Aphrodite Needs an Alibi (Aphrodite Needs a Clue Book 1)

by Regan Claire

  “I have a place in mind,” I hear him say from the next room.

  I find a pair of shorts that are flattering but not hoochie and pull them up. Now where would a good shirt be? I eye the two other trash bags with trepidation before falling on my knees and starting to hunt in earnest. “How incredibly thoughtful of you,” I halfway mumble, not loud enough for him to hear me from the next room.

  “I have hidden depths,” his deep voice responds, and sends a shiver down my spine as he does. Apparently he wasn’t in the next room, so could hear me just fine.

  How long was he standing there? Probably around when I found my shorts, because his voice came from the other room the last time he talked. I toss a look over my shoulder to look at him, unabashed by his seeing me in my underwear. I did leave the door open, I would have been offended if he hadn’t at least peek a little.

  I go back to my task of searching for a shirt without responding. Hidden depths? I might enjoy exploring those depths.

  “Is that chair the only piece of furniture you own?” he asks.

  I find the shirt I’m looking for and slip it on, then pull over the laundry basket and grab a pair of matched socks.

  “Yes, it is,” I reply, putting my socks on then standing up. “I just need to throw my shoes on and we can go,” I tell him. The shoes I wore to work are next to the front door. They aren’t the cutest pair I own, but probably the most sensible for buying and moving a couch. Rhys is blocking the doorway, though. And staring. “What?” I ask, eyes wide like I don’t know what he was thinking about before I put my shirt on. I can still feel the lust coming off him in waves.

  “I’m just enjoying the view.”

  “I should hope so,” I say, then push my way past him. He moves to the side but stays in the doorway, and I have to turn my own body sideways to get through the door. A rush of excitement floods me when our bodies touch on my way out. I stop for a second once I reach the hallway because I feel unbalanced by the contact. I don’t like being the one off balance, at least not for something like this. I get put off balance by little things like commitment, and stalking.

  Not hot guys making me feel, ahem, hot.

  It’s enough to make a girl do something reckless. Like turn around. Rhys is close enough behind me that my turning puts us face to face, close enough to touch. He doesn’t seem to mind, not even when I grab his shirt above his heart, and pull him down so I can push my mouth against his with force.

  As if he saw it coming, Rhys immediately grabs me by the ass and picks me up. My legs wrap around him of their own accord, my body doing everything it can to deepen the kiss. He responds similarly, and before I know it, my back is against the wall. I can’t think. I can barely breathe.

  Rhys tries to pull his face away from mine, but I nibble his bottom lip and he moans into me, squeezing me so hard it’s just shy of painful.

  Reluctantly, I pull away. Rhys is panting, and I know it’s taking a lot of control for him to stop himself—for him to put me down and rest his forehead against mine. My breathing isn’t exactly even either, but while there’s a part of me that wants to follow that kiss to whichever surface it leads to, it’s not the part of me that feeds off that sort of thing.

  I smile. I was able to control that part of myself for once.

  “I thought you needed a couch,” Rhys breaks our silence.

  “I do.”

  “What are we waiting for?” he asks.

  I look down at myself, still pinned to the wall by his body against mine. “Shoes,” I answer.

  He grins. “Yes, shoes. How could I have forgotten.” Before he lets me go, he leans back down and kisses me again. His lips are soft against mine, a stark difference from the smooch we just shared. The contrast is enough to make me…well, make me wish I already have that couch.

  “Now go get your shoes on,” he says against my mouth, as if reading my thoughts. Rhys pulls away so I can move, then gives me a little getty-up smack on my rear as I walk away.

  I sit in my chair and put my shoes on, enjoying the fact that Rhys is still looking my way.

  A girl could get used to being looked at the way he’s looking at me right now. I don’t normally act this flirtatiously though. A little effort goes a long way, and I’m pretty careful about not giving the wrong impression—unless I want something. New town, new me. I don’t flirt to get what I want anymore.

  I’m still not sure what impression I want Rhys to have, but he’s holding his own around me. Still, I should probably tone it down a little, at least for now.

  Once I’m done tying my shoes, we head to his truck. It’s big enough that I have to use the handle to jump into the front seat. The cab is tidy; even the dashboard is dust free. The truck roars to life when he turns the key the way older trucks sometimes do, as if the old engine under the hood is alive.

  Rhys picks out a station on his phone before pulling out of the parking lot, and immediately starts singing along. On the next song, when the familiar chorus starts playing, he presents me with an imaginary microphone and I belt alongside him. It’s deliciously silly and we sing along the rest of the way to the store. By the time we arrive, my face is split into a grin and I feel relaxed and, well, myself in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. Lately everything has felt so serious.

  Needs a Fortune Cookie

  The parking lot is rather decrepit. Speed-bumps aren’t necessary to ensure cars don’t rocket through the lot because the potholes are big enough to hide barnyard animals in. There are a few businesses who share the lot. The one we park in front of looks about as old as the parking lot, but in much better repair. The outside looks tidy and clean, even though the paint is just a distant memory in some patches and the sign is so faded I can’t make out the words. There are a few stacks of pots for planting by the front door and some of them even contain a few cheerful blooms.

  It doesn’t look like a place where I can buy a couch. There’s no furniture in the window, but maybe Rhys knows something I don’t. It’s not raining anymore. In fact, there are a few rays of sun beaming down on us. Rhys has already jumped out of the truck, so I do the same and head for the sidewalk path that leads to the front door. This at least is safer to walk on than the asphalt, where the pooled water in the potholes might go down forever.

  “We go through the side door, over here.”

  I look at the door that says “Welcome” in a faded, yet cheerful script. “This looks like the front.”

  “Not for us. Come on.” Rhys leads the way around to the side entrance where we have to weave through a maze of lawn furniture to get to the door. This door also says “Welcome,” but in all caps and not at all faded. There’s also the word “Delphi” on the door, probably the business name. I guess he does know what he’s talking about.

  He opens the door and a swoosh of cold air hits me in the face. All the rain made the air thicker without cooling it down, and I didn’t realize how hot I’d gotten just from the walk from the truck until I felt the air-conditioned coolness. I hurry inside before we let the heat in. Late spring in Virginia Beach feels an awful lot like summer.

  Once inside I’m met with, I don’t know, at least two dozen couches. The space is so filled with them that I have to side-step away from the door so Rhys has enough room to come inside.

  “You weren’t lying. This is the perfect place to get a couch,” I tell him, wondering where in the world I’m supposed to start.

  “I’ve never been disappointed when I come here. They always know what I’m looking for.”

  “You buy a lot of couches?” I ask, wondering how I’m going to make my way over to the clear section of the floor two couches away with my dignity intact.

  He laughs. “No, this is like a thrift store. They have everything.”

  I look around and all I can see are couches. “I wonder where they keep it,” I mutter as I eyeball the obstacle in front of me. They could have at least left a path clear by the door!

  There’s no way around it.
I’ll have to crawl over the couches. I hike a leg over the back of the one closest, trying really hard not to let my shoe touch the upholstery. Rhys, to his credit, doesn’t laugh at me. Instead, he pushes the couch I’m crawling on forward. I squeeze my thighs around the back of it, since there are no handholds on the velvet sofa I’m currently straddling.

  “What are you doing?” I ask-not-screech.

  “Making a path to walk through,” he says, continuing his steady push on the couch until it’s also pushing the couch next to it, and the one next to that, until he has a few inches of walking room.

  I lose my hold somewhere through all that pushing and tumble forward. Good thing there’s a couch there to break my fall so I don’t wind up on the floor.

  “You couldn’t have done that before I started climbing?” I ask, looking up at Rhys from my now horizontal position on a couch, with half my hair in my mouth.

  “I was enjoying the view too much.”

  I roll my eyes, but still take his offered hand and knee-walk to the small space he’s made, fully aware of how ridiculous I look.

  Rhys isn’t looking at me. He’s looking past me toward a weird screeching noise. I get to my feet and try to find what’s caught his gaze.

  It’s a woman dragging, single handedly, yet another couch into the already cramped space. She’s ancient. Her wrinkles have wrinkles that are older than me. I’m mildly impressed with her ability to drag anything anywhere, especially a couch. Then I notice she’s speeding along at the quick pace of six millimeters a minute.

  Eh, I’m still impressed. If I were old enough to remember the signing of the Magna Carta, I’d probably be in a bed hooked to a million machines like a respectable Guinness record holder. After a quick check that P.T. Barnum isn’t walking in behind her selling tickets, I follow Rhys through the path he’s making towards the woman.

  “I think we have enough to choose from here, Pythia. Thank you,” Rhys says, standing in the path of where the couch would eventually be traveling.

  The woman, Pythia, looks at Rhys, shrugs her shoulders and lets go of the couch before she zooms back to wherever she came from.

  Another woman pops out from somewhere, probably hiding behind a couch. She’s significantly younger, maybe even younger than I am, and is dressed in yoga pants and a loose t-shirt. Her shiny black hair is in an expertly sloppy bun.

  “Took you long enough. She’s had us haul couches for days now.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’re here for a couch, right?” the woman asks.

  “Yeah, but how—“

  “I told you, they always have what I’m looking for,” Rhys tells me quietly. He did say that, but I didn’t think he meant they’d be this spot on with their customers. I narrow my eyes, trying to figure out how they could know we wanted a couch. “Don’t think too hard about it. It is what it is. Just be thankful and hope Pythia doesn’t ask for some crazy payment.”

  Sloppy-bun is standing in front of us now. “The Pythia would never accept payment for services,” she says, but smiles. “She prefers to call them gifts.” Her smile turns into a grin. “It’s been a while since you’ve stopped by. Auntie will be happy to see you.”

  “She already did. She was dragging this,” he gestures to the couch in question, “when we walked inside.”

  She nods her head, as if heavy lifting is a common occurrence among the extremely elderly. “Ah, okay. Well, go ahead and look around. I’ll come ring you up when you find one you like,” then she also turns heel and leaves us.

  I turn to Rhys. “This is an odd shop.”

  “You get used to it.”

  I start looking around at the couches. This one’s too hard, this one is too blue. “So, the old lady is her aunt?”

  “Sort of, many many times removed. She owns the store but a few of her nieces help out around the place.”

  “She looked ancient.” Did I just say that out loud?

  Rhys laughs. “I don’t think even she remembers how old she is.”

  This couch has potential, but I’m not sure I want to relax on leather. It gets awfully sticky on bare skin.

  “So the girl helping her, what’s her name?”

  Rhys shrugs, still following me around while I finish bouncing on a sofa I’ve deemed too bouncy. “Jenny I think. After a while, all her helpers kind of blend together.”

  And I thought I was rude.

  I keep looking through the couches. I’ve seen a few that will work, but it’s hard to make a decision since nothing has a price tag. What if the one I choose is too expensive? Plus, they’re all so crammed together, I haven’t been able to comfort-test some of the ones in the back, though Rhys has been helpful so far in manhandling the couches so I can get to them.

  Jenny comes back. “Have you found the right one, yet?” she asks.

  “Um, maybe? Do you know if any of these are pullout couches?” Yeah April, ask for one that’s probably even more expensive.

  The weird screeching starts again. We both turn to see Pythia trying to drag the same couch over to us.

  “Auntie, please stop,” Jenny says, rushing over to stop the old lady. This time she’s pulling with one hand, since there is some sort of weird statue cradled in her other arm. Pythia drops the couch, shoves the whatever-it-is in Jenny’s hand, then walks over to us. She stops directly in front of me, and grabs both of my hands in hers. I try to pull them out, but beneath her paper-thin skin is a steel-like grip. She stares into my eyes, but I feel like she sees something instead of me.

  “You will know your doom when, once again, the Golden Throne before you looms…” she trails off.

  Is that a poem? What do I say? “Uh, that was lovely.” Yeah, granny is bonkers.

  “That’s enough, Pythia. We’re just here for a couch today.” Rhys isn’t impressed with the poem.

  Pythia just looks at Rhys like he’s a silly little boy, then motions for us to follow her before walking back to the couch where Jenny is still waiting. She grabs the statue thing she was carrying in earlier, and I see now that it is a statue of Hulk Hogan.

  Totally bonkers.

  When she takes the Hulk’s head off and pulls out a cookie, I’m not sure if it’s more or less weird that it’s a cookie jar instead of a statue.

  Pythia looks at Rhys and shoves the cookie at him, opening her mouth to say something.

  “I’m good,” he says before she can speak. He backs up a step, like taking the cookie would be painful. Maybe he’s had one before and they taste really bad. They certainly look strange, almost like a ruffled taco made out of really thin shortbread.

  “You know your fortune is the same no matter what, Rhys. You might as well take the cookie,” Jenny says.

  Rhys sighs, cracks open his cookie, and starts eating one half, immediately shoving a little white piece of paper into his pocket. So these little shortbread tacos are fortune cookies? I want a cookie.

  As if she heard my thoughts, Pythia shoves the jar under my nose. “You will know your doom when, once again, the Golden Throne before you looms.”

  “Er, okay.” I reach my hand in the jar and grab a cookie, open it up, and take a bite of one half, out of childhood habit saving my fortune for after I’ve finished the cookie. “These taco cookies are delicious!” I say after swallowing my first bite.

  The old lady yanks the other half of the cookie out of my hand and walks away.

  “Did I say something wrong?” I ask.

  Jenny is giggling. “She’s mad because you called her cookie a taco. It’s supposed to be a clam shell.”

  “It is?”

  She giggles harder. “Yes, and no one has had the courage to tell her how far off base she is, so she’s been passing out these little taco cookies for decades now.”

  I smack Rhys on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me they were clam shells! I probably hurt her feelings.”

  “I didn’t know what they were supposed to be, but I’m smart enough not to comment on the shape.�
� He pops the other half of his cookie into his mouth.

  I cross my arms. “I don’t care what it looks like, it was tasty. I don’t remember the last time I had a homemade cookie.” I look in the direction she left. “Do you think she’ll give me another one if I go apologize and tell her they look like clams?”

  There’s a tap on my shoulder and I jump exactly eighty-three feet into the air, because it’s Pythia and I have no idea where she came from. She’s holding a cellophane baggie full of cookies, with a handwritten label on it reading: “Fortune Tacos. Eat Only One per Day, or Else.”

  “Are these for me?” I ask, while she nods emphatically.

  “You will know your doom,” she repeats kindly, then she pats me on the shoulder, gives a gigantic yawn, then walks over to one of the couches, curls up, and falls asleep.

  I’m left watching her, my mouth is probably wide open, with a bag of cookies in one hand, and the little fortune from my earlier cookie in my other. I’ve almost forgotten about the fortune! I unfurl it. You will know your doom when, once again, the Golden Throne before you looms.

  How did she know what it said? The longer I’m in this place, the weirder it gets.

  And I still haven’t picked out a couch.

  “So, have you found the right couch yet?” Jenny asks. So I guess we’re pretending the old lady isn’t snoring on a piece of her inventory ten feet away. Okay, I can do that.

  I look around, trying to remember which ones I’ve put on my mental list of possibilities. Then my eye catches on the couch that Pythia was trying to drag in. It’s blue. Not a dark, depressing, old-man blue, but a bright one that makes me think of summer skies.

  “What about this?” I ask, walking over so I can sit on it. It bounces, but isn’t too bouncy. It’s comfortable, and I don’t feel like I sink in and have to roll around in order to get back up. “I don’t suppose this has a pull-out bed, does it?”