Keep Holding On

“I went ahead and ordered for you,” Helen almost sourly told Roxanne as she rejoined the group. The brunette didn’t speak; she nodded and kept her gaze set on the table.

“You’re not going to ask what I got you?” Helen almost laughed.

“No,” Roxanne tried not to sound nervous. She didn’t want either of the two guys gods sitting at the table to know that she knew their secret.

But they must know I’m nervous, she thought to herself, I mean, if they don’t…. They’re idiots. There, I said it. Now please no one smite me for thinking that.

“So, Roxie,” Apollo’s voice oozed confidence, the apparent nervousness of the dark-hair mortal before him went unnoticed to him, “Can I call you that?”

“No,” Roxanne lifted her eyes to his, almost glaring, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Right, then,” the blond chuckled, “So, Roxie, Helen was telling us that you work at Hard Rock.”

Roxanne rolled her eyes as she answered, “Yeah… and?” Her nervousness was fading away, now being replaced with a pinch of anger, a dash of annoyance, and a cup of confidence – something that surprised the brunette herself.

A recipe for disaster, she thought to herself.

“Isn’t it… glamorous, in a way?” he continued to ask.

“No, it’s really loud,” Roxanne bitterly answered, “And what do you do for a living, exactly?”

“Oh, lots of things,” Apollo was quick to answer.

“Like music, health, and prophecy-telling related things?” Roxanne spoke before she could stop herself.

Silence erupted at the table. If Roxanne had not blinked, she would’ve sworn she saw Apollo’s surprised face twitch into a scowl. Dionysus’s shoulder’s tensed, and there was this far off look in his blue eyes.

“Yeah,” Apollo might’ve gulped, though Roxanne had a hard time believing that she could make a god nervous, “Something like that.”

“So you don’t deny it?” a smirk crept upon her face as she asked the question, even though she already knew the answer. Unless, of course, there had been another Apollo in New York that had blond hair, and a half-brother named Dionysus and was somehow connected to a “family business” that only required twelve members of the family.

Roxanne thought that was highly unlikely.

The two half-brothers looked at each other, then back at the brunette that had figured out their secret. How, they both wondered, they did not know…

“No, I don’t,” Apollo answered her, turning his bright blue eyes, the color of the sky on a cloudless day, towards Roxanne.

It was in that moment that confidence Roxanne had was gone; she could feel herself shrinking back in her seat, her eyes wide as she tried to keep both of her eyes on the gods sitting with her.

Oh shit, she thought to herself, I’m screwed. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut?

“Did I miss something?” Helen asked, skeptic as her eyes bounced between the others at the table.

“No,” Roxanne looked at her roommate as she easily lied, “No, you didn’t miss a thing.”

Roxanne’s eyes met with those of Dion’s, and in that moment they had a silent understanding. Too bad that that understanding was only between the two of them, as the brunette had temporarily forgotten about the other god sitting there, who was watching them with envious eyes.