Page 2 of The Best Trick

“What's thefucking-gproblem with staying a few more days?” Odin said—unsurprising, being that he’d never met a rule he didn’t want to break.

“Procedures and rules keep us safe, and breaking them makes us less safe,” Zeus said, also not surprisingly, being that he’d never met a rule he didn't want to enforce, marry, and possibly even tie up and fuck in a long and delicious way.

“I'm tired of us being so rigid and brittle,” Odin said. “Let's stay for a while longer just this once. Why not?”

“Because we can't.” Zeus’s harsher-than-usual tone surprised me. “That’s why.”

“That's a bullshit answer,” Odin bit out.

“Yeah, well, that's the answer you’re getting,” Zeus growled. “We leave tomorrow. End of story.”

I silently cringed—this was exactly the kind of response that Odin hated.

Thor and I had a nonintervention policy when Odin and Zeus went at it, but honestly? Odin had a point. And…woodland adventures!

“Screw that,” Odin said.

“Hey, I’m tired of being on the run, too,” Zeus said. “I want it to be different, too, but do you know what I don't want? For us to die. And that is what the rules are there for.”

“Rules are not smarter than us,” Odin said. “They don't know that this is a good safe place where we can stay a bit longer.”

“God!” Zeus thrust himself up out of his chair. “You know what I'm tired of? Having to fucking enforce the rules when you act like a goddamned teenager. I'm sorry that I can't go back and change the past, but I can’t. You're gonna have to learn to deal with reality, and that includes following the rules.”

Odin swore and stormed into the house.

Zeus stormed in after him.

A lot of fights came down to this same basic struggle—Odin wanted flexibility, and Zeus wanted law and order. Somehow, though, the two of them were being more intense this time. Maybe it was because this hideaway had been so amazing.

When you've been on the run for so long, safety is a beautiful feeling.

Never having to look over your shoulder, never having to paste a really stupid nose onto your face and then gluing the nose ruffle all over your cheeks, and then it itches, and then when you pull it off, it leaves red marks on your face.

I sighed dramatically and looked over at Thor, because Thor and I sometimes bonded when Odin and Zeus fought, but Thor was staring grimly into the middle distance, face ashen.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head like it was too awful to verbalize and went to the railing to stare into the gloom some more.

Had I missed something? I hung back, giving him his space.

With his bright blond hair grown to his shoulders, he looked like a slightly feral Nordic reindeer herder, a look I definitely approved of, but something was off with him lately. Thor was the peacemaker of the group, but in certain moods he could be the wild card, going from stable to recklessly unhinged in two seconds flat.

Yet this felt different. New, somehow.

I’d had this sense lately that being on the run was grating on him. I sometimes forgot that he hadn’t always been part of an armed-to-the-teeth, bank-robbing squad whose members all took their names from gods. In fact, he’d been a nerdy doctor. A science geek. A man who dedicated his life to helping others. Healing was in his nature, and I knew he missed doing that.

Suddenly Odin burst out the door, bottle of scotch in hand. He grunted unintelligibly and headed into the woods, disappearing into the gloom. Moments later, Zeus burst out and stomped after him.

They did that sometimes when things between them were rough—they went out, talked about everything, and got really drunk.

I heaved myself up off the couch and went up behind Thor, wrapping my arms around him and setting my chin on his shoulder. “There goes OZ to do manly score settling,” I said, trying to cheer him up. I’d even used his snarky nickname for Odin and Zeus—OZ.

He didn’t crack a smile.

“No, wait, excuse me—stalkingoff. They definitely stalked, wouldn’t you say?”

Thor had recently observed that Odin and Zeus always stalked around. He remained silent, however, sullen and stiff under my embrace.

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