Thirteen
Monday morning, it felt weird being back in the swing of things, especially with school. Molly, Lee, and I all went back home the day before. Tom and Wendy welcomed me back home with smiles as Sammy jumped into my arms and asked how our trip to Los Angeles was.
I didn’t know what to say.
Apparently Damon had Molly call them and say that we’d gone on a spur of the moment road trip. They had been a little iffy at first, but then they just told us to have fun.
“It’s your senior year,” Tom said when I’d gotten home and they asked me about it. “You’ve got to be a little crazy before the hard stuff starts. You only live once.”
So the next morning, Sammy was there to wake me up bright and early to get to school. After getting ready and eating breakfast, I headed out the front door to walk to school, only to be surprised to see Lee’s truck sitting in our driveway.
“What are you doing?” I asked through the open passenger side window.
"What's his name told me that I needed to drive you to and from school, for safety. But after what happened Friday night, I was going to do it anyway," he said. He looked a little disgruntled and because of that I had to laugh.
"His name happens to be Damon," I said, opening the door and getting inside.
I fastened my seatbelt and he backed out of the driveway. "Damon, what's his name, Hades...they're all the same in my book," he grumbled.
"You know, we never really got to talk about who you really are back at the house," I said, watching him as he drove toward the school.
He stole a glance at me before looking back toward the road. "I'm still the same Lee. There's nothing different between us."
"Only that you're a demigod and I'm a goddess who's almost three thousand years old. Yeah, nothing different at all."
Lee chuckled. "Well, there's that."
"So you're still going to be my friend, even though the truth has come out about both of us?"
He grimaced at the word 'friend' like I knew he probably would. "Yeah," he said. "I'm here to protect you, no matter what. I’ll always be here for you."
I nodded, looking back toward the road.
"So do you have that dagger still?" he asked.
My eyes went to my lap. My knee length white skirt hid where it was strapped to my thigh. Damon had given it back to me before I left to go back home and the sheath that could be readjusted to fit around my arm or thigh.
"Yep," I said, nodding.
"Where did you put it?" he asked, glancing over at me.
I grinned back at him. "If I told you, then I'd have to kill you with it."
That earned me an eye roll.
When we got closer to the school, the traffic was a little bit heavier than it usually was. But once we got closer, the yellow caution tape around the part of the back parking lot closest to the tree line explained it all.
"So I wonder what the story is," I said as we drove slowly past it. The crushed cars were gone, but the pavement had practically been turned into rubble.
"My mom told me that they said a gas pipe underneath exploded. That's the official story on the news. It's going to take about three weeks for them to fix it, though."
"Was anyone hurt?"
He shook his head as he parked next to Molly's Bug. "No, luckily not. They were all inside for the dance."
"It seems like that was a lifetime ago," I said, grabbing my bag as we got out.
Lee met me around the front of his truck and threaded my arm through his. "Well, not that long ago. But it does seem like a while, huh?"
As we walked toward the back doors of the school, I noticed a bunch of people, mostly guys, circled around one particular car at the front of the parking lot. Even without any car knowledge at all, I knew it must have been pretty expensive since all of the guys were drooling over it.
When we got inside, everyone was crowding around the hallways like they usually did in the morning. We met Molly at our lockers, which all threewere beside each other. She grinned when I started dialing the combination on my locker.
"It's so weird being here, right?" she said, leaning against her now closed locker. "After everything that's gone on?"
"That's what I was saying to Lee," I said, nodding. "But let's just hope that there won't be any weirdness going on."
"You're the weird one," she said, looking pointedly at me. "I mean, you're a freakin' go-”
I slapped a hand over her mouth before she could say the next word that I knew was going to come out. "Don't say it here," I said, looking around at everyone. Some of them were looking wearily over at us.
When I moved my hand, Molly was grinning. "Oh, you know you love it. Not to mention you've got a sexy god who absolutely adores you doesn't do any harm either."
Lee shifted beside us and both Molly and I looked over at him. Molly's grin widened.
"Oh, you don't like that, do you, Lee?" she said.
"Shut up," he grumbled.
She wasn't stopping there. "But then when that daughter of his was in the room, you couldn't seem to look away from her either. Maybe..."
Huh. I didn't even notice that when we were all together. But then, I guess my attention had always been on Damon when we were at his house. Lee had been pushed to the back of my mind anytime he was in the room. It was like he could take over my thoughts just by walking in...not that he already wasn't always on my mind.
Like just then. I swore I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. But when I turned my head to see, no one was there. But it wasn't just that. I could feel him, just like I could whenever he was around, that warmth that spread over my body and just wanted to wrap it around me and cuddle up.
But he wasn't here.
Or could he be?
"...to class before the bell rings," Lee was saying. "You know how crazy it can get when we're all trying to get to class at once."
Molly, who was still grinning like an idiot, turned and started skipping toward our class. I smiled over at Lee, who had just rolled his eyes, and followed behind her.
As we sat in the room waiting for class to start, there was some buzz going around about a new student. No one had a name, though, so all we heard were comments about how 'smokin' hot' she was from the guys and how nice she seemed from the girls. I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I knew just who it was from their description.
And when Zoe walked through the door with a big smile on her face, I was totally right.
Lee's eyes widened in front of me at the sight of her and so did Molly's. I started shaking my head when Zoe's eyes scanned the room and then rested on us. When her eyes met mine, she practically started skipping toward our table. I stood up just as she did.
Zoe definitely wasn't dressed like everyone else. That might have been one of the many reasons why everyone was watching her with eyes wide and jaws dropped. Her blond hair looked like it was glowing in golden curls around her head and down her back. She was wearing a tight white tank top with a hot pink blazer over it and jean shorts. There were several thin, gold necklaces around her neck and, of course, the amethyst ring that I'd apparently given to her on her finger. And how she could be skipping in her electric blue heels, too, I had no idea. With her excited energy rolling off of her, she looked like a Barbie doll come to life.
"Hi!" she squealed as she ran up and hugged me. "Gods, it feels like years instead of just a day since I saw you!"
"Zoe, what are you doing here?" I asked, but I couldn't help but hug her back.
"Aren't you excited to see me? I know I'm excited to see you!" she said, pulling back just the slightest to look at me. "And as for your question, Daddy thought that it would be good for either me or Ari to pose as a student here just to keep an eye on you. Ari didn't want to - well, more like refused - so I came instead!" She was beaming again as she looked around the room at everyone staring at us. "I haven't been to school in decades, so of course I wanted to come!"
To anyone else hearing our conversation, 'decades' might have just been an exaggeration of a long time. But for Zoe, it was probably true.
"This is going to be so much fun! I've got all the same classes as you, though it was kind of hard to persuade the principle to let me in," she said.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. "I'm sure that wasn't the case at all."
Zoe giggled and, when she did, I could practically hear everyone in the room sigh at the sound of it. "Of course, it wasn't," she said. "But it was fun! So..." She looked behind me at our table and let go of me, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. "Do you think I can sit with you three? No one sits here, do they?"
I shook my head and motioned for her to sit. "No, so you can," I said. "The seat across from Molly is open."
I couldn't help be see Zoe's face light up when she looked and saw that she would be sitting by Lee. Yeah, there was something going on there. Maybe not for him, but definitely for her. Molly and I glanced at each other and I knew she was thinking the exact same thing as I was.
***Another upload! Whoo! Sorry for the shortness, but we're kind of in a transition mode for the story. We're going to be getting into the good stuff now! This is just the beginning!
As you can tell, this story is more than likely going to be uploaded only 1 time a week, especially now since I start back to school on Monday. >.< I don't really know what day I'll upload, so I'll keep you updated! I might shoot for another chapter Sunday if I can!
Comment, Vote, and Like!!!1***