he nodded.
“They wouldn’t call it beauty sleep if beauty came to the Gods naturally.”
“Well, I guess that’s one way to a girl’s heart.” I laughed slightly at him and let myself into the apartment and closed the door. As I looked back up at him, looked, I realized he had forgone clothing when he answered the door and I felt a heat rush up high on my cheeks at being intrusive.
The relationship I had with Jed was nothing more than one of familiarity and not sexual, but it didn’t make it any less awkward to see him disrobed.
“Well, I don’t want to take up too much of your beauty sleep time I’ll be quick.” I smiled up at him, taking a deep breath for a dramatic pause. “I’ve found the party venue.”
“You have? Great!” It was not nearly as exciting as he made it sound, but I still felt important.
“Yeah, I found a club in the mountain with a full bar, dance floor, music, everything. It seemed an appropriate venue to celebrate the arrival of the God of the Gods, right?” Jed nodded his head in agreement and excitement.
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