Accidentally Aphrodite (7 page)

“Jesus. Did Barbie die and leave you all her shit?”

Naturally, someone like Nina would find her tiny abode, decorated in various shades of white and muted blues, distasteful. She probably had deer antlers and beer mugs hanging from the walls of her castle.

Marty rasped a sigh as she pulled off her ankle-length coat in royal blue, and hung it up on the coatrack in the corner. “Not now, Night Dweller. Quinn’s had a long day. Go make that tea or something. Can’t you see the poor woman’s teeth are chattering?”

Her teeth were indeed chattering, the harsh winds of mid-fall in Manhattan a far cry from the heat of Greece. Quinn spread out a shaky arm. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

“On what? The Barbie couch? Can I sit next to Ken?” Nina asked with a cackle.

Wanda unfurled her scarf and shook it at Nina. “Knock it off. Not everyone finds BOGO velvet wall art from the flea market and lava lamps appealing. Now go make tea, so the rest of us can help Quinn sit and catch her breath.”

Marty wrapped an arm around Quinn’s shoulders and squeezed. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I know Ingrid kept you at arm’s length because of…well, you know—us, but we’ve heard so much about you and how you’ve helped our Ingrid out in your art history classes. It’s nice to put the face to the topic of many conversations.”

Quinn nodded. She could only imagine the conversations her stupidity over Igor and love and romance had evoked. Ingrid was always mocking her for it. Turned out she was right.

Suddenly exhausted, all she wanted to do was climb under her fluffy comforter and sleep off this Nina-lag. “It’s nice to finally meet you, too,” she mumbled, leaning into the warmth of Marty’s side and letting her lead her across the room.

Marty smelled as nice as Wanda, and she dressed as if she’d fallen out of a copy of
Vogue
, with her skinny jeans, royal blue knee-high boots, and dolman-sleeved purple and pink sweater. Her hair glistened all shades of blonde under the dim glow of Quinn’s end table lamps, falling down her back in beachy waves.

Her hands were gentle when she drew Quinn to the couch and sat her down, tucking the blanket around her and ordering Ingrid to find some warm socks for her sandaled feet.

In a sleep-deprived haze, she let these people she didn’t know tend to her, forgetting they were historically considered heinous creatures and thinking only that she could sleep for days with this kind of attention paid to her.

When a firm hand, warm and gentle, reached for her foot and unhooked the buckle to her sandal, she didn’t open her eyes. She knew it was Khristos, but she almost didn’t care.

Almost—except for that tingle running along her calf as he eased her fluffy socks up and over her ankle.

He leaned into her then and whispered, “Rest. I’ll be here when you wake up, Quinn.”

And somehow, that was strangely comforting.

* * * *

“Who is this smooshy face?” she heard Nina’s husky voice ask in a tone that almost sounded childlike and sweet. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe who’s such a sweet, sweet girl!”

Quinn’s eyes flew open, scanning the room. Buffy and Spike. How could she have forgotten about her cats? But it didn’t seem to matter, Nina clearly had it all taken care of as she scratched Spike’s hindquarters and rubbed her cheek against Buffy’s head.

“I told you—total mush on the inside,” Ingrid commented, nudging her shoulder with a grin.

Quinn pushed her hair from her face, assessing her surroundings. She was still on the couch. Rubbing her temples with the heels of her hand, she groaned. “What time is it?”

Ingrid patted her hand. “Midnight.”

Quinn sat forward with a jolt as everything came rushing back to her, but suddenly Marty was there, holding a cup of steaming tea and a grilled cheese sandwich, a warm smile on her red lips. “It’s okay, Quinn,” she said softly. “Everything is okay. Ingrid called your cat sitter to let her know you were home and as you can see, our resident Mistress of Evil-slash-marshmallow has everything under control. Now drink your tea and just relax.” She patted her thigh, and set her tea and sandwich on the end table before wandering off to Quinn’s kitchen, the heels of her boots clacking over the bleached white flooring of her living room.

Khristos was there suddenly, too, standing in front of her before sinking to his haunches, his face maybe even more beautiful in the glow of the lamp. “Better now?”

God. That voice. His voice did things to her stomach, warm and squishy things she rebelled against almost instantly. He was not allowed to give her warm squishies, and while this circumstance was indeed right out of a piece of fiction, it wasn’t romantic at all.

He had to go.

“I’m fine. Look, I don’t need a babysitter. You can go home, wherever that is.” Where did a Greek goddess’s son call home anyway?

“Um, no. I can’t just go home and leave you with the power of Aphrodite, Quinn. It doesn’t work that way. It’s an enormous responsibility, putting people together for life.”

“That’s why they have this thing called divorce. On the off chance you make the wrong decision.” Such an ugly word. As a child of divorce, and a nasty, knock-down drag-out one at that, she’d promised herself when she married it was going to be forever, no matter what it took to keep it together.

Not that she believed in forever anymore.

Khristos clucked his tongue. “First lesson, and it’s a hard-and-fast rule. Never use the ‘D’ word. Aphrodite creates true mates for life.”

“You sound like an infomercial. Next you’ll show me how to cook an entire chicken in under ten minutes while you Oxy Clean my whites.”

He chuckled, low, deep, husky. “Matchmaking is nothing like cooking chickens, but it is a delicate matter, Quinn.”

She gaped at him. “Clearly, because your gods decided it was a smart idea to leave all the power of the most famous goddess ever in an apple in the Parthenon where just about anyone could get their hands on it. It’s obviously ultra-delicate.”

“And here we go,” Nina cooed to Buffy, one of Quinn’s late-night alleyway rescues from a Dumpster.

Quinn cocked her head in Nina’s direction, and she almost didn’t care if she bit it right off. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Nina’s eyes narrowed, glittering and fierce. “It means you’re finally hitting the grief crap. You know, the five-stages thing? Whining, crying, anger—which is usually first. I don’t know. It’s some bullshite Marty and Wanda feed everybody while they’re going through the change. We have a pamphlet on it. But they never give it to anyone—because that makes sense, and who the hell would wanna make sense when they can jump into your personal crap feet first and wallow in it with you?”

Quinn frowned, not understanding.

Nina rolled her eyes. “It means any second now, you’re gonna be a motherfluffin’ train wreck.” She looked down at Spike and grinned. “But don’t worry, little man. I’ll protect you from your crazyface mother.”

Was she any of those things? She hadn’t stopped to think about ramifications and everything that went with biting the apple. What
were
the ramifications, anyway?

What Khristos had said back at the Parthenon made no sense. How could he help her be the Goddess of Love when, if history served her correctly, the Goddess of Love didn’t do much but create havoc and make men fall in love with her?

Was that a job? Would she now be a savvy player in the game of love? Because hold the phone. That could mean Bradley Cooper, her Mr. Darcy in her mind, was ripe for the picking. Why stop there? Why not have a whole passel of hunks? The Avengers, perhaps—or a Thor-Loki-RDJ triple-decker sammie?

Squee.

Quinn reared upward, putting a hand on Khristos’s shoulder and moving him for a clearer view of Nina, gritting her teeth at how firm he was beneath her palm. “But I feel fine.”

“But you won’t once the crazy starts. So save it, Glow Stick, and get the frick on with it so we can move to the next phase. I have a gazillion things I’d rather be doing. Like watching paint dry or having my fingernails pulled off one by stinkin’ one.”

Wanda zipped into the room, scooping up Spike and shaking a finger at Nina with a scowl. “What Nina means to say is, there will be phases to this change, Quinn. Phases we’re quite sensitive to, and happy to help you through. That’s what we do as paranormal crisis counselors.”

Nina shook her head, the dark curtain of her silky hair brushing her pale cheek. “That wasn’t what the flip I meant to say at all, Wanda. What I meant to say, and I’m always happy to make crap clear—”

Wanda smooshed Nina’s lips together with two pink-tipped fingers. “But it
is
what you meant to say, Vampire. In fact, that’s all you’re going to say until I tell you to say something. Remember how you were working on not swearing because it’s unhealthy for little Charlie? Work harder.”

Quinn was baffled. “Who’s Charlie?”

Wanda’s face broke into a beaming smile as she continued to hold Nina’s lips together. “Nina’s little girl.”

“
You
have children?” Okay, so to be fair, it shot out of her mouth before she had the chance to stop it, but she prayed for some slack from Nina—or at least only a light punch to the throat.

Ingrid clamped a hand over Quinn’s mouth, too. “I’d stop now if you value your guts staying on the inside.”

Quinn instantly backed off, brushing Ingrid’s hand away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know vampires could have children. It caught me off guard.”

Wanda nodded with a curt bounce of her elegantly coiffed head. “And Nina accepts your apology, don’t you?”

Nina swatted Wanda’s hands away and growled, flashing her fangs.

Oh, cheese and rice.
Her. Fangs.

And then Wanda leaned in close and growled back an order. “Nod your head or I’ll rip it clean off. Understood?”

Nina obediently nodded her head, but she didn’t like it, if the flare of her nostrils and her clenched fists were any indication.

Setting Spike back on Nina’s lap with a scratch under his chin, Wanda smiled. “See? Nice vampire is nice. Now, onto what Khristos was saying about being Aphrodite. Please. Finish. I’ll keep Nina in line while you do.”

He sat on the edge of her coffee table and looked directly into her eyes, taking one of her hands in his. “As I said, I’ll move in here with you, and we’ll begin immediately.”

But she snatched her fingers from the warmth of his palm. How was she going to breathe with this man in her apartment? “Why does the way it works have to include you staying here? You can see how tiny my apartment is. I only have one bedroom the size of a broom closet. Where would you sleep? Can’t we do like a nine-to-five thing? You know, like school hours?”

“Oooo, I hope they cut your carrot sticks into shapes and make happy freakin’ faces out of your fruit for snack time at Goddess School, Lite-Brite,” Nina crowed sarcastically.

“Nina!” Marty hissed, coming around the corner of the kitchen and back into the living room. “Don’t make me snatch that tongue of yours from your head.”

“Fuuu…” Nina’s lips thinned in exasperation. “
Fluff
you, Blondie. Fluff you so hard.”

Marty winked and snickered. “Fluff this. Now be quiet and let Khristos explain.”

“I can’t leave you alone, Quinn. Especially not with the way you’re feeling about love and relationships at this point.”

“Ah. Does my utter disdain trouble you?” Because it should. Which just might be her permission slip out of this crazy gym class.

“In a startling way.”

All of this was becoming too much. Her senses were preparing for a crash—just like Nina predicted. “I don’t understand what being Aphrodite even means. Doesn’t she just make people fall in love with her beauty? What does it have to do with other relationships? She’s not a matchmaker. I thought Cupid handled that?”

Khristos grinned. “Here’s a little inside dirt on gods and goddesses—something you won’t find in your books. They have minions. Cupid might shoot the arrow, but Aphrodite’s the one who tells him when and where. She’s an expert matchmaker and when her true matches fall in love, it’s forever. It’s her contribution to procreation.”

Quinn took another long, deep breath. “So what you’re saying is, I decide who falls in love and who doesn’t? And what does her contribution to procreation mean? Am I responsible for matching people so they can have children and thus future generations will continue to repopulate the world?” That was crackers. Total crackers.

How could she be responsible for something so enormous? Her? A nobody ex-dreamer who worked at a bookstore? What if she did it wrong? What if she put two people together who ended up miserable?

“It’s like a dream job come true, huh, Boobs?” Nina snorted. “You with all your floaty dreams about love and the sky raining rose petals. You’re a shoo-in. See? No bad guys. No need for a good rumble where I gotta get in the mud with some freaky-deaky demon. Which means I can go.”

Demon?

But Quinn popped up from the couch without a second thought, her hand outstretched. “No!” she shouted, knocking over the cup of tea in the process. Nina leaving left her utterly panicked. “Please don’t go. I…I don’t know him. I mean, I know
you
know him, and I’m not saying that your friendship vouch isn’t solid. I’d never doubt your word because you leave me so terrified I want to hide under my covers, but I’m feeling very, very uncomfortable with a strange man in my apartment.”

Surely she’d pay for this moment of weakness in the way of endless snark and Nina’s cackles, but she didn’t care. If what Ingrid said was true, and Nina was the muscle of the group, then she wanted some muscle. It might sound silly to someone as confident as Nina, but she wasn’t going to stay with a man she didn’t know without a buffer of some kind.

And it had nothing to do with the fact that he was hotter than lava.

Nothing.

Especially a man who’d likely inherited his mother’s gift for making women hither and yon fall in love with him.

No, ma’am. Not on her new no-romance watch.

Not to mention, she couldn’t forget what Ingrid had said about there always being some kind of danger in these cases of accidental turnings. Did she really want to face some big angry god or goddess alone without some kind of plan B?