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I gazed wistfully out the road, the orange and yellow mountains paired well with the sapphire blue sky. The clouds casting soft shadows onto the ground as I cracked open the window, the wind flying through my hair, whipping it around my face as I breathed in the fresh Texas air. My earings shone and glittered and hit my skin, but I smiled regardless.
“Hey Nay, quick stickin’ your head out the window.” Dimitri complained, lightly tugging at my shoulder.
“What am I gonna hit? A stray tumbleweed?” I asked incredulously, “A stray Cactus?”. Dimitri merely scoffed and went back to practicing our latest song, ‘Love Like a Flapping Griffin Wing’. Catchy huh?
“Hey Naomi! Ain’t that Lometa?” Steph asked, knocking against the van glass. “That’s where you met Andrew, right?”
“-And I guess to say, I’d never love you any other waaaaaaaaay!” I sang my final notes, breathing heavily as the mike and music slowly cut off. I opened my eyes and sighed even though I knew that no one would be there. Can’t a girl want to have high hopes? I annoyedly walked back to my manager, reporting that, once again, no one showed up. He ordered me back to the counter just in case some last second person came in. Ugh, the counter, the most boring place in the entire music industry. Couldn’t I just time travel and skip forward to when I’m famous and living it up in my Austin condo with adoring fans cheering my names on my international tours. Sipping wine in Paris, eating the finest Pizza in Italy, seeing all the rolling hills of Finland and-
“Do you have a large?”
My head shot up and there standing in front of me was the most gorgeous man I had ever seen in my life. His golden hair fell to his shoulders, framing his heart shaped face perfectly. His nose was almost entirely straight with a bridge of freckles that somehow looked like a golden yellow connecting his two perfectly full yet well sculpted cheeks. His perfectly long and curved blond eyelashes framed doe eyes the color of an Icelandic waterfall, or maybe the summer sky, or maybe the mysterious Ice Cream flavor in my hometown called Play-Doh. His smile was perfectly white and shining like an angel’s wings or the light of the sun when you stared at it too long. He was fairly muscular, his arms perfect and the lines of his 8-pack abs sticking lightly outlines on his white tank top. Even through all of that, he looked like a ballerina, graceful and lean and held himself with a creative like poise. His legs seemed as thick as tree trunks, making his khaki-colored cargo shorts completely taut, and his buttons looked ready to pop at a moment's notice. Even though he was facing me, If I looked hard enough, I could see even harder taut lines near the top of his thighs, which probably meant-
“Yeah, I um think we do.” I jumbled around with the cardboard box laying at my feet, hoping to hide my blush. My now closer proximity to his legs made it worse to be honest.
“Aha!” I pulled out the large black T-Shirt. The man took is with a smile, admiring the album design I’d printed on it. It was me as a little girl, holding my grandpa’s blue guitar with other photos laying around it, just barely showing glimpses of my younger life with ‘The Texan World’ written underneath along with my name.
“Solace...” The man said, looking back down at me and shooting me a grin. “I’ve always found it so interesting when in English people’s last names are literal words, don’t you?”
I shrugged, “I guess, I’ve met a few shoemakers in my time, definitely a lot of Smiths. I’d say the reason it’s so strange in America is because there’s such a huge and diverse group of people, so all their last names mean something in the native language, but sound really awesome in English. Since you know mine, what’s yours.”
He put his long and delicate fingers to his chin and thought for a second.
“Pséma, Andrew Pséma.” He said, nodding his head as if he’d gotten it just right or maybe was being clever. “It’s Greek.”
I snorted “Andrew ain’t very Greek.”
“And Solace isn’t very Hebrew.” He snorted back, raising his perfectly sculpted eyebrows and eyeing up more of my merch.
“...Why are you so interested in my merch? I didn’t see you in my audience of Zero.” I asked as he skimmed through my albums and CDs.
“That’s what you think.” He said, singing every syllable.
“It is what and think and what I know.” I sang back, mocking his sweet Tenor voice that seemed to charge the air with electricity. He giggled, before throwing his hand over his, which did not block the seemingly infinite mirth swimming in his eyes. I blinked and suddenly everything I had in the store was pilled on my crappy plastic fold up table.
“How much for all of this?” He asked, reaching into his back pocket (Don’t look Naomi, don’t look-) and pulling out his wallet painted with small yellow suns, a purple flower, and a square that was painted with pink, purple, and blue strips...wait, wasn’t that the bisexual flag?
“Uh...about 100 dollars, I think.”
“Are you sure...I can certainly pay more if-”
“No, no, truly it’s alright, you’re already my best costumer, and you’ve bought everything else in the store already,” I said sheepishly, taking the 100-dollar bill from his incredibly warm hands and placing them in the cash register.
He paused for a second before leaning towards me and asking, “There’s still something I’m missing?”
“Like what?” I said, leaning slightly closer, slightly closing my eyes and turning my head to its best angle.
“Your phone number.” He responded, perfectly calm like he’s done this 1,000 times before. There’s no way someone who looked 22 could have had over 1,000 dates no matter how attractive he is.
“Hmm...” I thought for a second, making the same gesture of putting my fingers to my chin that he did just minutes before. “Italian dinner and letting me openly ogle your ass.”
He grinned, winking at me “Sure, Saturday good?”
“The best.” I responded, winking right back.
“Yeah, it is.” I said wistfully, gazing at the faint scars I had littering my wrists from those Stymphalian Birds back in NYC. I had never really considered if dating Apollo was worth it before. It was one of the happiest years of my life, leading into 10 more equally if not more happy years. He and I had our beautiful, kind, and brave son Will, and I couldn’t ask for it any other way. But the danger that occurred to Will on an almost daily basis...it scared me. I barely saw a glimpse in NYC, and my visit to Camp Jupiter, I couldn’t imagine what a bad day would be like for him, or even the wars he’d described. I’d almost wished I’d never dated Apollo just for that, for my precious son to not be so far away, so endangered every day. But if he wasn’t Apollo’s son, he would have lost what made Will...well Will. And that I hoped made it all worth it.