Chapter Eight
Week

I was, possibly understandably, extremely nervous about this whole ordeal.  I’ve never done anything like this before, agreeing to spend a week with a complete stranger on a whim.  Sure, I’ve read about stuff like this, although I always thought that the heroine was insane for even agreeing to it.  I always thought, if I were ever in the situation, I’d do things differently, but here I was, doing exactly what I thought I’d never do.  Add on the fact that I had never spent more than a day away from my parents, and I knew it was going to be weird all around for me.  I had never been to summer camp, since I never showed any desire to go to one, and naturally my parents weren’t going to ship me off alone to spend any time in Greece.  And Mom’s parents refused to have any child around without their parents present more than simply overnight.

So I pretty much knew I was going to be homesick almost immediately, although I wasn’t sure if that was going to be a problem or not, never actually having experienced the sensation.  Maybe this was a good thing, getting used to spending time alone.  God knew that I was going to be doing it soon enough, and it was probably better to figure it out in small doses, anyway.  To go headlong into the venture without any preparation was always a recipe for disaster. 

I just wasn’t entirely too sure if this was the way to go about it.  I mean, I felt that I could trust Eros, and my intuition was never wrong, but the fact remained that he was someone I hadn’t known until several hours ago, that he had me kidnapped in order to see me, and that there was just something not right about this whole thing.  But I figured, for now, I’d just ignore all that, and see where this was headed.  I believed that the offer to go home was still up for grabs if I really wanted to, and I think anything that would make me want to go home would be justifiable enough that he’d agree to it. 

But seeing him smile and genuinely happy just did something strange to my insides.  I wasn’t sure if it was because in was ridiculously good looking or not, and I wondered if this was why other girls fell over themselves to find hot guys to please. 

Except it felt a little different than that to me.  Yes, he was good looking – almost too good looking if you asked me – but it wasn’t really his looks that got me excited.  It was simply him, and the fact that he was hot was just an unexpected bonus.  I mean, how rare was it that a guy was the complete package?  Funny, compassionate, kind, and great to look at?  It wasn’t often, I could tell you that.  Even the average looking guys who actually had a heart had nothing on him.  Guys that looked like him generally weren’t kind at all.

At least in my experience.

I noticed he didn’t really change that much after I officially agreed to stay.  I sort of expected him to relax and be more himself, but I could tell he was still walking on eggshells around me, even if he was trying hard not to show it.  It was just a part of my sixth sense, and I figured it’d be kinder to let him assume I didn’t know.  I wondered if I could coax his uneasiness out of him, and I had to wonder about its existence in the first place.  After all, he was the one who brought me here.  How was he thinking I would react?  Just the mere fact that I was accepting should allow him to relax.

And there was the whole issue with the fact that there was something that no one was telling me.  Something odd about this place, causing me to say things I had no idea why I was, and that allowed me to be the butt of some private joke.  Maybe it really was because I was a Karalis that had Zephyr laughing about the whole thing, but there seemed to be something more than that.

I had a week to figure it out, I decided.  After that, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but at least that gave me some sort of goal to work towards this week.  If I even remembered that I wanted to know what was going on.

We finished our meal much the same way we started it, admirably and sort of laughing at each other.  I wasn’t sure what the hell we were talking about, but conversation just sort of flowed from us like it was just meant to come easily.  I half expected him to want to stay by my side the entire time, so it surprised me a little when he merely escorted me back to my room after we were finished with dinner, since I couldn’t exactly find my way back at the moment, and wished me good-night before seeming to disappear on me.  I didn’t see him disappear, but it just seemed like one minute he was there, and when I turned back around, he was literally gone.

The guy was sneaky, I had to give him that.

That pretty much left me nothing to do except what I normally did this late at night.  It wasn’t exciting by any stretch of the word, but it felt familiar.  Sure, at this point in the day, I’d be on-line with Maddie, squeeing about seeing my family and seeing Chryssa.  But we both knew that, thanks to the time differences and the fact that I was visiting family, me actually being on line was a slim possibility, so I knew she wouldn’t be too worried about me this week.  It was Papa and Mom that I was actually concerned about, how they were going to react to me disappearing for a week – after I was supposed to fly internationally, no less – but I tried my best to keep that out of my mind.

After all, I decided to go through with this as a sort of vacation for myself, away from my annoying sisters, and having it marred by thoughts of Mom and Papa was pretty much going to ruin it.

I figured I might as well be the dutiful student that I was and get started on my homework.  I didn’t think much about it as I opened my e-mail to get the notes and the assignments for the day, and it was only after I downloaded it all that I realized what had happened.  Except it seemed I could only receive e-mail, and not send it, and that the only thing getting through involved schoolwork in some way.

There was something weird about this place, I was certain of it.  Who heard of a place that allowed selected material to come through the Internet like that?  And I don’t just mean through a firewall, I mean I couldn’t get anything else, no matter how hard I tried.  And I did try for a good half an hour before giving up on the task.

I reluctantly did my work though, although I didn’t feel like it anymore, because I felt obligated to do it thanks to the agreement I had with my professors.  Besides, the sooner I got it done, the less I had to do later.

And as a reward to myself, I spent the rest of the night after finishing what I could curled in one of those overly comfortable armchairs, reading Beauty and the Beast.  It was almost funny how so many people could find different interpretations of the same story.  Thankfully, this was one true to the original rather than take on the more Disney approach.

It was sort of funny that, as I was reading, I was getting that weird paranoid sense that someone was watching me again.  I wasn’t that surprised, considering Zephyr’s joke about Eros pretty much spending the entire time I was there lurking and watching me, except this didn’t really feel any different than all those other times I thought someone was watching me.

But I was pretty much used to the feeling at this point, so I just ignored it, although I was half expecting to turn and find Eros leering over the back of the chair, for some reason.

I was only a few chapters in when I realized I was nodding off, so naturally I figured it was time to hit the hay, so to speak.  It was strange to crawl into a bed so huge, but it was also comfortable enough that I was passed out within a few minutes, which was a little unusual for me.  Most nights I was pretty sure I was still up for a while after getting into bed before my brain finally shut down for the night enough to allow me to sleep.

And I typically didn’t sleep the whole night through, to be honest.  I would usually wake at least once before it was morning, but when I opened my eyes, I found the sunlight streaming in, and my watch telling me that it was well past eight in the morning.  I was surprised, but I also didn’t really want to get out of bed.  What surprised me the most, however, was the fact that I wasn’t disoriented about the whole thing, waking up and knowing exactly where I was.   But I also felt like I had woken up here before, so that was really confusing for me.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I should be doing, though, so I basically just rolled out of bed, threw on some cute outfit I had brought with me, thankful of the fact that it was warm since I had packed for Greece weather, and crept downstairs, hoping I wasn’t getting up too early.

It turned out I wasn’t, since I found Eros just sort of sitting at the table.  I couldn’t tell if he was waiting for me, or if I just had excellent timing, and he had just sat down himself.  “Good morning,” he said happily.  “You sleep well?”

I took my seat across from him.  “Of course; it’d be hard not to on that bed.  Although I’m not sure why it’s so large.”

He shrugged.  “It’s just the style, really.  Again, it was already in the house when I inherited it, and I figured, you know, why buy new beds when I had perfectly good ones here already.  Especially since they are rather nice.  Better to have beds that are too big than too small, right?  Then everyone can be comfortable.”

“You don’t have visitors,” I told him dryly.

“Touché,” he grinned.  I wasn’t that surprised that there was a rather large spread in front of us, and it seemed as though Zephyr had been busy. 

“Zephyr not going to join us?”

He looked surprised.  “Er, no,” he said, looking thoughtful.  “He’s a, um,” he glanced at the plate of sausages in front of him, “early riser, and tends to go out and do his own thing before I even get up.  He’s a bit…strange that way.”

I gave him a look, not quite believing him.  There was just something that he wasn’t telling me.  “Well, that’s just too bad,” I said.  “More for us, right?”

He relaxed.  “That’s one way of looking at it.  Help yourself; obviously there’s plenty here.”

“Why is there so much, anyway, if it’s just the two of us?” I asked as I started to fill my plate.

“Well, mostly for two reasons.  Er, Zephyr tends to go overboard at times, and because we weren’t entirely sure what you’d be interested in eating.  Pardon me for saying so, but girls like you are sometimes hard to prepare for, especially this early in the morning.”

I glared at him, a little offended.  “Girls like me?” I demanded to know.

“You know, alive?  I don’t know, it just seems like your always on some sort of diet or something stupid like that.  I honestly can never tell.”  He glanced at my plate.  “But clearly that isn’t the case for you.  Which is good, since I doubt you’ve ever had to consider going on a diet in your life.”

“Ha ha,” I snorted.  “You think it’s easy maintaining this figure?  I can’t eat too much or else I’ll blow up like a balloon!”

“I’m sure that’s not that case, but most guys I know tend to prefer girls who don’t look like sticks.”

“And would I have still caught your attention if I wasn’t average?” I demanded to know.

“You mean if you were heavy?  I guess that would depend.  If you didn’t take care of you, then not really, because there’s nothing more unattractive to me than a girl who doesn’t even like herself.”

“So…if I made any sort of effort, I would have still caught your attention?”

“Of course!  After all, it’s not just your looks that did catch my attention.”

“But it was my looks that did catch some of your attention.”

He lowered his fork.  “Don’t turn this into something horrible, Psyche,” he said to me darkly.  “Looks always gets attention first.  Don’t you look at people and think ‘oh, that person looks like they’re worth knowing’?  You’re a celebrity; it’s not like I could see your personality first.”

I conceded to that.  “I’m sorry, it’s just…I guess the people my sisters hang around with are so superficial that it sometimes rubs off on me.  I don’t want to be one of those people who judges people just on how they look, and I don’t want to be with someone who’d so the same thing.”

“Psyche, you’ll never be anything like your sisters,” he told me sincerely.  “You’re incapable of being like them, or any of their friends.  So stop worrying so much about it, and just enjoy your breakfast.”

I glanced at what I had grabbing, reminded of all the breakfasts Penny and Phoebe would sit beside me and insist that no guy was ever going to like me because I actually ate in the morning.  That it was going to make me fat and undesirable at some point in my life.

Except guys that matter, like Eros, liked a girl with a healthy appetite, or at least I assumed that was the case judging from the way he grinned at me once I dug in.  And I couldn’t help but gorge myself a little, because everything tasted so good.

“Ugh, I think I ate too much,” I said once we were done.  “All I want to do is crawl back in bed and sleep for the whole week.  Everything was just way too good, though.”

He laughed.  “I don’t mind,” he told me seriously.  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Everything here is just way too perfect, Eros.  The weather’s perfect, everything’s so clean, and everything seems suited to my tastes.  What’s up with that?”

“Er, it just seems that way, I assure you,” he told me.  “It’s like when you hear a song and think the artist somehow pegged your life perfectly, except, you know, you’ve never met them.  It’s all coincidence, I’m sure.”

“Then why do I feel like I’m somehow in a fairy tale?”

“Because I guess you just want to feel like you are,” he said, grinning again.  “There’s no magic in this world, Psyche, except where you decide there is.”

We didn’t really do much that day, except sit around his library and read.  And talk, since it seemed like we couldn’t be in each other’s company without making some sort of comment about something.  He even helped me with my schoolwork when I pointed out that I had a feeling I was going to have a lot of it that week.  I wasn’t entire too sure how old he was, and I wasn’t to ask him, but I did find it a little strange that he was able to help me, even in the subjects I struggled a little with myself.

It wasn’t like when Maddie helped me, of course, but it was nice that he was willing to take time out of his to help me, even though he could have just as easily let me do it myself.  Then again, he did bring me here basically to keep him company, and that apparently included the time I was doing the boring crap.

But, interestingly enough, he didn’t seem to actually mind helping me with my homework.  Or watching me read for that matter.  It was strange, and I suppose normal for the sort of guy he had become, but somehow, it didn’t really come off as creepy for him.  Maybe it was because of how he looked, since I’m sure a guy with a bad case of acne and duck tape on his glasses staring at me both longingly and amused would be majorly creepy.  But because Eros looked the way he did, it came off as a little endearing.  I mean, a hot guy was staring at me like he liked it.  I’m not sure if that could come off as creepy to anyone.

Unfortunately, despite the size of the mansion, there actually wasn’t much to do in terms of entertaining a guest.  I could see why the library was so stocked, because it was the only room that really held any entertainment value in the place.  He did have a large home theater in the basement, but he could only get outdated movies, and he claimed that it was rather unsettling to be down there himself in the large, dark room.  And I saw what he meant when I suggested we try it anyway.  Despite the fact that there were two of us, and we were even sitting next to each other, muttering to each other, it was still entirely too large and too dark for me to feel comfortable.  I sat through one movie – Beauty and the Beast, naturally – mostly because I felt obligated to do so after suggesting it.  But I don’t think Eros failed to notice I didn’t suggest it again.

I was just sort glad I wasn’t one of those girls so heavily reliant on technology that I couldn’t function without it, since it was clear that Eros had the minimum amount.  Sure, I kept moving to check my phone out of habit before remembering that none of my apps worked, but I certainly wasn’t twitching due to lack of social contact.  It was strange, certainly, but I had Eros there to distract me, and that was just as good.  I knew Penny and Phoebe would be bitching the entire time about not being able to get on Facebook and Tweet to their fans, but I never did much of either.  Only thing I was really twitching about was the lack of contact with Maddie.

And, well, with my parents, but I think I got over that when I agreed to stay here for the week.

“So is this basically all you do for fun?” Eros asked me in the middle of the week since we were in the library.  “You don’t get out much, do you?”

“Well, no,” I said, glancing up from my book.  Normally I’d be annoyed at the interruption, but I was half distracted by his mere presence anyway.  “I mean, going out has the danger of running into the paparazzi, and trust me, there’s no quicker way to ruin your fun than having cameras shoved in your face and following you around.  And I sucks that I have to wear a disguise to even go to the freaking movies.  I’m lucky that Papa’s worked it out with them that they don’t bother me going to and from college, and that they’re not allowed on campus.”

He wasn’t expecting that answers.  “Ah the life of a celebrity.  But that doesn’t seem to stop most of them.”

“Most of them want to be in front of the camera,” I muttered.  “My sisters go out practically every night in hopes of being in the tabloids the following day.  I mean, I know I shouldn’t let it, like, rule my life or whatever, but it’s hard when you grew up with this sort of thing, and just don’t want to deal with it.”

“Every time you talk about your sisters, you’re complaining about them.”

“That’s because they’re the worst sort of people, Penny especially,” I said, glancing over at him.  “I mean, I know I’m supposed to love them because they’re my sisters, but when they make it their life mission to humiliate me and make my life miserable, it’s sort of hard, you know?”

“I can get a general idea,” he agreed.  “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen something like this.”

“Do you, um, do you have any siblings?” I decided to ask, since I didn’t really want to talk about Penny and Phoebe.

“Too many to count,” he told me dryly.  “All of them half-siblings.  It gets confusing sometimes.”

“How in the world do you have too many siblings to count?” I demanded.  “I mean, surely you keep up with your family.”

“Well, I was sort of a result of an affair, and my parents already had children before I came around, and continued to have children after I was born.  I don’t have too much to do with my father’s family, and Mama didn’t really allow me too much contact with her family, either.  It’s complicated, really.  We pretty much know of each other, but we’re not really in contact with each other.”

“That’s terrible,” I said, surprising myself.  “I thought I had it bad, but to be pretty much disowned from your family…that’s even worse!”

He shrugged.  “It doesn’t really bother me, Psyche.  What happened happened, and I try to make the most out of my situation.  It’s not so bad; we acknowledge each other as siblings, and I know they’ll have my back if I need it, and that’s all that really matters.  I feel sorry for you, because even though you do acknowledge your sisters as such, you’ll never have their support, and that’s pretty much the best thing about having siblings, isn’t it?”

I blinked at him.  “Well, I suppose.  I try not to let it bother me, though, since I have so many cousins who pretty play the role of sibling for me.  So I don’t feel like I’m lacking.”

“They all live in Greece, though, right?  What if you get in trouble, and need immediate help?  Would your sisters be willing to take you in if you were out on the streets?”

“Phebes would,” I said without hesitation.  He raised an eyebrow.  “Well, in a sense.  Her fiancé would in a heartbeat, and she’s so much in love with him that she’ll pretty much be okay with anything he suggested.  I don’t worry about it too much, because I know Nate’s adopted me as his surrogate little sister.”

“Nathan Greene?  Yeah, I didn’t quite get that one myself, but I guess what’s done is done,” he said, mostly to himself.  I shot him a confused look that he didn’t even notice.   “But I suppose it’s a good thing if you have someone out there to watch your back.”

“I’ve always had someone to watch my back,” I said.  “Maybe not big brother level, but my best friend Maddie can be scary if she wants to be.”

His eyebrows went up.  “Oh, a best friend,” he said excitedly.  “What’s she like?”

I suppose I should have found it a little strange that Eros seemed way too interested in learning about Maddie, but I didn’t take offense to it.  I saw it as him wanting to get to know my best friend better as well, because he already liked her for being my best friend.  It wasn’t going to be that he liked her more than me, or anything like that, and besides which, it wasn’t like he liked me in that way in the first place.  At least not yet.  We barely knew each other!

But it felt good that he did have an interest in learning about Maddie, because it meant that he was interested in all aspects of my life, not just the parts where he was involved.  I had known a few guys, and a lot of girls, who demanded so much attention from their significant others that they’d get offended if they wanted to spend time with friends rather than them.  Eros looked like he wouldn’t care one way or another who I hung out with.

Not like it mattered or anything, since it wasn’t like I was really going to see him again after this week.

And as each day passed, I was quickly coming to the realization that I sort of didn’t want that to happen.

The following day we both got a little tired of remaining in the cold, empty, and lonely mansion, since we both sort of gravitated towards the gardens.  Spending the entire day out in the fields, which were so lively and opposite of the feeling within the mansion, didn’t seem like a half bad idea.  Eros even brought a book for me to read in case we ran out of things to do out there.  Despite all the damaged Cupid statues, and I was glad that he hadn’t found out about my Cupid plush laying on my bed, Eros seemed a lot more relaxed outside.

Not like I could blame him.  I had no idea where the hell we were, but it was so absolutely gorgeous, the air sweet with the scent of all the flowers, that it was hard to really worry about anything out here.  “So why did you have to ruin these statues?  Couldn’t you have just had them, like, removed or something?” I asked, eyeing the one with all the arrows in it.

He shrugged.  “Have you ever tried removing a statue?” he asked me.  “It’s easier just to leave them like this, actually.  Plus, it creates a conversation piece.”

“I’ll say,” I muttered.  “I am wondering why there’s so many of these statues around here?  I’d think there’d be a little more variety, you know?”

“Well, the, um, person who had this mansion before I did thought having so many Cupid statues around would boost his love life, or something.  I don’t know.  Sometimes I question it myself.”

“Wouldn’t having Venus statues make a lot more sense?  I mean, it’s sort of creepy having all these statues of babies around.”

He snorted.  “We don’t want to jink the place, trust me,” he muttered.  “I don’t mind.  It’s a great way to blow off steam when I get annoyed at something.”

“Well, one final question: how the hell did this happen?” I asked, gesturing at the arrows.  He grabbed my hand before I could tap my finger against one of the points. 

“That one, I believe, was actually made like that,” he admitted.  “A statement piece about the death of love?  I don’t know.”

“Rather gruesome if you ask me.”

He chuckled a little at that, almost as though he agreed with me.

We sort of wondered around a bit, talking about nothing in particular, but buoyed but the atmosphere of the gardens.  Eventually, without either of us really realizing it, we found ourselves in the middle of a sweet smelling field, and I think Eros was just about to suggest we sit down for a while when something seemed to fly out of nowhere and smack him square on the head.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” I asked as he rubbed his head and glared at the offending object.  It was a Frisbee, strangely enough.

He picked it up carefully.  “Seriously?” he demanded to a Zephyr who just seemed to materialize out of nowhere, looking overjoyed that he managed to catch Eros off guard.  “I’m sort of busy, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Zephyr said, glancing at me with his normal amused expression.  “I was bored, so I figured I’d come out here.  Strangely enough, it’s sort of boring to throw that by myself.”

“I could have told you that, dipshit.  What the hell do you what?”

“Well, for starters, I’d like to have my Frisbee back,” Zephyr teased.

“You can go play with him, I don’t mind,” I told him.  “I’ll watch.”

Both guys looked extremely surprised that I actually suggested this, almost as though, as a girl, I shouldn’t be fine with Eros playing some stupid game with his friend.  But at that moment, I had felt sorry for Zephyr.  Here he was, doing all this work for Eros to help entertain me, and as a result, Eros was basically ignoring him all week.  I certainly wasn’t one of those girls who expected a guy to pay attention solely to her.  I made a show of lowering myself into the grass and pointedly getting comfortable.

“No, that’s okay, I…”

“Come on, man, she said she was okay with it.  Unless…you’re chicken,” Zephyr gloated.

Eros responded by spinning and throwing the Frisbee so hard that, while it didn’t hit him like it had Eros, it did barely miss him and catch him short.  Within minutes, I was watching two guys playing, judging from their aggressiveness, Ultimate Frisbee.  And I honestly didn’t care in the least.  I wasn’t used to having guy friends, so I wasn’t used to watching their stupid games, but seeing both of them enjoy themselves was certainly entertaining enough.

At least until I nearly got beamed with the Frisbee.  I was lost in my thoughts, admiring the way Eros was playing (and trying to pretend like I wasn’t), so having something fly in my field of vision startled me.  “Good Lord, Zephyr, I would have thought you’d have learned your lesson the last time,” Eros teased.

“Hey now, I didn’t kill her or anything.  Hey Psyche, you wanna come join us?  Your man over here is sucking up the game.”

“Zephyr,” Eros warned.

But I had stood, carefully holding the Frisbee in my hands.  They seemed really surprised at this.  “Well, I’m not sure what sort of help I would be,” I admitted before heaving the Frisbee at the two of them.  It was a wild shot, so I was rather surprised when it actually arched right into Eros’ hands.  He gave Zephyr a rather sly look, but the darker male just sort of grinned sweetly at his friend before he charged at him.  Eros hastily threw the Frisbee back at me, and I was rather surprised when I somehow managed to catch it.

I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I felt a little like Zephyr was throwing the game somehow in my favor.  I mean, it wasn’t like I couldn’t throw a Frisbee or anything, but I knew I had no aim.  So when it flew unerringly into Eros’ hands everything I threw it, I knew something was up.

But I was glad I agreed to join them, since I did end up having fun with it.  The fact that both of them were surprised that I had made me a little suspicious, since neither of them struck me as the sexist sort, such that I somehow knew it wasn’t because I was a girl that they were surprised I played and enjoyed myself.  But still, it was a nice reprieve from simply hanging out, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Zephyr ended up hanging out with us the rest of the day after Eros declared the game done when Zephyr did manage to beam me on the head with an overly enthusiastic throw.  Which I could tell he could understand, especially when he was apologizing profusely to me about it.  It hadn’t hurt save for the initial hit, and I thought the fact that I was laughing about it would have clued them both in that I hadn’t minded.  But either way, the game was done, and I was only slightly disappointed.

I did know one thing, and that was the fact that the game had been the most fun I had in a very long time.  I still wasn’t sure if staying here had been the best idea in the world, but I was quickly coming to the realization that I was never going to regret my decision, getting to know Eros and Zephyr a little better.

The only thing I was going to regret was the end of the week when I got to go home, and I had to leave this wonderful little dream world behind.

Chapter Seven

Modern Day Cupid Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine