Page 4 of The Best Trick

I was stretched out on the comfy outdoor couch with my feet on Thor's lap, reading a book that was incredibly exciting. Thor was also reading a book. He had it balanced on my ankles—some kind of medical book, or else it was a sports biography. In other words, not at all as fun or exciting as my book.

Odin was in Zeus’s man throne with his sketchpad, doing one of his amazing sketches.

Zeus came out and just stood there for a minute being ignored by us, because we had exactly twenty minutes left in our favorite place.

“Twenty minutes. I want to be on the road by eight,” he finally said, all grumbly.

We three grumbled back. We didn’t need to be reminded. Also, hungover much?

“Well, are you packed?” Zeus asked. “Is everything set? Isis, linens handled?”

“Yuppers,” I said, not looking up. Putting the used linens and bath towels in the proper place was my job after staying at an Airbnb.

Zeus turned to Odin. “Recycling handled?” Recycling was Odin’s duty.

Odin just kept on sketching.

I frowned. Why was Zeus so eager to get on the road? If he thought somebody was onto us, he would have said.

Also, we were totally responsible when it came to leaving an Airbnb in amazing condition.

We had to be responsible Airbnb customers. We had painstakingly created different identities under which we would rent them, and it took a lot of work to create those identities—you had to set up Facebook profiles and disguises and get a bit of an internet footprint. If one of the identities got a reputation for leaving Airbnbs in bad condition, nobody would rent to them.

Sometimes we were two separate couples vacationing together. Sometimes we were a family of four with Thor as an old woman, which he totally hated. We had another identity where Odin and I were half-siblings. Sometimes just two of us rented a place and asked permission to have friends drop by.

“Odin?” Zeus asked.

Without so much as looking up, Odin said, “I’m a highly trained lethal operative capable of running simultaneous operations across five continents. Why don't you take a guess if I've managed to get thefucking-grecycling out on time?”

“I'm sorry if I'm a highly trained lethal operative who always checks on everything,” Zeus said.

“I'm sorry if you're a highly trained lethal asshole who's ruining our last few minutes on the porch,” Odin bit out.

I tensed up.

Zeus frowned. And then he said, “I guess I am being a bit of a lethal asshole.”

“Highly trained lethalfucking-gasshole,” Odin mumbled.

Zeus snorted.

I relaxed, because that was what we did—we had fights and resolved them with humor. It showed the health of our relationship that we could always do this.

I looked over at Thor, thinking this would hearten him, but he looked like he'd seen a ghost almost.

What the hell?

Odin brushed the pencil shavings off of his artwork. “This was a good place,” he said. “I like a place with a porch, like we had in L.A. Will Malibu have a porch?”

“A porchanda private hot tub,” Zeus said.

All eyes turned to me at the mention of a hot tub. I smiled and shrugged. “Whatevs,” I said playfully.

Odin narrowed his eyes. “Did you just say ‘whatevs’ about a hot tub?”

“That's what I said—whatevs,” I sniffed. “It means whatever, but more like I don't care.”

“That's what I thought you said,” Odin muttered darkly, closing his pad.

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