Accidentally Aphrodite - Dakota Cassidy Page 0,61

gleaming. “Poof. Just like that. I’ll be across the street if ya need me, Boss.” Hands in his pockets, the demon strolled off to a small square across the street with the wink of his eye.

Khristos pulled her to him and pointed. “Look over there, Quinn. Right inside that big picture window.”

She peered in the direction of his finger and saw her mother.

Helen sat with Maude, one of her oldest friends, at a small table inside a charming café with red tablecloths and candles encased in enormous black lanterns. The glow made her face look softer, kinder, her eyes less like laser beams of death.

Maude was a nice woman she’d only met from time to time on her rare visits to Jersey. She’d been surprised by their friendship, due to Maude’s easygoing nature. Maude was cookies and milk and her hair all done up in a soft, graying bun at the back of her head. Soft-spoken, gentle, easy to talk to. All the things her mother wasn’t.

But seeing her mother looking across the table at Maude, with an expression she never though Helen capable of, dredged up residual hurt for Quinn.

She thought she was done after throwing her mother out of her apartment, but that helpless, angry thread she’d clung to when she’d screamed at her mother just wouldn’t let her go.

Quinn wanted to rush in and demand she take back all the horrible words she’d flung at these people who were so giving, who’d stuck out this Aphrodite thing with her, because her mother was looking at Maude in a way she’d never looked at Quinn. And it hurt.

Khristos held her arm, pulling her close. “Please wait, Quinn. Don’t do or say anything before you listen.”

But this time, she shook her head and brushed him off. “You’re always telling me to listen, but there’s nothing to listen to. My mother said dreadful, awful things to people who’ve been very kind to me, and I just won’t have it anymore. You were there. How can ask me to wait? Now, let me go!”

“No, Quinn. You’ll stay right here,” he ordered.

Just as she was about to protest again, he snapped his fingers and her mother’s voice was in her ear, clear as a bell.

“Listen, Quinn. Listen.”

“Maude…there’s something we need to talk about. Something I need to talk about.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. Good luck, Maude. Her mother didn’t talk to you. She talked at you as though you were the defense and she was the prosecution.

But Maude tilted her head in a question and nodded. “You can always talk to me, Helen. You know that.” She reached her hand across the table and grabbed her mother’s hand, giving her fingers a squeeze.

“I’m not a very nice person, Maude. I’ve been horrible to everyone around me for so many years. I’ve been critical and mean-spirited and ugly. Not just to other people, but to Quinn. The one person I love most in this world.”

Quinn stood rooted to the spot. Her mother was admitting her faults? Out loud? In public? To Maude?

She peered up at Khristos in skepticism. “Is the world coming to an end? Should we gather up Carl and have him teach us about zombies so we’re prepared?”

The rumble of laughter in Khristos’s chest was deep, pinging off the buildings surrounding them. “No. But you do need to hush your pretty mouth.”

Maude cocked her head, her brow furrowed in confusion. “You’re being pretty hard on yourself, aren’t you, Helen? You’ve never been cruel to me, and we’ve been friends for a hundred years.”

Her mother’s smile was full of irony. “That’s because you wouldn’t allow it, now would you? But I’ve run roughshod over Quinn and her life and it took a very pale, very smart woman to help me figure that out tonight.”

Nina? Shut the front door.

“She reminded me today that, my unwarranted hatred toward the opposite sex aside, my daughter grew into an amazing young women who’s kind and warm and believes in miracles—despite me. Maybe even to spite me.”

Quinn gripped Khristos’s hands, now securely around her waist. Who was this person? This soft soul, talking to someone else as though she actually cared about their opinion?

“Quinn’s a great kid, Helen. I’ve always said so. A dreamer, no doubt, but dreams are what keep us alive, keep us reaching for something more.”

Helen scoffed. “And I crushed all of her dreams. The woman she is today really has nothing to do with me. She did it all on her own—to survive me.