Page 17 of Locking Down Qetesh

"Even if you're not looking for anything yourself?" he asked.

I took a deep breath. "I guess it's not that I'm not looking, I've always been open to finding the right person."

"But that's hard when you've been hiding part of yourself."

"Something like that," I responded. "And now you can safely say that you know me better than most of the people I've ever met."

"I don't think that's true," he said. "There's lots I don't know about you."

I laughed. "I've lived a long life, I can't tell you everything I've ever done."

"True. But you're a dryad. What's your favourite type of tree?" He swished his hand over the bubbles in front of him.

"You're going straight for the hard questions, aren't you?"

"Absolutely."

"Fig trees," I said. "I have a couple of them in my greenhouse. You should come see them some time."

"Inviting me back to your house already?" he joked.

"Mmhmm. But only for the trees."

"Oh, I know," he assured me. "Why are they your favourite?"

"I love figs," I said. "Especially dried ones. And I just think that the trees are really pretty. But honestly, it's mostly because one of my oldest memories involves a fig tree. I wish I could remember who the woman in it is. Maybe my grandmother? We were picking figs, and I could barely reach the lowest of the branches. So I did whatever any fearless child would do, and climbed up the tree. I got all of the best figs, but I also fell off and broke my arm." I smiled at the memory, despite the slight echo of pain that came with it.

"I did that while playing hide and seek with Ella. Breaking my arm by falling out of a tree, not picking figs."

"I figured. Though I imagine we were doing our tree climbing a few thousand years apart."

"And several thousand miles," he said.

"True. So, what's your favourite kind of tree?" I asked.

"Willows. I liked to watch how their leaves dragged across the surface of the water when I was younger."

"Like you're doing with your hand?" I asked, nodding down to it.

"Huh, I suppose so. But that's just because I like how the bubbles feel. Try it."

"What?"

He reached out for my hand under the water and held it over some of the bubbles. They popped against the skin of the palm of my hand, tickling in a way that was kind of too fast to actually be ticklish, but was also impossible to ignore.

An involuntary sound burst from me that was suspiciously like a giggle, making him grin widely.

"That was a bit unbecoming of a goddess," I murmured.

He shrugged. "You just seem like any normal person to me."

The statement should insult me, and I knew a few gods who would get angry about someone saying something like that, but it actually made me glow within. I never asked to be special. I was just me, and it was nice to have someone who could see that. Even if I hadn't known Jacob for long, it was clear that he was thinking about me more as Qetesh, or maybe even Tesha, and not as a goddess of whatever it was that was most important this week.

I liked it.

"I should get out of the hot tub before I turn into a prune," I said, lifting my fingers and revealing the skin where it had gone a little wrinkly.

He chuckled. "You're at the spa, you're going to turn into a prune."

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