“I wouldn’t worry about anything.” Craig checked his mirrors and situated his coffee thermos. “I’ve had plenty of crazy friends, and they always turn out right in the end. He’ll probably be damn sorry, the next time you see him.” He put the truck into gear and it jerked forward. He seemed nice enough. He told them about a few of his “crazy” friends; Athena listened and smiled while she ate the ham and cheese flatbread Odysseus had bought. While she chewed, weariness began to sink in again. The truck was nice and clean, and there was a sleeper in the back. She was about to ask Craig if she could use it when he tapped her on the knee.
“Hey,” he said gently. “You both look exhausted. Why don’t you sneak in the back and get some sleep? You’ll have plenty of time to keep me company after we get through Toledo.”
“Thank you,” she said, and was surprised by how much she meant it. It would have been nice to have something to give him in return, something more than a lie and polite conversation. She reached out for his hand. “You’re a very nice man, Craig,” she said. “I hope you have a lot of prosperity and good health.” Craig grinned, and they shook. When they touched, she thought she felt something small pass between them, some slight bit of warmth and electricity, moving from her skin into his.
Of course she might have imagined it. The blessing of a dying goddess probably wasn’t worth much. But at least she’d tried.
Odysseus held back the curtain between the cab and the sleeper. She lumbered into the back and sat down heavily on the small bed.
“Just give a shout if you want us to chip in for gas, or snacks or something,” Odysseus told Craig, then closed the curtain and sat down on the bunk.
“Should we talk now?” he asked softly. Whispering wasn’t necessary. Craig had turned on the strains of an oldies station, and the engine noise from the truck covered their voices well.
Athena sighed. “I’m exhausted. And what you’re going to tell me … I have a feeling is going to keep me up.”
“It can wait. We’ve got a long ride ahead.” Odysseus’ tender voice soothed her ears. But the concern on his face edged too close to pity.
“I’m sorry this is happening to you,” Odysseus said. “You don’t deserve it. Of all the gods on that damned hilltop, all of those vain, stupid prigs, you don’t deserve it. You never did.”
It hurt her heart that he gave her so much credit. She wasn’t something to be worshipped; she was something to be contended with. Everything that had gone wrong in his old life could have been blamed on her, or on some twisted member of her family. What did it matter if she tried to fix it? Fixing it was her responsibility. It had been then, and it still was now.
She watched him as he moved down to the floor of the sleeper, as he rolled up a sweatshirt from his bag for a pillow. This was the most time they had ever spent together all at once. In the old days, there had been more to her existence, things for her to do, and she’d dropped in on him only when she was needed. But she’d always watched. She had always made sure he was safe.
Her tongue found the slowly healing wound on the roof of her mouth and twisted into it. Bitter tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.
Without thinking, she reached down and put her hand on his arm. He jumped at the touch before letting himself be pulled up onto the bed.
It felt strangely natural, even though she had never in her long, long life slept beside a man. It went against everything her father had created her to be. And she’d never wanted it, until now.
Odysseus lay down uncertainly. He kept his eyes on her until his head hit the pillow and released his breath in a slow, nervous shudder. She felt his heartbeat, and heard it, fast and strong in his chest. Words were there, between them, but they went unspoken. It was only moments before they were both deeply asleep.
When Athena woke, the truck was stopped, and the engine turned off. Something had jolted her awake. She waited and felt a soft jerk from somewhere behind them. It was the movement of the trailer, pulling the truck back as it was unloaded. That meant they were already in Toledo.
Athena looked around in the dimness. Only two shafts of light cut through a gap in the faux leather curtain dividing the sleeper from the cab, and even that light was gray. The weather must’ve turned overcast while they slept.
Odysseus stirred by her side and shifted against her hip. She tensed. The bed was small. They were completely wrapped up in each other. How had that happened? She’d been so deeply under it had felt like oblivion. He was lucky she hadn’t shoved him off onto the floor.
She couldn’t remember. A deep breath brought aftershave to her nose, and she didn’t know if it was his or Craig Melville’s. It was probably Craig’s. If it had been Odysseus, it would have smelled like cinnamon massage oil from The Three Sisters. The corner of her mouth twisted into a smile, and she pushed dark hair back off his forehead.
In the shadows, he looked softer, relaxed and innocent, the working of his brain reduced to slow clicks and whirrs. He looked almost harmless, almost gentle, nothing like the swashbuckling liar she knew he was. She leaned closer and studied the curve of his jaw, the easy pulse at his throat. His fingers rested on the small of her back; she’d turned men into stone for less. But she didn’t move. Something grew inside her chest and stomach, some new, unnamed need, unfurling and trying out its wings. She let herself press closer, and shivered.
The words moved through her mind without warning. Thoughts like that were not meant for her. She was removed from it, completely outside the jurisdiction of Aphrodite’s lasso. But she had to admit it was intoxicating. It took over completely.
Except when she did move, it was her hand, slipping mindlessly up underneath the fabric of his shirt.
Athena held her breath, but couldn’t stop. Or she wouldn’t. Boundaries blurred as he woke beneath her hands. His fingers squeezed down on her hip. His eyes opened.
Odysseus pushed the veil of her hair back and drew her closer, nothing but the sound of his quickened breath and moving fabrics in her ears. He was practiced and she was new, the Don Juan of the Aegean and the Virgin Goddess, but it was all instinct, all sensation and response. The heat of his tongue, the firm strength of his body and the way he moved her, they might have done it all a hundred, a thousand times before.
He rolled her onto her back, their fingers entwined. The desperation in his movements filled her with a strange sense of power, and the way he shook and sighed. In her mind an image flashed from long ago: Odysseus in the middle of an ocean, standing on the deck of a ship. He stared out over the water, his expression determined but desolate, skin bronzed by decades of sunlight far from home. He grasped onto the ship’s railing and shouted something, the same word, three times. Penelope. Penelope. Penelope. He screamed for his wife, the wife he loved and continually tried to return to. The ship’s hull had been painted with a depiction of Athena’s eyes.
“Athena,” Odysseus whispered, and kissed her neck.
It was just an image. One brief flash. She didn’t even know if she had really seen it, or if it was her own invention. Penelope was dead, she had to be, she’d used up all her devotion two thousand years ago. And besides, it didn’t matter. Athena was a goddess. She took from mortal women as she liked. Odysseus was hers. He always had been.
