My Date From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #2)

The Pimping Out of Best Friends (Part 2)

Jack nodded. "Consider it killed. Swear on the Styx."

What a massive relief. I felt like I was in the home stretch.

I poured two glasses of water with mint from a pitcher on the coffee table to get rid of my hot dog breath and handed one to Hannah.

She accepted the glass, then snatched the crown off my head and popped it on her own. "Can't wait to hear how that whole get-up came about," she said, motioning to my dress, which was still in pretty good condition, all things considered. "Not to mention the party favor here." She adjusted the crown.

"I'll have you know I won it. Winter Formal Queen."

Hannah let out a surprised laugh. "I'd forgotten about that."

I motioned for it back. "Give."

"Nah. You're more a silver kind of girl." She patted the top of the crown. "I'm keeping it."

There was a fanfare of celestial trumpets.

Four bronzed men in skimpy bronze shorts carrying a hot pink upholstered litter with silvery curtains appeared on the far end of the deck.

Kai rolled his eyes.

A set of stairs unfurled themselves from the bed of the litter to the ground, the curtains flew aside, and Aphrodite stepped out, decked in a filmy, flowing pink dress, tiny pink roses threaded into her tresses.

Talk about pulling focus.

She made a dismissive motion at her man-slaves. They disappeared with the litter as Aphrodite clicked her way over to me on her towering heels. "Took youse long enough."

While her attitude was unsurprising, a little public appreciation for our actions would have been nice.

Jack didn't react to her appearance. Just watched her with a steady gaze.

Aphrodite turned to her ex. "No more a this nonsense, Jackie?"

"Bethany's campaign is dead," he assured her.

With Aphrodite's back to me, I noticed how her dress plunged to her waist in the back. Even her spine was beautiful. I could have done without the realization that she sported a pink thong. I shuddered.

"Her love thong," Festos piped up helpfully, following my gaze.

"Covers her love thang," Theo added.

"Source of her power," Festos joked.

"My eyes are bleeding," I replied.

"Yeah," she said, with a toss of her platinum hair. "I'm that good."

Jack shook his head and sauntered inside.

"And now my brain is bleeding." I buried my head in my hands for illustrative purposes. No way did I want to know about the underthings of goddesses and the gods who coveted them.

I glanced at Kai, who watched me with a speculative look. All right, him I'd show and tell with.

All kidding aside, I was thrilled. We'd done it. Stopped Bethany. Now all I had to do was talk to Pierce and endure the "fourteen" level of pain before my meeting. I could do this.

Well, there was one other thing. I stood up to face Aphrodite. "Undo the love arrows."

She frowned. "Gimme one good reason."

Because I want whatever Kai feels for me to exist without magic.

"Because we can't defeat Hades and Zeus if we keep getting stuck to each other every time one of us is upset or in danger. We need every advantage we can possibly have when we face them. The arrows are just hampering things."