Daughter of Zeus ✔

15.3

Despite how stupid it was, Ada met with Phennell a few more times. Her stomach twisted everytime they finished, but she coulnd't get herself to stop responding to his insistent messages.

When she got home from her latest meeting with Phennell, Kressick was waiting for her. He puttered around the living room, and he wasn't one to putter.

"Just say what you want to say." She went into the kitchen, poking around the cabinets in a futile attempt; they were all empty.

The kitchen was retrofitted with a food modulator, and Ada probably looked silly going through the empty cabinets, but old habits died hard. She half expected roaches to skitter out. She was a bit disappointed when none did.

"I could say I've nothing to ask, but that would be a lie." He grinned.

She did some puttering of her own in the kitchen. Let him ask what he wanted, but she wasn't going to go along with it by prompting him anymore. Her mother loved being prompted along in conversations. Perhaps he missed Gemina and wished to be reminded of her, but Ada found the prompting annoying.

"I was going to ask..." Kressick raised his voice to be heard over the rustling going on in the kitchen. "I was going to ask why you bother with him."

Phennell. He had to mean Phennell. Again, she waited for him to elaborate.

"Phennell has some fine qualities, but I certainly wouldn't want him dating any one of my daughters, even less so when they're related by marriage."

She thought Kressick expected a shameful bow of the head or shrug of the shoulders, but she gave him a retort instead: "Oh, but it's okay for you to have sex with my mother, ol' Grampy?"

He winced. "Touché." After an awkward second came and went, he had more to say about his step-grandson, none of it good. "Though he's not related to Brontes by blood, he's inherited a lot of his bad qualities, along with his mother's calculating ones. Makes for a bad mix, but he always has a bird on his arm. And then another. You don't seem like the type to perch. So I ask again, why do you bother with him?"

Ada came out of the kitchen. Her answer was not going to be yelled across the condo. For a moment, she considered not responding. She was a grown woman, and if she wanted to screw around, who was he to question her? He was her grandfather, but he had been absent from the job for years.

Mornings spent with him and Gemina around the breakfast table tumbled across her thoughts. He always made her laugh over shared cups of coffee, even when she woke cranky, which was all the time the last eight months. Whenever the cartridge on the food modulator had been low, he had noticed and replaced it. And those things weren't cheap. He hadn't been entirely absent, just misrepresented. At least he had been there, unlike his son. Kressick was worthy of an answer.

"I don't know why I bother." He's not even a great lay. But she couldn't say that. He was probably yucked out enough over their love affair. "I'm lonely." I really am, she admitted with surprise. "And he's just...there."

Kressick sat next her on the couch. "Just there, eh? Doesn't bother you that he probably doesn't care about you and might be prepared to move on at a minute's notice?"

She shrugged. "He and I are in the same boat then." She thought for a minute. "Should I care? Phennell doesn't care, you know that, but have you had this same talk with him?"

"It's you I'm worried about."

"You're worried for the wrong reasons. I'm a woman, but that doesn't make me different. If I wanna use him, I will. I already knew he was using me, and it made the arrangement all the better. Me feeling neutral about the whole thing means nothing. Get your Prominent head out of your Prominent ass. I seem to remember you explaining how you used people in the past, my mother included."

The last bit was relayed playfully, but she got the feeling she might've hurt his feelings.

Ada got up. "Thanks for worrying about me, but I know what I'm doing, Gramps." She gave him a pat on the knee before heading to her room.

"I just don't want you to forget your own worth, my dear."

She laughed. "Why is it men always worry about a woman's worth? What's it gonna buy me?"

He rolled his eyes. "What a Tramp thing to say."

"Thought you'd like that. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Ada."

He still sounded worried.