Dionysus (Greek God Romance Book 1) (11 page)

It was the last thing she had said to Hermes before he tricked her into building a thirty unit complex.

Dionysus came to the
same
door with its rusty, crusted knob and rusted hinges, opened and announced, “Heph, my man!”

Dionysus had a obscure love for dramatic entrances. Interestingly enough, throughout the years, he had only succeeded a handful of times while his failures were uncountable. This being another to add to the list of failures as Heph pounded away on a sword not hearing Dionysus at all.

Dionysus screamed, “Heph!”

Heph turned his head from his work. “I hate
that
nickname.”

“What do I call you then?”

“My name,” he said with indignation.

“What’s the fun in that?”

“We call you, Dionysus.”

“Call me, Dino.”

“I’d rather not.”

“So. . .”

“I imagine you’ve brought me news.” He resumed, banging the sword with his mallet, not hearing a word Dionysus had to say.

Dionysus stood there, perplexed by the scene. A few minutes went by until he realized that Heph must’ve known all along and this was some sort of pouting or cooping mechanism. He was befuddled.
How to approach this. . .

He went with the most direct method. “You knew all along.”

“Knew what?”

“Who was behind it.”

“I suspected.”

“And?”

“I love my work, Dionysus. I can’t perceive a world where I don’t do this every day for hours on end.”

“Why can’t you cut back?”

“Because the end comes, and when it does, everyone will be glad I poured my sweat, my blood, my marriage into this.”

“Will they?”

“Of course, they will.”

“That’s delusional.”

“Is a warrior not thankful for his sword?”

“Sure. . . but does the warrior know who made it?”

“In olden times.”

“This isn’t olden times.”

“But we
live
like we are still in those times. Every god, every goddess that raises their weapon will
know
who it came from.”

“And?”

“
And?”
He responded so vociferously that spittle launched and sprayed about Dionysus’ face—a lubrication he did not care for.

Dionysus gestured around. “Wake up, man. Look around you, they treat you like shit in your
own
home. . . your
own
shop.”

He gestured back, showing the pitiful area. “I have what I need.”

“Do you?”

He started pounding on the weapon again, shaping it. The dingy sword becoming a sword of legend with every strike.

Dionysus waited a few more minutes, thinking, ideas populating and being discarded. He liked Heph. He was like a brother because of their rudimentary bond, being the outcasts of the Olympians. No one looked at them like they belonged, and that union formed a bond between the two. He wouldn’t allow Heph to throw away everything for glory. That was Ares’ realm, not his.

Once Heph stopped again, Dionysus said, “Why don’t you give it another go?”

“Huh?”

“You know what I mean. She did this for attention. She does
everything
for your attention.”

He dropped the mallet, took a deep breath. He ran his hands down his face, smearing black soot. “I don’t know how to stop.”

“You have to try.”

“What do you know about it?”

It was Dionysus’ turn to be on the stand, ruled by a jury of his peers. “Huh?”

He shook his head. “I know what you’re doing. You’ve been a mess ever since that day.”

“I never told—”

“We’re brothers, Dionysus. I know you feel the same way over any of the other Olympians. You dragged me back here. I would’ve lived by my lonesome in misery. But you dragged me back, you smoothed it over. You don’t think I checked it out? Found out what
you
found on that beach.”

Dionysus voice turned stern, cold to the touch. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“But you do. . . every day you go to The Old Watering Hole that you convinced Apollo to open, another son of a bitch with a slew of issues, I might add. And you drink, and you pity yourself, even though now you have something amazing and great. I see it in her. I see it in you. Are you going to let go?”

Dionysus paused, took a deep breath. “We’re not talking about me.”

“Ah. . .” Heph bent over, grabbed the mallet, and slammed it on the sword, a ring echoed through the shop, and he dropped the mallet once more. “
Ding. Ding.
I must get through my shit but you can’t through yours.”

Dionysus grinned. “Those who can’t do, teach.”

Heph chuckled, shrugging as he did so. This turned into a belly laugh, which then became him sitting on the floor and Dionysus joining in the insanity too. When Heph finished, he wiped his face with his forearm, which only smeared more soot. “Yeah, all right, you got the vehicle. . . Have her return it when she no longer needs it.”

Dionysus satisfied made no further remark. “Thanks.”

“We leaving it like that?”

“Heph, my man, we’re leaving it like that.”

He rose, dusting himself off with his hands which threw little ambers of black into the air, dotting Dionysus’ face. “We’ll make another deal.”

“Yeah?”

“When you man up, I’ll man up.”

“I’m first?”

Heph shrugged. “You have the best opportunity. Now get out of my shop, you fool.”

Dionysus grabbed the vehicle and glanced at Heph with a skeptical look.

Heph said, “Training wheels, my man. Stay around for her first ride, it’ll be bumpy.”

“I thought you said it was to keep the nymphs from crashing.”

“Yeah, crazy coke addicted nymphs. . . their
speed
is much different. Plus. . . I just couldn’t help myself.”

Dionysus laughed. “None of us can.”

“Let me show you how it works.”

A SCOOTER?

Rebecca placed her hands on her hips; she could not believe her eyes. “This is what you had me wait
all
night to see?”

“Tada.” He knelt next to the vehicle with his back arched, arms spread, statuesque and entirely foolish.

“This is what you were up to for the past few days?”

“Tada,” he repeated.

“Stop saying that! And get up!”

Dionysus placed his hand on his thigh and pushed off to rise. “What’s the problem?”

“A scooter?”

“Problem?”

“It’s a scooter.”

“And?”

“It’s not even motorized.”

“And?”

“Children use this.”

“And?” Dionysus, at this point, was just goading her since her reaction had been remarkably strong, at least, in his eyes. He did not know that any human would react along the same lines.

“How is a scooter going to make sure I’m safe around Olympus. . .? An old, haggard woman can catch me on that. An obese man on a motorized wheel chair who patrols Wal-Mart could catch me on that. A—”

“And?”

She groaned, exasperated and threw up her arms.

He chuckled. “Take a look.”

She gave him a curious look and decided to investigate further. It looked, exactly. . . like a scooter. It was chrome with black handles, two wheels both looked to be rubber with chrome rims; but then she piqued around and noticed something attached to the bottom, it was circular and swirled like a gyroscope, but red and it seemed to be on fire.

Dionysus said, “Lava.”

“Huh?”

“It’s powered by lava. There is a portal there. . . I won’t get into it, but it is a never ending supply.”

“It’s lava powered?”

“Nature. . .”—he looked around, attempting to find the right words—“is powerful. Lava is relentless. It can accelerate as it pours out and consumes the world around it. Simply put, the scooter, if you will, uses the chemical reactions of lava and converts the energy into thrust.”

“Okay. . .”

“You be careful. You’ll fly.”

“How do I turn it on?”

“You turn the handles.”

Rebecca frowned. The answer had been too simple. She went to grab the handles when he rushed over and put his hand over hers. “Wait. Strap in.”

“Strap in? You just step on and go. I know how they work.”

“You don’t know how this one works.”

Dionysus guided her with his hands on her hips, moving her into a snowboarder’s position. He pressed the button in the middle and straps wrapped around her body and a bubble encompassed the scooter.

Rebecca was speechless for a few seconds until she gathered a profound. “Whoa.” In the fervor of the moment, she did not feel Dionysus pressed against her until he spoke softly in her ear, “Twist the throttle and let’s blow dodge.”

She grinned back at him, staring into purple eyes, feeling the heat of his breath. They both leaned closer and closer until a fly could not streak between their lips; but as fate would have it, she twisted the throttle and they took off.

“Watch out!”
Dionysus screamed; Rebecca snapped her head back and lifted the scooter with every ounce and molecule and atom of strength she could muster. In that instance, she decided that the way to dodge The Old Watering Hole with a lava powered scooter was to pull up with everything she had—for no reason in particular, just a feeling. Most on Olympus would call such an occurrence,
fate.
And as
fate
would have it, the scooter—a child’s instrument by all accounts—climbed and climbed and climbed.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a scooter!!

The bottom wheel graced the roof of The Old Watering Hole and peeled off some roof tiles as it kissed the clouds.

There was a moment where Rebecca could not catch her breath, she was looking at Olympus from the clouds. The town that no one knew. A town in Illinois whose aerial view showed that it did not belong in this time, this place, this era. Many of the Olympians, and some of the gods and goddesses, had a statue of themselves on the roof of their homes. She saw many of these, Zeus’ being the most prominent as the lightning bolt’s tip was eerily close to the scooter, puncturing the cloud and greeting them. She took this all in a split second of a moment for the descent began and fate’s hand no longer guided her.

“What do I do? What do I do?
What do I do?”
She yelled at the air and clouds and everything that would not help her soften the fall.

Dionysus felt that, while she may have
accidentally
discovered the way to move upward with this machine, she had no aptitude for flying.

As they nosedived and Rebecca started tearing up uncontrollably, Dionysus reached over, twisted the throttle and pulled up once again. He straightened the scooter right before smashing into Hera’s front lawn and immediately regretted saving them and not nuking her lawn—a warhead of two adults and one child’s instrument of transportation.

They hit the ground, and Rebecca’s body bounced back and forth much like the graceful landings of an airplane from a major airline.

She said, “I’m over this. Get me home.”

Dionysus reached around her, not hearing her but sensing that she was in a terrible way. He grabbed the controls and guided them back to her apartment at a pleasant speed of thirty miles per hour.

When they arrived, Rebecca hit the center button, the bubble dissipated and the straps released her, she ran to the nearest wall and slid down to the floor. She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked her body.

This,
over everything that had transpired before, rocked her world and she was sobbing, holding herself tightly.

Dionysus sat down beside her and draped his arm over her. He said nothing, knowing that to speak would probably illicit a poor reaction. She needed comforting, not his tongue. He had been right. Sometimes. . . once in a while. . . rarely. . . men get it right. Even rarer, was a god getting it right.

Rebecca let her head rest near Dionysus’ pit, succumbing to his comfort and smelling his particular brand of odor; she liked his scent, it smelled like the earth with an herby undertone. She let this happen for a few minutes while her sobbing tampered off then stopped. She sniffled and looked up at him with eyes bloodshot red.

Dionysus took the hint and kissed her. Their first kiss being wet with tears and salty. They broke away for a second then kissed more passionately. More and more passion infused both their bodies as the roaring of hormones intertwined with love and lust, he grabbed around her neck and kept his lips pressed against hers.