Olympus Hotel

My mother is a wine lover. My father blames her French origins, but even so, there was not an evening in my entire childhood when I didn't see her sitting down at her laptop, with a cigarette and a good wine, probably French from the last century. Or at least the decade. My mother knows her wines as well as her love stories. A keen writer, she published her first book when she was younger than me, and even so, writing is not a career that can afford the lifestyle she is used to. My mother grew up in a family with money. So she works as an English teacher at a public school in the city.

My father, on the other hand, is a policeman. He specializes in forensics, like most of the policemen in this city. He is a short and ugly man, like all the Velcra family, by the way. Smart, though. Smart enough to be a commissioner. It's only natural that the perfect fusion between a writer and a police officer would be a journalist. I decided this in elementary school. I love writing, but I never want my mother's imagination, her melancholy, and the artistic side that is needed for a really good book. On the other hand, I inherited my father's logical thinking, rational and direct.

In high school, I knew I wanted to become an investigative journalist. Part of me would have liked to have my mother's romantic side, though. I knew it was somewhere in me, my father told me that he fell in love with her at first sight. My mother was writing about a young woman who fell in love with the police officer who was handling the case of some deaths in the neighborhood. Because she didn't know anything about how the police work, she decided to ask a police officer. She happened to find my father, a recent graduate, and they have been inseparable ever since.

This story is not about my parents and doesn't start when I was born. The Leigh family lived at the Olympus Hotel on the outskirts of town. I had been working there for two summers already and one of my grandmother's daughters, Athena, was married to my father's brother, Harold and they had a daughter my age, Mina. I worked at the Reception every summer, my father had thought I should know how to make money and then I started to like it. But the story doesn't start there either, but at the opening party of the summer season, the weekend I finished 11th grade.

I had known Hades for a long time. He was Mina's other cousin, who was three years older than us. His father, Apollo, is my grandmother's son and Athena's brother. He works in town as a lawyer. My grandmother has another daughter, Artemis. At only 32 years old, Artemis was a treasure to us. Alone without children, she was married to a woman, Anna, and together they ran a psychology practice in town. Anna also worked at the school as an educational counselor, whatever the hell that meant. Then there was Delilah Wade with us. At 19, Delilah looked like a Barbie doll in a good way. Blonde, with perfect curls and blue eyes, she had participated in several beauty contests during high school. But now she was preparing to take over the family business, a chain of restaurants that went hand in hand with Olympus.

At the end of the party we were all outside in the gazebo. I was trying to scribble something on paper for the book I was writing on Wattpad without my parents knowledge about my great love for Hades. At 13, Eddie Miller told me I was ugly and that no one would kiss me. I still don't know what Hades said to him, but he apologized immediately and even now, four years later, he doesn't dare look at me for more than a few seconds. It goes without saying that I fell in love with my hero and my childhood crush became over time...

A teenage crush I think. I would imagine him holding my hand and kissing me on the paper, only to lie to myself that I was using him as inspiration. My Hades was a Greek god. Tall and with an elegant figure, he lies on a sister, in a black shirt, always in black shirts, raised on his elbows. Nasia's last two are open, and if I look closely, I know I can see his chest. I don't look. I feel bad for Delilah and our platonic friendship. I look at his hands instead. I've always found them irresistible without knowing why. They're white. Lean. Hades isn't the muscular or sculpted type. A little pale and dyed black from his native satin, which is why his counterpart in my book, Thomas, is a vampire. He's wearing an expensive watch from his father and his nails are cut short and painted black.

I know most girls wouldn't be attracted to a man with painted nails and makeup, but personally, I found him attractive just because he didn't care one bit about the comments. He's wearing jeans, also black and cut at the knees, skinny, and held at his hips by a leather belt. Two chains slide down his thigh as he lifts one leg and reaches for his pack of cigarettes. He smiles at the corner of his mouth, and sometimes I think he does it on purpose.

Like he knows I'm watching him and he just wants to tease me. To make me squirm and give everything I have to hell. Hades is in Greek gods. He releases the smoke. Delilah is on a chair, next to Mina. They're talking about something in secret and I'm not trying to hear. I try to describe him as best I can. To describe his full, pink lips or his wavy, tousled hair all the time. The chain rests lazily around his neck.

"Do you want to?"

He hands me his cigarette. I don't usually smoke, but I've never turned down a smoke from him. It's as close to a kiss as I'll ever get. I take the habit and don't think about how Grandma Velcro died of lung cancer. I put my lips over where he put them. I take a drag, deep into my lungs. I'm not choking like I did at first, but he's still staring at me, staring and waiting. He waits for me to hand him the cigarette back, and I do, and for a moment, our fingers touch. I'm afraid to stand too close to him. I'm afraid of what I might do. I realize he's still staring at me so I look at the girls.

"Do you have anyone to take you home? Is Gerald coming to pick you up?"

Delilah is nice. Always has been. She didn't deserve to be hurt by my selfish thoughts. Still, I loved him first. They've only been together for a year. I loved him first and Mina is the only one who knows that. I check my phone. It's late. Way too late to call my dad.

"I'll take you both, he decides. Mina, tell grandma you're late if she asks, he gets up. Let's go. It's late and it's getting cold."

He talks to her but looks at my arms. I'm not crazy. He looks at my fingers. I know my fingers are cold, but it has nothing to do with the weather. Although it's getting chilly and my dress with thin straps and reaching halfway to my thighs doesn't help. I still have my jacket on. It's leather, biker-style, black with a little red on the sleeves and waist. It looks like bleach has been dropped on it. Delilah is elegant enough to wear a blue coat over her cream-colored dress. It doesn't matter now. As soon as we get to the car, I sit in the back. Delilah sits next to him and they hold hands. I take out my notebook and start writing again. I write about his tenderness. About his pale green eyes surrounded by black shadows occasionally looking into the rearview mirror. I look at him furtively. I wait for Delilah to come out when we get to her gate. He turns around first and says a few words to me.

"Come in the front."

I don't know if he's being bossy or playful, but I'm indulging. I can't write in front of him anymore, I can't hide behind my notebook, and I can't pretend to look at the road when I look at him. Still, I'm putting on my seatbelt as he kisses her goodbye for the second time and pulls away from her. He turns around. He puts his seatbelt back on and looks at me briefly.

"You're so quiet. Do you want me to put on some music?"

It seems to me that he jumps from one subject to another but I approve. He never makes sense in what he says. He's always chaotic. I tell myself that it's good for me. It tests my attention. Then I heard the first line of the song, and I recognized it instantly. Here Lies a lifeless Bride and groom/ 'Till eath do us part came far too soon. I know it's by his favorite band.

"A grave mistake," I find myself whispering and I know before I look at him that he's proud of me.

I'm better at music than Delilah because we both listen to the same genre—and Mina, actually. Delilah feels that rock is "too much, " whatever that means.

"Good," I see him smiling for himself. "Very good. I didn't tell you but I was very beautiful today. Not that I'm ugly now, he sniffs funny. You're not. But earlier you were gorgeous."

I don't know what to say to him.

"Thanks," I'm getting too dry, too cold and at the same time too excited. "I'm not kidding you either."

I try to force a joke. He sings to me because he's laughing, then he puts his hand on my knee. His palm is warm. He comes up and shakes my hand.

"You're still cold."

Turn up the temperature in the car. No need. I'll be home in about five minutes anyway.

"A little more and I'll actually fry here."

"You're cold all the time because you're so thin, he scolded me. Because you hardly eat at all and your body can't warm itself properly. Have you eaten tonight?"

"Yes," I lie to him immediately.

"What?"

I look at my hands then jump when he makes a sharp turn. He exits the street that leads to my house. I know where we're going, to a fast food joint.

"I have food at home, you know."

"I know."

Now he's dry. He doesn't say anything to me until he comes back with a big glass of hot chocolate and tells me to wait a bit until the chicken is ready. He comes with chicken Nuggets and fries. He puts them in the back seat and turns the car around. I see two cans of Coke out of the corner of my eye. I drink hot chocolate, though. Hot. I feel it warming me inside. He drives to the curve from earlier then parks in an empty spot, in an empty parking lot, in front of the church. He gets out and walks around the back. I don't wait for him to invite me, I don't want to upset him, I get my coffee and go to the seat opposite him alone. The light is on in the car. Diffuse. It warms up. He unpacks everything and urges me to eat.

"Now I'm cold," he laughs and blows into his palms.

I hand him the chocolate.

"It's still warm."

He accepts it. Our fingers touch again. I start eating the potatoes while he looks for the exact spot where my lipstick got on it. He tastes from the exact same spot. He checks my fingers again. I'm finally to his liking. I sometimes think he sees me as a little sister or something. He treats me like Mina. If he sees me as part of the family, it's worse than if he sees me as a friend. Even I know that.

"Mina told me that a boy invited you to town last week. Elijah?"

"Ethan," I correct him. "I went to the movies two nights ago. And then to dinner."

"So like a date?" He's teasing me. "Romantic?"

He knows I'm in love with the idea of love as he knows and that I've never been in a relationship.

"It was an outing between friends."

"I heard he kissed you at the end."

For a moment, he seems jealous. It's my imagination, though. It's because I want to hear jealousy in his voice, not because he wouldn't give a damn who kissed me.

"On my cheek," I explain anyway. "After he asked me if he could call me these days, let's go out again, and I told him I didn't want a relationship with him. I can only go out with him as friends."

"You're cruel, smile. I like it."

I feel proud of myself. We keep eating and passing the chocolate to each other continuously. I look at him and I find myself smiling and I feel embarrassed so I look back at my food.

"Have you ever kissed someone?"

I get defensive. And when I'm defensive, I'm sarcastic. I speak without thinking.

"Why? Do you want to kiss me?"

He knows me. He knows I'm not really asking for this.

"So no. It's okay. I'm sure your prince charming awaits you somewhere to find him. Or maybe you've already found him. Who is he?"

He knows me.

"You," I giggle as childishly as I can.

Nothing misleads people more than the truth. My father has said so many times. I'm sure I'm just saying that to avoid telling him the truth.

"Ethan definitely isn't, start. The one from last time... Sam?" He talked too much. "And Travis is an idiot. That's all of them, right?"

I would be surprised that she knows so much about my personal life if I didn't know that Mina has a big mouth and that my personal life isn't as complex as I'd like it to be.

"They all are, I assure him. But no, none of them are… It's not what I want."

I pray he doesn't ask me what I want. Instead, he takes the chocolate from my hand and rests his palm on mine. My heart skips a beat or two.

"You have small hands," he hisses, "taking my palm in his. Very small, I hear him chuckle."

I was getting drunk with his chuckle as he brought my hand to his lips and kissed the back of my hand. I'm pretty sure that, emotionally speaking, I had an orgasm. Butterflies started flying, and he probably thought I was such an idiot because all I could do for the entire evening was give him monosyllabic answers.