Page 31 of Dark Gods
He grinned. "Doesn't that make it more fun?"
I rolled my eyes, but I was starting to read into the flirtatious tone he always used and that was the last thing I wanted. My friendship with Dionysus was the only thing about my life at the Academy thatwasn'tcomplicated and I wanted to keep it that way.
"You can hang around if you want, but I've gotta get to the kitchen," I told him. "Just lock up when you're done."
"Will do," he promised.
I knew things hadn't gotten any better between Dionysus and his roommate, and I could see why. I'd only run into Atlas a few times, and he was the only young god who seemed to have his head so far up his ass that he wasn't even aware of the Hunt, but he was a jerk all on his own.
Once I made it to the kitchen, I wasn't the least bit surprised to find a mountain of dishes waiting for me and no Phrixus. I rolled up my sleeves, put on an apron and started washing. At least I had my earbuds on me. Music made the repetitive chore tolerable and the mindless task let my thoughts drift to other things, like plotting revenge against the Triad.
I was halfway through the crowded sink before long and I'd whipped up a steady rhythm, dancing across the kitchen to put the clean plates on the drying rack. As I stepped back, I found a hard wall of human and was surprised when I turned around to see Phrixus staring at me with that half-smug, half-apathetic expression on his face and his hands in the pockets of his slacks.
Not a huge surprise that he wasn't the jeans type even after class was over.
"Enjoying yourself?"
I took out my pods and gave him a dirty look. "Had to pass the time somehow since you bailed on me."
"Dishes aren't really my thing," he said, eyeing the half-finished stack behind me.
"So why did you come?"
"Our badges register every time we enter a room with a security panel," he said, pointing to the panel I'd missed on the door. "I don't feel like getting a lecture tomorrow afternoon."
"And if I tell Thor you did jack all to help?"
"There's no need to be that way," he purred, taking a step toward me. I was about to give him a knee to the groin if he got any further into my bubble, but he stepped past me and took a dish in his hand. All the grime slid off, revealing the gleaming white surface underneath. I watched in fascination as he started stacking the clean plates on the rack next to the sink.
"Creative use of your power," I remarked.
"Resurfacing doesn't sound like much on paper, but I find ingenuity is the greatest gift of all," he said, setting another plate aside.
"Is that even sanitary?" I asked warily.
He glanced back over his shoulder. "Do you want to spend all night doing this?"
"Fair enough," I sighed, leaning against the counter since I found myself suddenly out of a job. "So, resurfacing. That's what you call your power?"
"Good of a name as any," he answered, his back still turned. "What do you call yours?"
"I haven't really come up with anything yet," I admitted. He made no further attempt at conversation, and my curiosity finally won out. "Can I ask you something?"
"Go ahead."
"Why did you save me from that pit during the simulation?"
"For the same reason you saved me, I assume. I didn't want to spend my night here."
"That's not why I did it," I mumbled. "And you sure didn't seem to care about winning before."
He finally glanced back at me, an unreadable look in his eyes. He was different when he was away from his sister. More thoughtful, somehow. He turned away, leaning against the sink to face me. "I'll tell you what. You give me an honest answer, and I'll give you one."
"Fine. I have a savior complex and I wasn't going to let my teammate get taken out without a fight."
"Not that," he said dismissively. "Why did you strike Hades? At the party," he said, as if he needed to clarify. Like I just went around bitchslapping the god of the Underworld.
I thought of lying, and there was no real reason not to. Maybe it was just the fact that I'd done so much of it lately, and it was finally a chance to tell the truth to someone who didn't care with no real consequence.
