“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“Yes?” He waved a hand down his body, at the shirt, at the shorts, at his shins, his socks and sandals. “I need a walk to…clear my mind?”
I chuckled. “I have no idea why you’re asking me. You’re the one out here walking.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” he said. “Perhaps I will see you later?” He stretched those long legs of his and got moving.
I stared at him for a second. Something about that exchange had felt off. Awkward. But then, Than was always an unusual conversationalist. Still, he’d been a little twitchy. Or at least twitchier than I’d seen him.
He wasn’t the sort of person that I’d ever say was overly emotional. Droll and unimpressed seemed to be his default.
But there was always something right behind that slightly bored mask. He had a crackling curiosity for all manner of things, a sense of humor he couldn’t quite squelch with feigned disinterest.
He was kind, which was sort of a surprise, given his god power. He’d always been warm to me.
That conversation had just been awkward with none of that warm stuff. The kind stuff.
I wondered if a ghoul could take on the shape of a god.
We were both walking in opposite directions, but just in case, I turned and sniffed the air. I didn’t smell anything ghoul-ish. All I smelled was dry concrete, exhaust, and cooked garlic from someone’s kitchen.
“…going to hang up if you don’t talk to me,” Myra’s voice came from my phone.
“Sorry,” I said, heading back to my Jeep, but throwing one last look Than’s way. He paused at the corner, looked both ways twice, then continued down the road. “I’m back. What were you saying?”
“Have you even set a date?”
I stepped up into my Jeep. “Technically?”
“Actually.”
“Yes. We have a general time nailed down.”
“A day?”
“Well, not that nailed down.”
“A month? Tell me you landed on a month that works for both of you.”
“So have you seen Than lately?”
“You haven’t chosen a month? What’s wrong with August? Or September when it’s a little cooler?”
“Last I heard he was going on a long walk, right? Did he come back? I mean, I know he wasn’t leaving Ordinary’s boundaries because he’d have to pick up his power, but is he back from that?”
“We’re going to ignore the wedding conversation? We know that won’t make it go away.”
“Is this the royal ‘we’?”
“Dear lords, okay. Fine. Last I heard he was going for a walk a couple days ago, so yeah, he should be back around today or tomorrow.”
“Okay, well, I think he is. I just talked to him.”
“I thought I heard his voice in the background,” she said. “And now you need to tell me why you were asking me where he was when you were looking at him.”
I switched my phone to speaker and started the Jeep. “Odin and Zeus didn’t see anything strange with the car. But I found some cardboard stuck in the trunk.”
“That’s good. That’s something. Was it like the packages?”
