The Power
Page 47

Ugh. I couldn’t even believe my brain was spewing out these kinds of things.
“I meant that we have him in common and that’s all I was trying to say,” I finished lamely.
“Um. That’s not what I was going to say,” Alex said, blinking slowly as she reached up, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I was going to go with us both having Apollo in common.”
“Ah. That . . . that makes more sense.” Walking around her, I dropped onto the cushions of the love seat, suddenly exhausted. The epic diarrhea of the mouth was tiring. “Apollo. Yeah, he’s, um, something else, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” she drew the word out as she sat in the small chair. “I want to talk about Apollo, but let’s back up a second. You and Seth are . . . together?”
My face was going to melt right off. Tongue twisted, I had no idea what to say, because we weren’t together anymore, and Alex was the absolute last person I wanted to be discussing this with. But it was my fault for letting my mouth strip down and do a jig.
Alex’s lashes lowered, but the intensity of her stare could still be felt. “Okay. I know you don’t know me at all, but you’re going to learn pretty quickly that I’m super blunt, and I feel like I totally need to get this out in the open, because I didn’t know we had more in common outside of Apollo. And I’m going to probably punch someone for not filling me in on that.”
Oh geez. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You know that Seth and I—”
“I know what you guys are,” I cut in. “I know a lot about what happened. Deacon filled me in and Seth . . . he talked a little about it.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Okay. Then did Seth explain that he and I kind of were seeing each other only for, like, a hot second?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, we didn’t really get into that kind of detail.”
“I see.” She paused, glancing down at her hands. “Seth and I never got together like that.”
Something did a wholly inappropriate happy dance in my chest.
“We did fool around a couple of times,” she added, lashes lifting, and that something stopped dancing and whipped out Covenant daggers. “But Aiden was my first and he will be the only one.”
Oh. That something slowly lowered the daggers.
“Don’t get me wrong. I cared about Seth—I still do. Things are . . . weird between us. Complicated isn’t even a right enough word, and if you really know what happened, you understand that, right?”
I nodded. “I do.”
Alex held my gaze for a moment and then reached up, wrapping her hands around the middle of her hair. “Seth and I never went that far.” She started twisting her hair, and oh my God again, I did that all the time too. This was so weird. So weird. She twisted her hair into a rope. “But you two . . . ?”
“No. I mean, we were seeing each other, but not . . . not anymore.”
She eyed me closely. “Were you guys serious?”
“Yes. I mean, I thought so. I . . . uh, I really cared—” I cut myself off, looking away as I shook my head. “None of that matters.”
“I think it matters if you were actually dating Seth and he didn’t have sex with you.”
My attention swung back to her sharply.
“The Seth I knew would pretty much hump a tree if there was a hole in it,” she said, and my nose wrinkled. “And he was never serious about anyone.”
“I don’t think that really makes me feel better about not having gone there with him,” I admitted, and when she opened her mouth, I continued. “Look, what he and I were at one point doesn’t matter now.”
“Yes. It does.” She stopped twisting her hair. “As long as I knew Seth, he didn’t get involved seriously with anyone. Like, no one would’ve been under the misconception that it was serious if it wasn’t. Seth didn’t do relationships.”
Seth apparently still didn’t do relationships, and as jealous as I was when it came to Alex, she wasn’t the problem. She was in love with Aiden, but that didn’t mean Seth hadn’t harbored those kinds of feelings for her. It was obvious that he had.
And still did.
And I really did not want to be talking about this with her.
Scrubbing my temples, I tried to come up with a way to say that without being completely rude to the myth, the legend known as Alexandria Andros.
“You really don’t want to talk about Seth with me, do you?” she asked.
I glanced over at her, frowning. “Can you read minds?”
Alex tipped her head to the side and laughed. “Nope. But I feel you. I just want to say one thing. I hope that things aren’t really over between you two, because Seth . . .” She sat back, exhaling softly. “Seth is . . . he deserves some happiness.”
Tears immediately rushed my throat and burned the back of my eyes. I believed the same thing, but I wasn’t his source of happiness. I didn’t even know what I was to him, but it wasn’t that.
“I haven’t talked to him. He’s avoiding me. I’m not surprised,” she said, and then let go of her hair. The thick strands were slow to unwind. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear about that.”
I sort of, kind of wanted to hear about her and Seth and his avoidance, even though I didn’t, but I was a glutton for punishment, so I did.
“So.” She scooted forward, dropping her hands to her knees. “Apollo is your father, and he’s kind of like my great-great-great-times a million grandfather, so we’re kind of, like, related in a really weird, this shouldn’t happen in real life sort of way?”