Page 15 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)

“Hey, Danny. Think you can get away for lunch?”

Danny looked up from his desk to see his sister standing in the doorway to his office.

“Stella, hey. Uhh…” He eyed the work surrounding him skeptically.

Even though the Elemental Task Force didn’t technically exist anymore, not with Zeus running around to pick up the slack, Danny still had use of a private office where Rick’s empty desk sat across from him.

Stella pulled her hands out from behind her back to reveal three greasy and bursting paper bags from Atlas Burger. “Just kidding. I brought lunch to you.”

Entering fully, the curls of her rich, brown hair bounced around her shoulders. Her eyes were a deep, emerald green, glittering in contrast to her dark skin. She was Air leaning, and Danny swore that’s how she was such a ninja about sneaking up on him. She could breeze in with barely a sound.

Stella dressed like the head of a fashion magazine but was actually a child social worker.

She was so much like Danny’s mother in that way—equal parts grace and humility.

Ellen Grant had been a school teacher, but she’d devoted most of her spare time to charity and helping the community.

Stella had wanted to emulate that when she chose social work so she could help people like she had been helped.

“Dad said you were the type of frazzled this morning that would likely lead to forgetting lunch,” she said, dropping the bags of food on the end of Danny’s desk.

She’d never changed her name—she was still Stella Hernandez—but she’d called Danny’s parents Mom and Dad since the first year they adopted her.

“How did he…?” Danny shook his head as Stella sat in the empty chair in front of his desk. Her knowing smile said it all. “Thank you.”

The pleasant aroma from the burgers hit Danny’s senses in a rush, and he felt his stomach rumble eagerly. Stella always knew to bring extra to appease his Zeus-sized appetite. He did not deserve this woman as his sister and best friend. He didn’t deserve his father either.

“Everything okay?” she asked, eyes dropping downward in concern. “I know I’ve been busy lately, and you’ve been running your own kind of ragged. You didn’t make it to family dinner last week. Join us tomorrow?”

Tomorrow . Danny had already postponed on Cho once.

Playing hard to get was one thing; blowing him off again and again could ruin the whole affair.

“Sorry, I have plans tomorrow night. Next week for sure. Just give me a head’s up on the day, okay?

Besides, you guys don’t need me around for family dinner. ”

Stella frowned as she paused in unpacking the various stacks of burgers and fries.

“Danny, you’re family. It’s not the same without you.

Don’t worry about Joey. He’s been doing a lot better lately.

And he likes you. It’s just a lot to take in still.

You know what Mom would say? Every stumble is just another chance to get to know each other better. ”

Danny’s mouth twitched at the common phrase, bittersweet as it was to hear it from Stella now instead. She knew better than anyone what it was like to lose a mother— twice now. And Joey was right there with them.

“He’s still adjusting, is all,” she said. “New dad. Sister. Brother.”

“I’m not his brother,” Danny said on reflex but deflated when Stella’s head jerked up at his harsh retort. “I just mean…it’s foster care right now, nothing set in stone. Joey doesn’t see me as a brother. And I know he’s trying to be understanding of the whole weird family dynamic we have going—”

“It’s not weird, Danny, it’s our family—”

“I know that,” he cut her short, “but most people’s brothers aren’t the reason their mother died.” Shit . Now Stella looked like she pitied him. “It’s not fair to him when he doesn’t know I’m Zeus. He deserves you guys without the added complication.”

“You mean without you,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“Danny, that isn’t how this works. You can’t keep hiding from us by running around the city.”

The pang in Danny’s chest grew tighter and he felt the urge to throw everything off his desk, including the bags of food, and scream at Stella to stop psychoanalyzing him like one of her cases. But he shouldn’t need to do that. He was better than that.

Taking a breath, he stood from his chair to avoid the temptation. “It’s not patrol. I have plans tomorrow night, okay? I can’t cancel them. I’ll join you guys next week, I promise. I haven’t been good company lately anyway. I need a break.”

“From me?” Stella tilted her head with a crook to her mouth that betrayed how hurt she was by his words.

“From me ,” Danny said honestly. “From a lot of things. I can’t exactly take a break from being Zeus, so I need something to distract me for a while.”

“And what something is that?”

“Just something . Look, can we eat?” He moved in front of the desk to join her and started pawing at a burger wrapper.

“I’m close to passing out, and I need to get back to finishing this work before Dad comes in with the surveillance footage we’re waiting on.

I appreciate the food. I love you for the food.

And I would love nothing more than to enjoy lunch with you.

Tell me about your life lately. I’d much rather hear about that than talk about being a little fried lately. ”

Stella watched him unwrap the burger and take a large, healthy bite. “If you’re sure that’s all it is?”

“Of course,” Danny said around his chewing. “I’ve had a tough few weeks since Vanessa left. It’s nothing.” Maybe if he called it ‘nothing’ enough times, it finally would be.

Stella gave him a gauging, unconvinced look, because she knew Danny hadn’t ever been serious about Vanessa and wasn’t all that sorry to see her go. Eventually, she took pity on the pleading in his eyes and tore into the wrapper of her own burger. “Well…”

It was forty-five minutes of almost normal bliss.

Listening to Stella, eating lunch, laughing together, Danny could pretend for a while that he was happy.

He could almost believe he was happy, if it weren’t for the ache that lingered, that rose up strong as ever as soon as Stella hugged him and headed out of the precinct.

Aiming the rolled up wad of paper from his last burger at his farthest wastebasket by the corkboard, he missed what should have been a flawless hook shot. His eyes drifted from the paper to the corkboard…and finally to Rick’s desk.

The office was only large enough to fit the two desks, the corkboard between them against the back wall, and a few extra chairs. Rick hadn’t had any family, so no one was around to claim his belongings other than Danny. Any case work had been cleared away, but the personal items remained untouched.

Danny knew he should take it all home—the fish bowl by the window that had never had any fish but that Rick had joked about putting electric eels in for years, the deck of playing cards for slow days, the green lamp he’d gotten at a garage sale that looked like something out of a film noir flick, the photograph of Danny and Rick sharing a drink after Captain Shan finally approved the creation of the Elemental Task Force.

Between all of that and the dust that had accumulated over the months, it was no wonder the other officers called this place The Tomb. It was a tomb, for Rick and Danny both.

Rick had been Lightning leaning too. Maybe that’s why they got along so well. Maybe if Rick had been the one to Awaken instead of Danny, both of them would be alive right now.

Lightning jumping to the wad of paper to throw it away properly, Danny was back at his desk in under a second.

He really shouldn’t do that—waste his powers on mundane tasks.

Using his lightning jump drained him. He’d only ever been able to use it a handful of times in a row during a fight before he fatigued, something he’d found out the hard way.

?

Danny could admit almost two months after he’d Awakened and donned the alter ego of Zeus that he enjoyed having a nemesis.

Especially since his dedicated supervillain, unlike Thanatos who continued to elude him, had strict principles he followed and a certain flare for dramatics that Danny enjoyed far more than he’d ever say out loud to the leader of the Titans.

If a heist led to Danny defeating Cho, he would inexplicably manage to get away before being taken into custody, though a few times he’d stick around, let himself be truly and fully caught only to break out of custody later.

And if Cho won, he was careful with just how much of Danny he iced with his powers, trading banter and taunts more than actual blows.

Honestly, it was like an occasional vacation day in his otherwise hectic life as a detective by day and superhero by night.

Too often he had real threats to deal with: Thanatos and others like him who wanted to destroy the city, kidnap or murder someone, or cause the type of trouble that could get a lot of people hurt.

Even the other Titans weren’t as easygoing as Cho.

They followed their leader’s rules, but they weren’t as nice to Danny with mere glancing blows.

But Prometheus… Danny always looked forward to facing him, staring him down with a grin, drawing the fights out, meeting every pun Cho threw at him with one of his own—when he could; the man was notorious for winning that game—and just simply having fun.

They had an understanding, a rhythm, a powerful respect for each other that made being at odds seem more like a game than a threat.

“What happens when he decides to take advantage of you going easy on him all the time?” his father once asked when Cho made a daring escape.