Page 13 of The Hard Way

Here in Italy, we could actually relax for once. You don’t know what a luxury it is to sit at an outdoor café table in full view of everyone until you’re a fugitive on every top hitter’s hit list. Even sitting on a balcony like a normal person was a rare treat.

“Zeus out running?” I asked.

“Yup.” Thor pushed the plate of pastries at me. “Nab the last almond croissant now if you want it.”

I took it.

He picked up the book he’d been reading.War and Peace.You know you have a lot of time on your hands when you’re literally readingWar and Peace.

I tore my pastry in half. Zeus and I sometimes split the almond ones. I poured a cup of coffee and grabbed my own book, but I wasn’t in the mood to read. So I sipped. I waited for people to start moving.

“Odin’s not up?”

Thor flipped a page. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

“He’s not going to like that we let him sleep.”

“Maybe he’s tired out from your magical butt-fucking experience.”

I nodded. It actually seemed plausible. “I don’t know why it was so magical,” I said after a while. “We butt-fucked before. But it really was magical!”

Thor gazed out at the cobblestones; steam was starting to rise up in the patches where the morning sun hit. “Every time we have sex, it’s different,” Thor said. “Like a different animal with a different personality. Last night it was a unicorn.”

I frowned, thinking maybe a little bit too hard about that analogy. “Ow,” I said. “I’m not sure if the unicorn butt-fucking comparison is working so well for me.”

“Elephant?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Sperm whale?”

“New rule: no more animal comparisons.”

“Fine.” Thor picked up his book again.

We read for a while. When Odin still didn’t make an appearance, I fixed a plate with coffee, a plain croissant, and spicy fig jam—his favorite—and took it to his room.

The door was ajar, so I pushed it open, and there he was, sleeping, hair inky against the snowy white of the bedding, dark eyelashes like ruffled curtains for his eyes. He looked troubled, though. Even in his sleep. I hated it. I hated that he’d had such horrible trauma in his life that not even unconsciousness could give him respite.

“Hey,” I whispered.

He began to mumble, and then he started pleading in some other language.

I set the tray on the bedside table and stretched out next to him. “Hey, it’s okay,” I whispered.

He quieted at my touch, but I could see his eyes moving behind his lashes.

Odin had had a hard life. He’d done terrible things in the intelligence agency where he and Zeus met—things that he didn’t like to talk about. And before that he’d had terrible things donetohim during his stay in a certain Algerian prison that was under the control of a man named Mahfoud—Mahfoud the Sadist, Odin called him.

The prison was where his nightmares had started, and according to the guys, his nightmares had gotten progressively worse every year—until I joined the gang. That’s when they stopped getting worse.

But now they were worsening once more.

I gazed at his sweet sleeping face, wishing I could chase them away.

You calm him,Thor sometimes said.Even when you’re in the next room, his face looks softer.

That was one of the most amazing parts about our foursome, that we were better together. If only Odin would trust that.

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