Ian tried to catch up with the taller
god, but the sand kept shifting under his feet. “How do you know when you should
change something?” he asked, trying not to pant. “I mean, if the system is so
complicated, how do you know that one little cloud isn’t going to create, I
don’t know, an ice age or something?”
The majestic head tilted fractionally to
one side. “Millennia of experience, plus Gaia’s teaching,” Poseidon said.
“You’ll develop a feel for it eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“I suspect you’ll be ready in five
hundred years or so.”
Ian stumbled to a halt. “Five hundred
years
?”
Poseidon stopped as well, giving him an
exasperated look. “Perhaps four hundred if you show some aptitude. Now, can we
please go back to the cottage? I promised my sons I’d return you in one piece.”
They started off again while Ian tried
to grasp the concept of living for another five centuries. Three weeks ago, he’d
been a widowed science fiction writer with a novel to finish. After no little
urging, his sister had finally talked him into spending the summer at the
family’s vacation cottage in Olympic Cove, Florida. Getting away from Chicago
and the constant reminders of his late wife Diana had seemed like a good idea
at the time, plus he would have all the time he needed to finish his book.
And then he had met the redheaded sea
gods Bythos and Aphros and learned to his shock that he was their
agapetos
, their fated mate. Somehow, falling
in love with the twins had also put him at ground zero in a battle with an
insane goddess who wanted to remake the Earth in her own diseased image.
If that weren’t enough, he’d wound up
being turned into a god by Gaia herself, earth goddess and Mother of All. He
was still getting blindsided by the idea that his old life was gone for good.
And his new life, it seemed, was going
to be much, much longer than he expected.
As they reached the cottage’s back porch,
a delicious scent drifted out to them. Ian’s stomach rumbled, reminding him
that breakfast had been hours ago. “Are you staying for lunch?” he asked.
Poseidon hesitated. The god had always
been dismissive of Aphros’s love for the culinary arts. “I … don’t know. Aphros
probably didn’t make enough to feed four of us.”
Ian snorted. “Are you kidding me? Aph
cooks for an army. Trust me, there’s more than enough for you.” He decided to
add a gloss of guilt. “And I know he’d like it if you stayed. I think he misses
you.”
Poseidon glanced at him, a glimmer of
irritation-laced respect in those sea-blue eyes.
“Hmph.
You’re rather good at that.”
“And it only took thirty-nine years of
training,” Ian said drily. “Come
on,
let’s see what’s
on the menu.”
They went through into the kitchen. A
tall, bearded redhead in a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts stood at one of the
counters, stirring something in a crock pot.
He glanced over his shoulder and
grinned. “So, how’d it go?”
“I made a really, really small cloud,”
Ian admitted. “And I sweated like a pig. I need a shower before we eat.”
“Don’t take too long, love,” Aphros said,
grabbing a bottle of wine from mid-air and opening it. “Lunch is almost ready. Father,
would you like to eat with us?”
The sea god sniffed the air,
then
smiled crookedly. “I rather think I might, if you have
enough.”
“More than enough,” Aphros said, his
grin turning into a delighted smile. “I’d better set the table for four, then.”
Satisfied, Ian headed to the downstairs bathroom.
One down, one to go.
When he came back, rubbing his hair with
a towel and ready to do a face plant into anything edible shoved in front of
him, Poseidon was already seated at the kitchen table with a somewhat damp
Bythos sitting across from him and looking suspiciously neutral. Ian prodded
the connection he had to his other
agapetos
.
It was pretty much what he’d expected, simmering resentment with a barely there
crust of politeness on top.
Time to do some defusing.
“Hey, baby,” he said, circling around to
Bythos’s chair and bending over for a kiss. The demigod’s mouth softened under
his as he’d hoped. “How’s the coral doing?”
Bythos smiled up at him, fully aware of
what he was doing. “Barring any last-minute disasters, the next batch should be
ready for transfer in a week or so,” he said. The pollution-eating coral that
the demigod had engineered was the secret behind the cove’s crystalline waters,
and was currently being seeded throughout the Gulf of Mexico as an attempt to
counteract the disastrous oil spill of 2010.
Ian firmly put the thought of what else
was in the Gulf out of his mind.
Food first.
Approaching apocalypses later.
Lunch
turned out to be slow-cooked pork tenderloin in a sinfully delicious BBQ sauce,
heaped onto fresh hoagie rolls and served with coleslaw, pickles, and what Ian
suspected were homemade potato chips, thick and chewy under their fried crust.
Poseidon seemed dubious about the food at first, but his eyes went wide with
surprise after he bit into his sandwich.
“This is marvelous,” he said after he
swallowed.
Bythos shook his head. “I told you
Aphros was an incredible cook, Father. You should try his roast leg of lamb.”
“Oh, God, and his rogan josh,” Ian
moaned happily around a mouthful of pulled pork. “I don’t know where you
learned to cook Indian food, angel, but it’s amazing.”
“I’ll make it sometime this week,” the
bearded twin promised. “If you like, Father, I’ll let you know when so you can
join us.”
Bythos paused in mid-chew, taking a
quick sip from his water glass. “Not on Friday, though. Mother’s coming then,”
he said.
Both Ian and Aphros winced at Bythos’s lack
of tact. Poseidon stiffened as well, but visibly forced himself to relax. “I’ll
see what I can do,” he said after a small cough. “I’m afraid I’m very busy these
days, what with all the hot spots on the equator. I may not be able to make it.”
The hope in Aphros’s eyes dimmed, but he
nodded. “I understand, Father.”
Ian focused his attention on his plate.
He didn’t know what had split up his mates’ adopted parents, but from the
little he’d gleaned from
By
and Aph it had been
Clash of the Titans
bad. Poseidon and
Amphitrite had only just started speaking to each other again in the last few
weeks after literally millennia of separation. Their rapprochement was solely
due to Amphitrite’s sister Thetis, who had been poisoned and driven insane as a
result of the BP oil spill. Now, the whole family had been forced to band together
in order to stop the mad Nereid from destroying humanity and the rest of the
planet.
But first, they had to get over their
internecine warfare. “It’s a standing offer, Poseidon,” Ian said, wanting to be
generous. “You don’t need an invitation. Just come by when you can.”
The twins eyed him in disbelief, and
even Poseidon seemed surprised. “Thank you, Ian,” he said, clearing his throat.
“I, er … I do appreciate that.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable
silence, and then Bythos jerked slightly. Ian suspected a kick under the table
was the reason. “So, um, Father,” the demigod finally said, “how is Ian coming
along in his lessons?”
“Well enough for a beginner,” Poseidon
admitted.
“I created a cloud,” Ian said. “Granted,
it was a really, really small cloud. I think tea kettles have done better.”
“Yes, but it was a genuine cloud,”
Poseidon said. “Once you have a solid grasp of how to concentrate vapor, we’ll—”
A tinny blare of music interrupted him.
He glanced around in confusion. “What in the world is that odd noise?”
“Sorry, that’s my phone,” Ian said,
scooting his chair back. “I need to get that.”
All three gods nodded, and he headed
into the living room where he’d added a charger for his phone. He didn’t bother
to look at the caller ID. There was only one number that had Motley Crue’s “Dr.
Feelgood” as a ringtone.
He swiped a thumb across the Call Answer
screen. “What’s up, doc?”
There was a heavy sigh on the other end.
“How old are you, twelve?” a gravelly voice said.
“Never mind.
Are you home?”
Ian leaned against the table with the
charger. “No, I’m still in Florida.”
“I meant Florida, dumbass. Are you at
the cottage?”
“Yeah.
Why?”
There was another sigh.
“Because I need to know how to get to your place from Olympic
Beach.”
Ian straightened up, grin disappearing.
“What the hell are you doing in Olympic Beach?”
“Trying to find your place,
which apparently managed to slip Google Maps’s notice.
Look,
could you just give me directions?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He rattled off
the instructions, glancing into the kitchen where
By
and Aph were still eating with Poseidon, and lowered his voice. “Are you okay?
You sound like hell.”
A long pause.
“I’m just
really tired. I’ve been driving since yesterday, and I’m getting too old for
that shit. It’s okay if I crash there, right?”
“Yeah, of
course.”
He heard a sharp bark over the line. “Is that Norma?”
“Yeah.
She’s why I drove.
I’ll explain everything when I get there. See you in a bit.”
The call ended, leaving Ian staring at
the phone in his hand. Before he’d left for Florida, he’d told Nick that the
doctor was welcome to come down anytime if he needed a break.
But that was
before Bythos and Aphros showed up.
He knew he was going to have to
introduce the two demigods to his friends and family eventually. But he was
still working on a better introduction than, “Hi, yeah, this is Bythos and
Aphros. Yes, they’re twins. Yes, as a matter of fact they
are
both men, at least when they’re not being demigod sea centaurs.
It’s a long story.
How about those Bears?”
Yeah, no.
Sighing, he went back into the
kitchen to tell his fated mates and father-in-law that company was on the way.
****
“Jesus.”
The unshaven man standing in the doorway
grimaced. “My beard’s not that long.”
“No, just—come in.” Ian stepped back,
watching as Nick Gardiner trudged into the living room. Once, back in Chicago,
he’d seen the ER physician fresh off a triple shift that included treating
patients from two fires and a multi-car pileup on Lake Shore Drive.
It was nothing compared to the utter
exhaustion he saw now. “You look like hammered shit. What’s wrong?”
Before Nick could say anything, a small
brown and white terrier scampered into the cottage. She danced around Ian
before planting two paws on his thigh and giving him a lolling doggy smile.
He crouched, scratching her head.
“Hey, girl.
Did you miss me?”
“Of course she did,” Nick said wearily.
“You’re the only one who feeds her bacon. I left my bag in the car. Is that all
right around here?”
Ian thought of the protective geas
Aphros had put on the area. There was no way an enterprising thief could even
find the cove, much less
steal
anything. “It’s fine.
This area is really safe.”
“Great. I—” The doctor trailed off,
staring over Ian’s shoulder. “Oh. You’ve got guests. You should have said.”
Ian stood, spotting Bythos and Aphros in
the dining room doorway. “No,
it’s
fine,” he said
quickly. “Nick, I’d like to introduce you to my boyfriends,
By
and Aph. Guys, this is Nick Gardiner, a friend of mine from Chicago.”
Nick’s jaw dropped.
“Boyfriends?”
“Yes, it’s all rather new,” Bythos said,
coming up and offering his hand. “But it’s nice to finally meet some of Ian’s
friends.”
The doctor stared blankly at the
outstretched hand, then shook his head hard and took it. “Nice to meet you,” he
said, blinking. “I’m
sorry,
I’m not usually this out
of it. I’m not homophobic or anything. I mean, I can’t be. I’m gay, so it’s all
good. I’m just surprised because Ian never told me he was bi. He was married,
so I just assumed—” He stopped in mid-stream, weaving just a bit.
“Um.
I’m really tired.”
“Yes, we can tell,” Aphros said, already
in mother hen mode. “The other guest room is ready for you. Why don’t you go
take a
nap,
and the two of you can catch up later?”
“Yeah.
Yeah, that’s
good.” Nick blinked glazed eyes at Ian. “Could you take care of Norma? I let
her go when I stopped to call you, but she really needs a walk. Her leash is in
the car.”