Hmm.Maybe it was just a dream. Demi was anything but nice.
But the grin Mom flashed me told me not to discount Junie. This was all giving me a headache. The last person I wanted to read to my daughter was Demi. She’d probably try to lull her to sleep with a horror novel.
Mom peeked at the screen. “Does she know about the poster of her you kept on your wall?”
I hurried to click out of the pictures. “No. And she never will.”
Mom leaned against my desk, her expression thoughtful.
“Funny how you’ve been chosen to find love for the girl you used to swear was talking about you when reporters asked who her biggest crush was.”
I shifted in my seat, not wishing to think about it. I wasn’t that boy anymore, and Demi certainly wasn’t that girl. And I despised her for not being who I thought she would be.
“She’d say, ‘I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet. But I know when I meet him, I’ll just know.’” Mom grinned. “And you’d say, ‘That’s going to be me.’”
“I was obviously wrong. Very wrong.” It was clear she’d met that person. It was probably whomever she’d fallen in love with. Which reminded me—I needed to see if my assistant, Lars, the only other demigod on my team, had tracked that guy down just in case we needed him during Temptation Week. That was assuming he’d even be interested. Judging by how adamantly Demi refused to discuss him, it was probably a nasty breakup. Or she had realized we might contact him and was trying to prevent that. She was probably afraid that he’d tell the world what a shrew she was.
Mom shrugged. “I suppose so.”
There was nosupposeabout it—I’d definitely been wrong about Demi, and I had a feeling I was about to find out just how much.
Chapter VIII
Demi
Ifeltridiculouspullingup to the resort where my summer in hell would begin on Cassie’s vintage Royal Enfield motorcycle like I was some rebel without a cause.
Well . . . I supposed I had a cause. It being that I didn’t want to be kicked out of my father’s world, even if I’d never truly felt I belonged there. It was still better than the alternative.
I wasn’t even sure how I was going to survive living in the mortal world for the next six weeks. The limited exposure I’d had to mortals during our incognito road trip to Wyoming had my divine side buzzing and wanting to be unleashed. I’d had to stop myself—repeatedly—from intervening in the love lives of strangers. Or approaching them just to offer a listening ear because I could feel their pain.
Okay, so Cassie had hexed a guy when I told her he was cheating on his wife. Let’s just say he’s hating his life right now and has an STD from hell.
And don’t even get me started on how on edge I was about all the love matches my father was allowing in my absence. He’d taken over the Bureau until I returned—if I returned. He’d even disbanded my Emergency LoveViolation agents.
No doubt this summer would be a mess of reckless couples mistaking lust for something deeper. Insta-love would run rampant. Grand gestures, sappy love songs, and poetry would overrun the world.
Just fluff.
But . . . did it make people happier?
Did mortals need fluff?
Was I really the reason the world was in such disarray? That thought gnawed at me.
And I had a sneaking suspicion that if I didn’t fulfill this quest, the consequences would be far worse than losing my place among the gods or being turned into an orchid. I had a feeling this quest was my one shot at unlocking my heart and finding love. There would be no other chances. You didn’t mess up a quest and get a second chance. And if that wasn’t terrifying enough, I also had a feeling that I’d lose all knowledge of the world of gods. Of my father. It was something in the way he’d hugged me goodbye. He’d held on too tight as if he never wanted to let go.
His last words echoed in my mind:Please remember that I have always loved you . . . and will always love you. Please do all you can to find love so that you may return.
It wasn’t a goodbye.
It was a plea.
Cassie thought so too.
So, come August, I could be an orphan and alone in the world. Would I remember anything of my past? The gods weren’t just going to let me merrily skip away if I didn’t succeed in this quest. They didn’t work that way.
The bike rumbled beneath me—all chrome and attitude. Its deep maroon paint caught the late-afternoon June lightlike it had something to prove. It was the kind of machine that made people stare. It was nostalgic, dramatic, and unapologetically loud.
