Love Lines

25: A Little Golf Lesson

Chapter Twenty-Five

I stared down at the golf ball, studying it even though I knew the surface and stamped-on lettering as well as my favorite childhood story. Thankfully it was cloudy today so the sun wasn't blaring down on everyone and my eyes weren't trying to liquefy in my skull. Sunglasses were still covering my eyes, however, since I knew my headache could come flaring back up at any moment.

After Hades left that day, Cecil came back into the room, thinking I would be just as he left me, minus a god. It didn't occur to me that maybe he would react to the tears or my sudden ability to see. Only when he grabbed a wash cloth from the en suite bathroom and started wiping off my face did I understand why he would be panicking so much. After one swipe, he showed it to me. The cloth that was once white was now covered in streaks of red.

I'd been crying tears of blood instead of clear salt water.

Needless to say, Cecil wasn't the only one to freak out. No one seemed to know why there was blood coming out of my tear ducts until the bruising around my eyes cleared up and the evidence of the broken blood vessels in the sclera of my eyes disappeared. Apollo told me it was a gift of the gods before he promptly left and I couldn't help but wonder what it would cost me.

It wasn't until later that I found out.

The evidence of my too soon vision wasn't the only thing that disappeared.

When I finally got home at the end of that very long "Elite" day, I went to take a shower. It was then I noticed the bracelet Cecil had given me for our shared birthday was gone. I was in a little bit of a blind panic as I racked my brain trying to figure out where it had gotten to and searched the pile of discarded clothes I'd been wearing. Half afraid I'd lost it in the Russian forest, I went back to the Schola for the second time that night and tracked down my favorite werewolf.

Without knocking on his door, I opened it, calling his name.

I stopped in the doorway and stared at him.

He was suspended from a very thick metal pole that ran the width of the doorway, muscles protruding and sweat dripping down his skin. My eyes slammed shut along with his door and I walked back the way I'd come. I was officially scarred for life.

He caught up with me as I waited to be sent back home, the bracelet forgotten for now as I tried to erase the image of him half naked out of my mind. It wasn't that he wasn't attractive, because he was, just not very much to me.

"Liked what you saw?" he whispered into my ear while grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the line of outgoing Assarions.

"What makes you think that?"

"Your reaction." He took his hand off my arm immediately and crossed his arms over his now semi-covered chest. Granted the button up he was wearing was open but I decided to ignore that part. He probably just threw it on out of haste and didn't care if it was buttoned or not. "You oogled before you slammed the door."

"Keep dreaming."

"Then why'd you come back?"

"Like I was supposed to know you were half naked and hanging from a pole?" I replied. "I came back because I can't find my bracelet. I thought you might know what happened to it."

"You mean that slip of thread and shell Cyrus gave you?" I nodded and he shrugged. "Last time I saw it, it was around your wrist as I stepped out into the hallway like you commanded at Agora. By the way, waiting there out in the hallway for you to have your little chat with the Lord of the Dead is not something I want to repeat. The waves of hostility coming off those people..."