Marked by the Demigod Page 5

  "Most people don't like discussing their sex lives with total strangers."

  "That's lame."

  Katya pushes herself up, looking very studiously at a watch. "I have other meetings, and then reports to do. Can I trust you to let me know if he gets in contact with you?"

  Aimes hesitates, then nods, and right on cue her phone buzzes.

  Eyebrows raising, both Katya and the blurry bartender wait for her to fish it out of her purse.

  ROCKY (9:42 PM): I miss you.

  A sudden lump in her throat, she fits the phone back into her purse, as Katya and the bartender wait patiently. "It's just...just an ex boyfriend," she finishes, lame. "Just an ex."

  Katya shrugs. "At least he's an ex." She hoists a messenger bag over her shoulder, it creases the lines in her suit. "The last thing you needed with this whole thing was more complication."

  For the first time since they broke up, Aimes doesn't text back. Instead she sets her phone down right next to the packet of magical creatures and ignores it until 1:00 AM like a self-respecting adult.

  But 1:00 AM rolls around and she's still not asleep, even though tomorrow is a Monday and she's scheduled to drive out to Riverside, and yet, and yet she picks up her phone and goes right to the text.

  It's probably a drunk text, it usually is when he says that, he doesn't miss her when he's sober.

  She stares at it, and then punches out a reply before common sense and all the fucking drama catches up to her and stills her hands.

  AIMES (1:03 AM): What's up?

  Even for her that’s lame. Even for her that’s needy. Even for the week she's had.

  The three dots of typing appear, then go away. Then appear, then go away. Again and again.

  She falls asleep before they ever materialize into a reply.

  6

  Riverside is, as always, dry. The grass is gray and the trees are brittle to the point where she feels like if she taps them with her finger they'll shake apart.

  The Riverside library is much like the rest of Riverside; dirty but in the way where you can tell it puts a lot of money into getting it clean.

  She sits with the new librarian, someone fresh out of the UCs and eager to help people, as she reverses the code issues and gives a bit of on-the-spot training. It's refreshingly normal, in a way that almost makes her want to tear up.

  So she takes the evening and gets drunk at the sleaziest dive bar in Riverside.

  The floor is sticky and there's a foosball table off to one side. It's the sort of place that has a margarita but nothing fancier than that. Most people are drinking Bud or whiskey brand whiskey.

  So she gets herself a tequila brand tequila and tucks herself into a booth, away from anyone who'd want to bother her, and nurses it like it will keep her sane. The music thuds around her, switching from a country twang to something heavier metal.

  For a brief seconds her heart hurts, hurts to think about everyone so far away and there's no one next to her. She swallows it down, and her phone buzzes.

  TRIXIE: (4:02 PM): Taco shack?

  AIMES (4:03 PM): Still in Riverside. Visiting the Alice Bar.

  TRIXIE (4:04 PM): Duuuuuude.

  Trixie loves Riverside. Loves the stink and the desert and the sands and the small town feel while only being an hour and a half from L.A.

  AIMES (4:07 PM): Riverside Public Library needed me. Then I needed a tequila.

  Her phone buzzes fast, twice in a row, and someone at the bar raises an eyebrow at her.

  TRIXIE (4:07 PM): Duuuuude tho.

  ROCKY (4:07 PM): Can you do dinner tonight?

  Her heart jumps a second, and she hesitates over the keyboard.

  AIMES (4:09 PM): Trixie, Rocky's texting.

  She sets her phone down, gingerly, on the sticky booth, and sure enough...

  TRIXIE (4:10 PM): DON'T.

  AIMES (4:10 PM): He wants dinner.

  TRIXIE (4:11 PM): DON'T. Oh my god.

  Because she's in the best of places to make decisions while at a sticky bar in Riverside.

  AIMES (4:15 PM): I'm on location, coffee tomorrow?

  ROCKY (4:16 PM): Sure.

  She's early, of course, because if she's anything she's someone who tries too hard for things. Things she really shouldn't.

  She accepts her coffee from the barista at Priscilla's, then tucks herself into the corner they always used to sit. Where they cuddled on the oversized couches while having a quiet morning out.

  The couch is itchier than she remembers, the fabric rough through her thin blouse.

  Her heart’s pounding, a dull thud thud that she can feel in the back of her head, and it's not the tequila from last night.

  It feels like someone is looking down upon her from afar and deeming her actions inexcusable. As if showing up to coffee with an ex is the worst thing anyone's ever done in the history of humanity.

  Must be this marriage nonsense.

  She settles back into the couch, determined to find it comfortable.

  If she is somehow married to this random asshole, what does that do to her clusterfuck of romantic attachments? Is she somehow to be beholden to this random guy who didn't even tell her what she was going in for?

  She sips her drink, and it's just like they’ve always made it; warm and bitter and exactly what she wants.

  The bells tied to the door jingle, and Rocky steps in, dressed in his everyday suit and his short hair slicked back so he looks like a bulldog; wide-shouldered and squished face.

  He came in full lawyer.

  He spots her, and his face doesn't change at all, just strides over and settles on the chair opposite her.

  It's not as pleasing of a sight as it used to be, like a chord has been strung deep within her and her entire body is vibrating on the wrong frequency to find him appealing.

  He leans forward and puts a confident, commanding hand on her thigh. "Aimes. You look good."

  The hair on the back of her neck prickles up as his hand remains steady. "Thanks. You too."

  "Have you been okay?" He gives her thigh a quick squeeze, like he used to do when she was having a bad day and he thought she needed to calm down.

  She shifts back and crosses her knees, breaking the grip on her leg. "Mostly. They've been giving me more conventions, so lots of travel." And he hated her travelling, when they were actually together. Hated hated hated it. Thought she was going off and cheating on him at every hotel and --

  "Do you have many coming up?" And his voice rasps, like there's a harsh acid there at the even thought of her traveling without him, and it's unfair. It's unfair, he was the one that cheated on her, that slept with the receptionist, that broke it off and kept on doing these texts and meet ups and stringing her along with these maybes.

  She straightens. "Yeah, actually. One in New York and three across the Midwest this month."

  He sits back, as if her body language takes him aback, his eyes wide. "And you just...go on them? Without complaint?"

  "They're a lot more fun than sitting at home alone."

  There's a long silence, with his eyebrows raised, as if this is the last thing that he expected from this coffee.

  He clears his throat again, leaning forward. She's seen him play lawyer enough to know that he's gonna try to negotiate with her and that is the opposite of what she wants.

  "If, if we try something," and his voice even sounds vulnerable, as if it isn't a technique he uses on clients all day long. "Would you be able to talk to your boss about scaling it down?"

  It's like a punch to the gut, a punch that twists around her, as if her career stuff is simply less important.

  "No," she says. "I like where my career is headed."

  "It's not a career, it's a job." He's said that so many times it's like a mantra. "If you're going to start being ambitious about it, you'll be disappointed."

  And even though he was the one that dumped her, and even though she was the one pining after him, this, this right here was the sort of bullshit that s
he hated during their entire relationship, and hates right now. "Yeah, no, you don't get to say things like that and --"

  "--I just hated the idea of you that far away all the time and --"

  "And you're the one who slept with your receptionist."

  It stops him dead, and his jaw twitches. "That's not fair," he complains, "I thought you were sleeping with people out there."

  The image of Jake, against the bed with his eyes closed and mouth agape crosses behind her eyes, and it's a far better view than the one in front of her.

  "Rocky, that sounds like a personal problem."

  He blinks at her. "I thought this would be easy?" He says, voice soft. "I thought you'd, I dunno, jump at this chance."

  "What did you think would happen? We haven't really talked in what, two months?" Cause if he thought of her as easy, as a fallback, then he thought worse of her than she thought.

  "And when we have, you've seemed, I dunno, open to this?" He actually looks hurt.

  And if he had tried a few weeks earlier, she probably would be, but as it is it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. "How's work been?"

  Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him blink furiously. "Really?"

  She shrugs, and the clientele of Priscilla's has never been more interesting. Or more interested in their own drinks and not watching them.

  "You asked me, I thought it fair to ask back."

  He shakes his head, and stands up. "I have to go to work, I think." He sounds so unsure of himself her heart breaks, just a little, and he strides away.

  A few of the clients of Priscilla's watch him leave, then raise an eyebrow at Aimes.

  She slumps back into the prickly couch, her heart pounding a bit too hard. And she knows that before all this magical mumbo jumbo she would’ve been overjoyed. And that doesn't sit well with her, that something so outside of her control, could've even changed her thing with Rocky and and --

  And one of the clients of Priscilla’s watches her, a blank look on his face, and for a second she just blinks at him.

  He’s tall, with dark hair, and just a hair close enough in appearance to her Jake that her skin crawls a bit.

  It’s not him, it’s definitely not, the look too cold and the look too dark, and she looks away.

  She flips open her phone.

  AIMES (9:18 AM): Dave, anything at the library need fixing?

  There's a long pause, where more Priscilla clients studiously don’t observe her.

  A glance back to the man reveals that he’s gone, but nobody came through the door.

  DAVE (9:32 AM): No.

  AIMES (9:33 AM): Can I come by anyways?

  He sits, restless, across from her in his little closet of an office, as if he has no idea what to say.

  "Remember my ex, Rocky?" Aimes blurts out.

  Horror dawns on his face. "Aimes, don't."

  "I didn't! He just...he asked me back today."

  Dave buries his head on his hands, pulling on the tufts of his hair. "Aimes," he's using the librarian voice, "Aimes, don't cheat on your husband. Just...don't."

  "I didn't. I didn't...I didn't even want to." She settles back in her chair.

  He exhales a huge sigh. "Oh thank god."

  She watches as he swivels in his chair out of unease. "But, I didn't want to. It's Rocky, you know...".

  "I know you've either been torn up about him or upset at him for something like three years. He cheated on you, then dumped you, and has been a little shit about it.”

  She blinks. "You paid attention to my rants?"

  He glares at her, and she shrinks down a bit. "I pay attention when people I work with talk."

  "Huh." She sits, and it's awkward in the room, like a blanket has descended over them.

  "Shitty ex boyfriends aside, don't sleep with anyone?" And it's like her father was telling her that, and his face twisted in a mirror of her own. "It won't...it won't be good."

  "Usually I'd jump at this chance with Rocky," she whispers, hugging herself. "It feels like there's something wrong with me that I didn't." It feels awful to say out loud, like a betrayal to herself. Like it's changing her, without need or want.

  He just nods. "Makes sense." He busies his hands it his computer, face somber. "Did Katya figure out who it was?"

  "Nope. Had a big packet of pictures for me to look through, wasn't any of them."

  "That's messed up." He prints something out, then hands it to her. "Here."

  It's the address to Flask and a time, two days from now, right before her next trip. "And?" She flips the paper in her hand, looking for more information.

  "It's a support group. For regular humans involved with non normals."

  She peers at him over the paper. "Involved like I'm involved?"

  "Doubtful. Mostly normal people who know someone, is close to them, or lives with them. They discuss the weirdness of...everything."

  Aimes folds up the paper as neatly as she can and fits it into her pocket. "Katya took me to Flask’s a few days ago, asked me a bunch of questions, and said nothing of this."

  A polite knock on the door, and one of Dave's junior librarians pokes his head in, and gives Aimes a truly guilty look. "Sorry to bother you, but that school group --"

  Dave waves his hand. "I'll be down there soon." As soon as the door closed he smiles, a grim stretching of skin over his cheeks. "Katya focuses a lot on problems in front of her, not people."

  Aimes has just enough time to wonder at that before Dave pushes himself up and leaves his office.

  The meetup is small, with about five other people and Katya, who gives a hard blink when she sees Aimes.

  Aimes sits in the back, just listening. Everyone else knows each other, everyone else has known their "other" for years, and it smacks far more of a social gathering than anything resembling support.

  Afterwards, as people are chatting, Katya sits next to Aimes with a sigh. "Dave tell you?" With her nod, Katya grimaces. "I'm still no further in figuring out, I wanted to have an answer for you before inviting you here."

  One of the other attendees, a pudgy woman who, if Aimes figured out correctly, is the roommate to some sort of tree creature, comes over and shakes Katya's hand. It's perfunctory and reads too much like the church services her mother used to guide her through.

  After she steps away, Katya turns, an all too serious look on her face. "Life being weird?"

  "I didn't want to sleep with my ex." Aimes says, cause joking about it is a lot better than dealing with the emotions.

  Katya nods, thoughtful. "You probably won't want to sleep with anyone else." She says, her voice gentle and practiced. "Don't be disturbed by that."

  They sit there, as the rest of the small support group filters out, and Katya exhales, forceful. "Wish I had good news for you."

  Aimes nods, out of anything else to do. "It just feels weird."

  "Really though, text me. Text me when something weird happens, I can help. Or at least tell you it's normal." Katya leans forwards. "What do you usually do when you're upset?"

  "Are you playing counselor with me?" Aimes asks.

  She cracks a smile. "A bit. If...if there's anything I've learned at this job, it's that keeping to your normal life as much as possible is...well...good for you." She twists her hands, almost a nervous gesture from someone so usually composed.

  Aimes feels sorry for her, just a bit, for how weird and disruptive her life must be. "Well, I have another convention tomorrow. In Texas."

  "There's not too many known others in Texas," Katya says, as if that’s encouraging. "Funny enough, not a super welcoming place."

  "Austin isn't bad, they have great gay bars." Aimes blurts out. "I mean, those are great, especially for the area, if you want to party but don't want the creeps."

  Katya nods, almost absent minded. "This job doesn't exactly give me much reason to go out to places like that."

  'Do you want to?"

  "Um. It's a worknight?" She blinks at her, wide-eyed and a little bit s
ad.

  Aimes shrugs, glances at her watch. "It's 7:30. My flight’s not till 9 AM."

  Katya shifts, as if this was a profoundly new situation. "Maybe, maybe some other time." She stands, begins clearing the chairs from the bar, and the blurry bartender nods his thanks. "Who knows, maybe your mystery man will show up on your trip to Texas."

  7

  He doesn’t.

  8

  This time, Trixie picks her up from the airport, cause she flew into Burbank instead of LAX, and she's quiet. Too quiet.

  Aimes enjoys the feeling of being able to sit back in the chair for about 5 minutes, then twists and looks at Trixie. "So. Texas was decent."

  Trixie jumps, as if she had forgotten Aimes was there. "Oh. Right." And Aimes has known Trixie for long enough that something is suspicious.

  There was something she isn't saying, and it's big enough that Trixie feels guilty about it.

  "Trixie?"

  Trixie scowls. "Was the plane okay?"

  "Trixie what's wrong?" Aimes waits until they're at a stoplight, then pokes her in the elbow.

  "Promise you won't freak out?" Her voice is plaintive, almost begging.

  "Sure."

  "Rocky called me, asked me for 'advice'." Trixie takes her hands off the wheel long enough to do the quotation marks. "He said you...rejected him?"

  Ah. Aimes stares out the window, stomach turning again. "We had coffee. It didn't go too well." The car turns down Magnolia, and they of course pass Priscilla's. "I ...I dunno."

  Trixie raises an eyebrow at the road in front of her. "I told him to fuck off." She admits. "If he can't even be nice enough to you that you, you! Want it, then he shouldn't be asking me."

  Aimes pats her on the arm, and Trixie visibly relaxes. "You did fine. Thanks, I think."

  Trixie manages a smile.

  Aimes starts to go to the meetings with Katya, and Katya starts to unwind around her. It's like the fact that Katya has no answers is a point of personal shame for her, and she can't imagine what she could do without that information.