A knock on the door woke Akiko. With her consciousness came a pounding headache and a wave of nausea. A hangover in full force. “Come in,” she said. Somehow. Her mouth was like a desert. All cracked sand and desolate landscape. She sat up, tried to swallow and failed. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as Aphrodite appeared in the door she had opened. Her contacts were missing, but she didn’t remember putting them where they belonged. [spoiler]
“Good morning,” Dite sang. She had a cup of coffee in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. Akiko grunted her response, blindly reaching for her glasses on the nightstand. Pushing the thick frames onto her face, she blinked the world into focus. Aphrodite moves closer and handed the steaming mug off to Akiko and sat down on the bed. Akiko shifted to make room for her and sipped from her cup; cream no sugar. Perfect. She cleared her throat and tried talking again.
“Hey,” she said finally, and the other blonde beamed. Akiko felt like hot garbage under the white-toothed, good-morning smile of a fifties pinup. It didn’t help that Aphrodite was still dressed in her vintage nightdress, complete with a gauzy robe and fuzzy kitten heels. Akiko looked down at herself. Same college shirt from the night before, and apparently she’d just barely made it out of her jeans. Her face felt caked in day old make-up, while Dite’s was matte and rosy with a fresh wash.
Aphrodite moved higher on the bed and crossed one leg over the other, her hands worked at opening the pill bottle and shaking a few into her palm. She held them out to Akiko, who picked them up with a grateful sigh.
“Thanks,” she muttered, tossing them in her mouth and swallowing them dry. Aphrodite screwed the cap back on the bottle and placed it on the table. She smiled.
“So,” Aphrodite started, and Akiko closed her eyes against the line of questioning she knew to follow. Aphrodite gently pushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. A stray strand of silky locks that had wiggled free from the rollers she wore.
She had rollers in her hair. Akiko couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t in some Brady Brunch dream. An after-dark sexy off-shoot version.
“Sang an awful lot of sad songs at karaoke last night,” she finished and Akiko groaned again.
“I was drunk,” she replied in a weak defense. “And I don’t remember much, but I remember you helping me with a few of those breakup songs.”
“Harden My Heart is a classic.” Aphrodite shrugged. “Did you expect me to resist?”
“I can’t believe you let me do that.”
“You were a hit,” Aphrodite insisted.
Akiko snorted a laugh that she drowned out with her mug.
Aphrodite uncrossed her legs and stretched them out in front of her. Akiko put the mug down and kicked away the sheets. Bouncing towards the opposite edge of the bed, she let her feet hang towards the floor.
“You don’t seem like a woman who wants to get brunch,” Dite observed and Akiko shook her head. Dite briefly pouted even though Akiko couldn’t see it, she recovered with a shrug. “Okay, we can just stay here then. I’ll see you on the couch when you’re cleaned up.”
Both women stood at the same time.
“No more sad movies,” Akiko demanded, disappearing into the connecting bathroom.
A dramatic sigh from her hostess before she closed the door.
When a freshly showered Akiko dropped on the couch she looked better than she felt. The glasses on her face evident that her contacts hadn’t made it into their designated case. Damp hair pulled up into a bun on top of her head, a hoodie she had accidentally stolen from Cain before she’d left home and comfy Lycra . The sweater smelled like his soap and cologne. She pulled it closer. Aphrodite appeared with huge fleece blanket. She rounded the corner of the hall that led back to the bedroom she shared with Holland, geometric patterned fabric trailing behind her. She’d abandoned the sexy lingerie for a sundress that was slightly less disarming. The rollers were gone, and blonde hair fell over her shoulders in soft waves.
“I ordered Chinese,” she announced, dropping the blanket on top of Akiko’s lap in a massive heap. She then flopped down next to her with a huff.
“Mei fun and dumplings?” Akiko asked, hopefully.
“Of course.”
“And no sad movies?”
“No sad movies,” Dite agreed, covering her heart with one hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a scout,” Akiko asked, pushing up her glasses with one hand.
Aphrodite gasped at her accusation. “I was. I still have all my patches, and I sold the most cookies one year.” She leaned forward to grab the remote off the coffee table, and missed they exaggerated why Akiko rolled her eyes.
Akiko unbundled the blanket and arranged it over her legs in a way that would give them both access to it. “Where’s Holland?” she asked, pulling her hood over her hair, and bringing the blanket upwards towards her chin.
“He got called in to do some work for the police department,” she explained, scrolling through the romantic comedy options on Netflix. Akiko hummed her understanding, but fell quiet for a few moments. Dite stopped scrolling on one option, and Akiko shook her head with a frown.
“Hey, Dite?” Akiko asked after a few more silent seconds passed. She pulled her feet onto the couch and tucked them beneath her.
“What’s up, kiddo?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
Aphrodite turned her head to smile at her. “Of course.”
“About my dad?”
Her smile faded, look crossing into something more befitting her puzzlement. “Sure… what about him?”
Akiko adjusted her glasses, before her hand lifted to smooth over her hair. “Why did you two break up?”
Aphrodite nodded slowly, pursing her lips and letting the remote fall back onto the table. She leaned back on the couch and brought the blanket over her knees.
“You know about that?”
“I found a picture of you at the ranch a few years ago. Dad...said you’d dated, but he wouldn’t really talk about it.What happened? I mean, why did you break up?”
Aphrodite shrugged, playing off the words she had yet to say. As if the reason for their falling out had been something mind and uninteresting. “Your father and I both had certain things we weren’t willing to compromise on.”
“Akiko’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”
“Well,” Dite said on the coattails of a sigh. “After he went missing one time, I wanted him to stop being a pilot for the CAF, and he wanted me to stop trying to become an Alpha.”
“But neither of you would?”
“Neither of us would,” she repeated softly.
“But you loved him?”
"It was a long time ago." Aphrodite sighed again, fingers went to her mouth and she picked at the cuticle of her thumb with her teeth. It threatened to ruin her perfect pastel manicure. “I loved him very much,” she admitted.
“He loved you too. He still does, I know it. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one is watching. And the way he-” Akiko was cut off by Dite’s soft hand on her cheek. A simple enough gesture to shush the younger woman.
“I will always love your father,” Aphrodite confessed, digging down to the root of Akiko’s questioning. “But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much you love someone. Sometimes you just can’t be with them.”
A glance from her periphery and she could tell that she had quickly managed to discourage Akiko. This was probably not the best conversation for a young woman in the midst of an awkward relationship fallout. Aphrodite swept her bang away from her face with a delicate hand. Clearing her throat she curled her arms around Akiko’s shoulders and pulled her closer for a hug. She felt Akiko’s shoulder heave beneath her arm, she pressed her cheek to her hair.
“What happened with Sanders and I is not a metaphor for you and Cain,” she explained. “You have more give than I do. I was stubborn and I thought that he wasn’t; that he would give up what he wanted and I wouldn’t have to. I thought I could have everything.”
She could feel Akiko’s tears against her chest, and she pet her hair reassuringly. “You’re not like me, though. And Cain isn’t like your father. The two of you will work this out, and you will be back together before you know it. And your relationship will be stronger because of this.” She shrugged her shoulder and lifted Akiko away from her arm. She took her reddened face with both hands and pushed at tears with her thumbs. Trust me. Okay?”
Akiko sniffed, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand and nodded. She pulled glasses that were foggy and tear-stained off of her face and rubbed at them with the sleeve of the hoodie. “I feel bad for you and dad,” she said quietly.
“Oh, honey,” Dite cooed sympathetically. “You don’t have to feel bad for us. I have Holland and I love him so much, and your father has Lochellan. Besides, if we hadn’t broken up your father wouldn’t have you.”
Akiko lifted one hand, making a face at the same time. “So?”
“So?” Dite sounded shocked. “Sweetie there isn’t a world in which your father would ever choose me over you. You’re one of the greatest things he has. Everyone knows that.” She patted Akiko’s knee just as the doorbell rang. Aphrodite smiled and stood. “That’s the food,” she explained, moving towards the front door.
“Dry those tears,” she demanded as she moved, volume increasing so she could be heard even as she walked away. “Or you don’t get any dumplings.”
Akiko couldn’t help but laugh. A small chuckle escaped her, as she sniffed again and pulled her phone from the arm of the couch. Getting comfortable, she unlocked the device and went directly to her messages. There weren’t many threads to scroll through so it wasn’t difficult for her to find Cain.
>>Hey [/spoiler]