My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

Happy Freaking Birthday (Part 2)

I held Hannah at arms' length to take her in. Being tall, blonde, and beautiful meant that she could wear a potato sack and be dressed to kill. Thing is, Hannah was a huge science geek who until recently, had preferred jeans and corny science pun T-shirts. Then she'd met and started dating Pierce, a.k.a Eros, the God of Love. Shockingly, she'd started dressing like a girl soon afterward. A very hot girl.

"You look even more disgustingly gorgeous than usual," I said.

"I know," she replied without an ounce of modesty. "Check out the attire."

She ran a hand along her body. Her outfit consisted of a short, flowy, strapless babydoll dress with a sweetheart neckline, all in the palest gold. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail and she wore the funky, hammered gold hoops I'd bought her for her sixteenth birthday.

I nodded. "Perfect 'get past the velvet rope and all you losers be damned' look."

Hannah exhaled hard. "Oh good. I was worried I was being too subtle."

I laughed and twirled my finger in the international sign for "turn around and let me check you out from the rear."

The back of her dress had a fat band across her shoulder blades, with a wide cut out section underneath. Strappy gold heels completed the hotness.

Festos gave her a wolf whistle. "I could turn straight for that."

Theo chuckled as he returned from my bedroom, his arms now empty. "You can't even draw straight."

Festos was right, though. Hannah looked amazing. But more than that, she glowed with happiness. She was a total goner in love with Pierce.

And I was really glad for her.

For the first hour she spent talking about him anyway. Then I wanted to shove my bestest friend out my bedroom window. Because, hello? She was dating the God of Love. Dude was the most romantic guy in the history of the universe. No date night of Playstation and a pizza. Nope, his latest escapade had involved taking her on a midnight picnic at some ancient ruins on a beach. Not what I wanted to hear right now.

Hannah zipped me into a little red number. "...Then," she continued, "I decided to come home for spring break this week since Dad is tied up with a big case, which meant I'd have a ton of unsupervised time with Pierce." She half-sighed, half-giggled (who was this alien?) while I tried not to gag.

I nodded for her to continue as I made my way to my mirror.

"Guess what Pierce did on my first night home?"

I crossed my fingers and wished for got violently ill with stomach cramps and couldn't see you for a while.

"I can't imagine," I murmured, pasting on a smile that I fully expected Hannah to expose as the fake it was.

She didn't even notice. She was too busy gushing. "He took me to Paraguay to meet these melanistic jaguars—"

"English, Pumpkin." I studied my reflection. The evil Persephone voice in my head laughed. I looked like a kid playing dress up in her slutty older sister's clothes.

Brilliant.

"Black panthers that he'd made fall in love. They let me pet their baby cub." Hannah's eyes gleamed fervently. Forget drugs, this girl's passion for dangerous wildlife was her addiction of choice. And Pierce had found the most impossibly perfect gift anyone could give her.

"Oh, he's good," I replied, fumbling for the zipper to better rip the depressing fashion abomination from my body.

She blinked at me. "Huh?" Her expression turned soft and gooey. "Ooh. Look at that."

I stepped out of the dress as I followed her gaze to where a little gray fluffball of a bird with a long tail sat outside on my window ledge.

"It's a Bushtit," Hannah said.

At her approach, the bird with the unfortunate name burst into song. Then its friend showed up and, I swear, they serenaded her. We were a millisecond away from a Disney moment with Hannarella trilling a tune with her woodland friends while I played Cruella De Vil in the corner, chain smoking and wearing coats made of puppies.

Freaking. Hell.

I strode to the window and banged on it. "Get lost."

The birds squawked angrily at me and flew off. "Thank God." I gave a sardonic laugh. "Which one of them, am I thanking exactly? Do I get to pick ..."

I trailed off, spotting Hannah's "WTF is wrong with you?" look. I shrugged and started to rifle through the rest of the dresses that she'd brought. I didn't realize I was scratching again until Hannah spoke.

"Why haven't you told me what's been going on with you?"

I stilled, crumpling the dress in my hands. "Uh, you've been busy?"

She tugged the outfit away from me. "Seriously?"

"You have. Between your midterms, and Pierce, and me being here, we haven't had much of a chance to talk." Yes, there was a smidge of pity party in my tone of voice. It would have been nice if she'd found a second or two in her perfect teen life to spare for me.

"I call BS. You're avoiding me so you don't have to fess up." She bestowed one of her patented gray-eyed glowers of death on me as she ticked off items on her fingers. "Headaches, horrible rash, throw in hair loss and your stress trifecta will be perfect."

"Sounds to me like your intel is already complete."

"Assume I want to hear about it from the source. And apparently, I'm waaay behind on what's going on with Kai."

"Tonight's my happy night," I replied blandly. "Talk to me tomorrow." I picked up a copper colored dress and held it against me.

She cocked her head before giving it a definitive shake. "No. Washes you out. And if you won't talk about Kai then let's talk about how it's the middle of March but sure doesn't feel that way."

I scratched my right arm like mad as I reached for the bottle of Midol on my dresser. A dull throb had set up samba hour in my head. Damn childproof caps. I couldn't scratch and pop it at the same time. Frustrated, I snarled and tried to bite the thing off.

Hannah droned on. "... Weather patterns aren't right. It's too cold to plant anything, which is going to mean havoc for food supplies."

She listed off several more global issues. My personal bad news report.

My palms tingled as my light vines tried to come out.

Some friend, Persephone taunted.