Page 5 of Lovesick Titan (Lovesick #2)

Walking out of the room, Danny headed for his own, waiting to pull up the text until he’d shut his door behind him and sat on the edge of the bed.

There was nothing spectacular about Danny’s bedroom, just the bed, mirrored doors on his closet, a nightstand and dresser, and a handful of photographs he found too difficult to look at some days since most of them included his mother or Rick.

Whatever you need to get Ludgate, whenever you’re ready, I’m here.

No pressure about talking or replying to the message or discussing the elephant in the room of whatever this was between them that went so much further than sex.

The message simply said that Cho would be there when Danny needed him to face the monster hiding in the shadows—a terrible parody of all those months ago.

Danny looked at the mirrors that made up his closet doors.

It would be pointless to try to cover every reflective surface in the house.

He’d done his best at Cho’s, but mirrors, reflections, they were everywhere.

All Ludgate needed was to know which one to look through.

Maybe he didn’t know where Danny lived. Maybe he didn’t know these particular mirrors.

Maybe he did. But whatever Danny figured out to stop Ludgate, he couldn’t do it alone.

He texted back, Thanks , and hovered over the dial pad trying to think of more to say, or if he should just call Cho. He wanted to. But he couldn’t tell him the truth over the phone, and the next time he spoke to him, he had to come clean. He had to end it.

A knock at the door barely registered until Joey entered. “Pizza’s here. Danny?” When their gazes met, he stepped inside with downturned eyes as if Danny’s expression laid bare every emotion he was feeling.

“No fires.” Danny held up his phone. “Literal or figurative.”

“You okay?” Joey ignored the dismissal and moved further into the room.

He sat down, and when Danny took a breath and opened his mouth to speak, Joey beat him to it.

“ Really , I mean. John and Stella didn’t tell me much.

Which, you’re not obligated to either, if you’re going through stuff, I get it… ”

“Joey…” Hanging his head, Danny clutched his phone tightly in both hands. “You’re going through stuff too. You shouldn’t have to put up with me.”

“Are you serious? Even if you weren’t Zeus, it’s no excuse for being a jerk to you.

I think I was just so mad that you always seemed depressed and closed off…

like I wanted to be, but I figured I couldn’t ge t away with it, so I had to keep trying.

As if you had it easier because you were allowed to be miserable.

” He huffed, and Danny glanced up to look at him.

“You are one of the few people who knows what this feels like. Whatever else you’re going through after losing our moms…

it must feel like the world’s falling apart, right? ”

Danny didn’t answer. Joey had summed it all up too perfectly.

“Then whatever it is, it matters ,” Joey said firmly.

“It’s important. Mom used to tell me that all the time, whenever I’d get mad at something stupid, and then get mad at myself for getting mad .

It’s hard to imagine that anything you might be going through could feel small when you’re out there almost every night saving the city.

I mean, geez…you’re Zeus . You have a right to be wrecked over a parking ticket if you want to.

” He leaned into Danny’s shoulder, and they shared a shaky laugh.

“Though I’m guessing it’s probably a little bigger than that, huh? ”

“A little bigger than a parking ticket, yeah.” Danny took another breath.

He just had to keep taking breaths whenever the bad outweighed the good, whenever it pushed his happiness and easy smiles into the darkest corner of his mind and made them seem impossible to find again.

“Joey…I’m sorry for the other night. For all of it. I’m really sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. I didn’t have a right to get so upset. I mean, dude, my brother is Zeus. That’s crazy ,” he smiled widely again.“But you know what’s funny? I was much more intimidated by Danny Grant.”

“What?” Danny sat up straighter, shocked enough that Joey had called him his brother . “Why?”

“Seriously? You’re the youngest detective at the OCPD. You’ve handled all the Elemental cases. You faced Thanatos before you even had superpowers. Of course you’re intimidating.”

Danny chuckled in disbelief. He’d always seen his day job accomplishments as more reasons that he was an outcast. “Not really all the Elemental cases…”

“Close enough. Dad told me. They used to call you and your partner ‘The Hardy Boys’ because you were so young but better than everyone else at solving cases together. Danny Grant is just as cool as Zeus. I mean, sure, Zeus is an Elemental, but Danny is just a guy, and he still made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. ”

“Joey… ”

“Look,” Joey met Danny’s gaze without any of the shadows that used to be there, even if the boy’s eyes were black, “I know it’s not like that. I know neither of us has to live up to the other. Isn’t there some saying about how real family is the one you choose?”

“Something like that.”

John had a speech about that too, ever since they’d adopted Stella almost two decades ago.

And when Danny was thinking clearly and could really wonder about the family he would have chosen, the only thing he’d change about the one he had now was that he’d never stop wishing his mother was still with them.

“Every stumble is just another chance to get to know each other better,” he said.

“That was your mom’s saying, right?”

“Dad told you about it?”

“Yeah.”

“Mom had this habit of always being right. It was really annoying sometimes.”

Joey chuckled. “My mom was like that too. It’s a good saying though. Means you can’t ever fall so far that you can’t come back from it and make it up to the people you love.”

Fourteen years old and already he understood that. Danny had taken ages to get it. Sometimes he still forgot.

“So,” he rocked into Joey’s shoulder to soften the moment, “Danny Grant is just as cool as Zeus, huh?”

“Well, maybe Zeus is a little cooler. But only coz that lightning jump is super tight.”

“Is that your way of asking for another ride?”

“Maybe…”

Danny had gotten so used to being Zeus as a job, he forgot how miraculous and exciting it could be. Gesturing toward the door, he stood. “How about after dinner we go to my hideout? See the suit?”

“Really?” Joey bolted up after him. “Coz that would be amazing. Is your hideout, like, tricked out with lasers and high-tech AI?”

Danny laughed. “I’ll tell you all about it, but it’s probably not as glamorous as you’re thinking.”

Pocketing his phone, he followed Joey downstairs for dinner. Once he had a plan, he’d go to Cho in person and let the thief decide if he was still willing to help take down Ludgate after learning the truth.

The rest, Danny knew, he wouldn’t have much control over, but he could at least control how Cho found out.

R

Zeus wasn’t easy to track. He moved too fast, especially when he was alone.

Finding the right reflections to watch him through proved difficult.

The old morgue at the downtown precinct, where Hades had initially had a lot of luck, was a bore-fest now, as Zeus’s CSI and Medical Examiner friends took to messaging each other digitally rather than speaking out loud if anything important needed to be discussed.

Zeus’s home was a bust as well. Hades could watch, listen in, but he learned nothing useful.

He needed Zeus broken and isolated. Needed to escalate things with Prometheus before Zeus had the chance to tell him the truth about their charade of an affair.

That was the linchpin to the entire plan to get vengeance for the death of his father—Thanatos.

Days went by and Zeus still hadn’t met up with Prometheus. He was stalling, hoping to stumble upon something with his tiny fiber of evidence and his team at the precinct, but nothing came of their researching and tests.

Prometheus, on the other hand, grew anxious. Messaged Zeus more frequently. Became more desperate to see him. Which was good, but that meant Zeus would cave soon, and if he had the chance to explain himself to Prometheus, it could ruin everything Hades had planned since the night of the heist.

Finally, an opportunity to delay Zeus’s confession presented itself.

Hades had seen Sean Dunkirk around Prometheus’s neighborhood several times.

Everyone in the underworld knew Dunkirk had it out for Prometheus for keeping his wife and son away from him.

Lately, Hades had caught him lurking about in some shoddy excuse for a disguise, but he wasn’t looking for his ex.

No. He was waiting. Watching. When Hades next spotted Dunkirk, he followed him .

It was Friday. Prometheus had ducked out of his apartment to hit the corner store. Now he headed home, and Dunkirk tailed him. Grinning maliciously, Dunkirk watched Prometheus enter his building. All he needed now was the apartment number.

Wearing his normal street clothes, Hades smoothly stepped out of a reflection behind Dunkirk in the alley he was hiding in.

“Need a hand, friend?”

Dunkirk whirled around and reached inside his jacket, but Hades held up his hands to show they were empty.

“Relax. We both want the same thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“Prometheus, six feet under.”

Slowly, Dunkirk removed his hand from his jacket.

“I can tell you which apartment is his.”

“Yeah?” Dunkirk scowled from beneath the brim of the hat he’d pulled low to conceal his face. “And what do you want in return?”

With a grin, Hades dropped his hands to his sides. “Absolutely nothing.”