Page 52 of Wildfire

It would have to work.

Finally, Hermes broke eye contact and pressed his forehead into Wilder’s clavicle. “I’m sorry.”

The words were loaded, and Wilder didn’t even know what Hermes was apologizing for, but he did know one thing. And if Wilder was going to keep filling his kitchen with ridiculous brownie mix, he needed Hermes to know it too. “I don’t need you to be sorry. I know you’re here because your sister demanded it, but I’m not. I’ve never asked you to leave, because that isn’t what I want.”

Hermes hummed into his chest, a tiny vibration that reverberated against his skin, and he felt it through his whole body. “Some people are scared to ask gods to go away.”

“You’ve met me.”

That, finally, inspired a snicker. The god buried his whole face in Wilder’s neck and wrapped his arms around his waist, holding him tight as his shoulders shook. Maybe it was laughter, and maybe it wasn’t, but Wilder wasn’t going to tell Hermes how to feel.

It couldn’t be every day he almost died, and that kind of trauma sometimes made a person react in ways even they didn’t understand. It couldn’t be any less stressful for a god—Hermes probably wasn’t used to the idea of his own mortality, since he didn’t have it, in so many ways.

The pressing need to have sex evaporated entirely at that notion. Hermes didn’t need sex. Hermes needed to know that he was alive, yes, and sex could help with that. But more important, Hermes needed to know that someone would have given a damn if he had died. Would care if he didn’t make it through this fight.

So until his shoulders stopped shaking, Wilder just held him, continuing to run a hand through his hair rhythmically, petting him like he was Melly. When Hermes finally pulled away, eyes averted and possibly a little red, Wilder snatched his hand and turned to drag him toward the kitchen.

“What’s—”

“I’ve never made brownies from a box mix before,” he lied, baldly and without care. “You’ll have to teach me how it’s done.”

Hermes scoffed, but he let himself be led into the kitchen. When Wilder grabbed a random mix out of the cupboard and turned to face him, he looked skeptical, eyes narrowed slightly and lips pushed out in a little pout. “You’re full of—”

“Brownies? Not yet.” Wilder shoved the mix into Hermes’s chest and turned toward the fridge to get the eggs. “Hopefully you’ll manage to save me one out of the package.”

When he turned back, Hermes was switching the box for a different one. When Wilder raised a brow, he held up the new box. “This one makes more. I might be able to save you one of these.” He glanced around, as though someone might be listening in, then appended, “Maybe.”

Wilder did not laugh. He gave a solemn nod and pulled out the rectangular pan the larger mix required. “Then we’ll just have to try our best and see what happens.”

“Yeah,” Hermes agreed. “We should do that.”

Bad Wisdom

It was because she loved him that Athena rarely asked for her father’s aid.

She knew he wouldn’t come to Washington to help. If she asked and he said no, it would harm their relationship.

So she did not ask.

She ran a hand along the files in her locked drawer, thumb catching each and then letting it fall back into place, until she found the one she needed. In the age of technology, many schools had ceased to keep paper files, but Athena knew all too well how ephemeral digital files were.

How ephemeral all things were, in fact.

So she kept multiple backups in multiple places, and the locked cabinet in her office was where the most complete and up-to-date information stayed. She pulled out the thick file, so overfilled at this point that it was held together by a rubber band on each end.

Not asking her father for help with Banneker did not mean the school wasn’t her priority. She was simply more sensible than that about whose help she attempted to enlist. There was no point in wasting time and energy being angry with her father for refusing to do something she had known he would not do to begin with.

On the other hand, she had not expected to be able to rely on Hermes, and that was turning out quite differently than expected. Still, she knew wisdom. War. Strategy.

Love was not in her portfolio, and it could not be counted upon. As much as she would like to be able to add Hermes to her plans, she had learned long ago that much like love and the winds, Hermes could not be counted upon. Hermes in love? Was a promise of the barest breath of a breeze, when she needed a hurricane.

She knew where Typhon would come, if she allowed it.

She knew how to defeat him, if they could.

She could see, clearly, a dozen ways the fight might go.

About half the time, they won.

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