Page 20 of Perfectly Matching Again

“Touché, Muse.” She smacked Erato on the shoulder, the slap almost sending Erato sprawling on the floor. “And I really enjoyed your latest book, so my earlier words weren’t mockery. Romance novels deserve all the respect.”

With a nod to Aphrodite, Nemesis was gone in a cloud of sharp citrusy perfume and a long red curtain of hair.

“Well, she’s a trip.” Erato recovered first.

“At least she acknowledged you.” Sabine said almost at the same time.

“I rather wished she’d never acknowledge me.” Aphrodite shook her head, still watching for the retreating figure of the Goddess of Vengeance.

“Book, Erato?” Demeter’s voice managed to sound so shrill, her question ended up being louder than the rest of the conversation.

Everyone froze again. Erato could feel her eyebrows heading towards her hairline. Sabine coughed, hiding either a gasp or a laugh. Aphrodite sighed dramatically and reached for a glass of water from a server’s tray. Demeter kept looking at Erato.

“Did it get hot in here, all of a sudden?” Sabine’s words were immediately interrupted. At any other time, Erato would’ve been angry all over again by the person undertaking said interruption, but she could’ve given Poseidon a kiss for his bumbling butting in.

“Did someone say hot? Because I am the Big Daddy of Hot! Cold too, since I have both the Antarctic Circumpolar current and the Gulf Stream.”

He grinned at Demeter, engaging her again in conversation and taking her out of earshot. Erato immediately reconsidered her earlier intention to kiss this man. Why had that thought even crossed her mind, she had never kissed any man to begin with?

“Because you were so happy to keep hiding your dirty secret?”

Sabine wiggled her eyebrows. Aphrodite pursed her lips. Both were giving Erato decidedly judgy looks.

“We aren’t judging you. And if your secret isn’t dirty, why are you even keeping it?” Aphrodite, as always, had a point.

“I wasn’t… Actually… Keeping it, I mean.” Erato lifted a hand to the back of her neck. “It just never came up.”

Sabine simply stared.

“You’ve been literally chained together and your day job never came up?”

Erato shrugged.

“She believes she has already benefited from my day job. Along with half the Goddesses and Muses and the occasional nymph.”

“You’re forgetting the naiads.”

Aphrodite’s words were said in a deceptively mild tone. Erato immediately shrunk. She didn’t like being interrogated like this. The Goddess of Love, of course, didn’t care one jot about Erato’s likes just then.

“You mean to say that the person you are tied to thinks you are basically a what? A courtesan? A play girl for the Olympians? And not only does she think so, you have not discouraged her from such a way of thinking and have not disabused her of these notions?”

The air around them suddenly felt just as cold as if Nemesis had returned. Erato turned around just to make sure. Nope, the chill was a decidedly rare phenomenon of the Goddess of Love being enraged. Usually something impressive was warranted toset it off. Erato didn’t think a mere misunderstanding between her and Demeter justified such a reaction?—

“You are hiding who you are, allowing all these deities and creatures to belittle and humiliate you, all the while pining like a schoolgirl for someone who doesn’t know you at all. So no, Muse, this isn’t remotely a misunderstanding.”

With those words, it was Aphrodite’s turn to stalk away, in the same direction Nemesis had disappeared, taking the chill and the anger out of the air along with her.

Erato watched her go and exhaled. The bands around her chest had a mind of their own and did not loosen. Talk about romance novel clichés.

“I am not pining. Exactly.”

Sabine gave her a look full of pity. Then shook her head.

“Maybe I have misjudged you after all.”

Leaving Erato even more puzzled than before, Sabine moved between Demeter and Poseidon, cutting him off yet again.

He shrugged good-naturedly and allowed them to talk, looking curiously around himself, until his gaze fell on Erato. And then it narrowed.

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