Goddess (Starcrossed)

because that’s what he did. The only thing I can do is stay away from her, like she told me to. The problem is . . . I don’t know if I can do that.”
    “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Helen said sadly, hugging the other side of the bag.
    “Oh, the irony. Right?” he joked, and then frowned suddenly. “But you’ve got other possibilities.”
    “And you don’t?” Helen laughed. “Or is it just that you’ve already slept with every other hot girl in the world, and there’s no one left?”
    “I’m serious,” Hector said, no longer smiling. “Do you feel anything for Orion, or is it like you and Matt? He’s too much of a pal to you?”
    “No, that’s definitely not it.” She thought about what Morpheus had revealed to her—that in some ways she might want Orion even more than she wanted Lucas. “I’m really attracted to Orion.”
    “And do you care about him?”
    “A lot.”
    “Then commit yourself to him.” Hector regarded Helen with complete candor. “They’re both waiting for you to make a choice. And none of you are going to move on until you do. You , Helen. You have to make this choice.”
    Helen wanted to shout “Lucas,” but she pictured the disgusted look that she knew Hector would give her for preferring her cousin over Orion, and swallowed Lucas’s name. “I have,” she said with more conviction than she felt. “I have,” she repeated.
    Hector smirked at her. “The first time you said, ‘I have’ was pretty believable. The second? Not so much.”
    “What am I going to do?” she groaned in response, hitting her forehead against the bag. “I feel like a Ping-Pong ball.”
    “I think we both need to get out of here and do something useful.” He caught her around the neck in a playful headlock and led her toward the stairs. “Come on, Princess. Let’s go see if your father’s store is still standing.”
    Hector and Helen loaded some spare lumber from the shed, a tool kit, and a box of nails into the back of Hector’s truck. After a brief argument about whether or not Hector should take the chance of being seen, it became apparent that if he didn’t get out of the house that currently sheltered Andy, he was going to run screaming through the streets, anyway, so Helen reluctantly agreed. She put her foot down about who drove, though. Helen took the wheel for the trip past her house to make sure it was okay, and then on to the News Store while Hector hid in the back.
    Hector stayed out of sight inside the store, sweeping up glass and debris left over from the riot while Helen took the ladder from the storeroom out to the front and began nailing boards over the broken windows. It was depressing work. Every time she looked around, Helen was reminded that the store could be rebuilt, but it would never be the same again. Not really. As she climbed a ladder and started boarding up the smashed front windows, Helen realized that some things stay a little bit broken forever—even after they’ve been fixed.
    Lost in her thoughts, Helen didn’t notice that someone had come up behind her on the sidewalk.
    “You know what? If that board was any more crooked, it’d come back ’round the other way and be straight as an arrow,” Orion said from the ground behind her, like he was in awe of how rotten a job she’d done. “Are you drunk?”
    Helen’s shoulders started shaking with laughter. “No! I’ve never done this before!”
    “Apparently.” He grinned up at her and motioned for her to come down off the ladder. Laughing, she climbed down and stood next to him. “Still got both your thumbs?” he asked, inspecting her hands. He took the hammer away from her like it might bite her. “Better give this to the professional.”
    “Professional, huh?” Helen didn’t doubt it. She’d taken a peek at his driver’s license when she’d accidentally stolen his jacket and wallet, and she knew that he was cleared to operate heavy machinery.
    “I’ve worked a couple of construction sites. Built some houses,” he said, a cagey smile on his face, like he’d done more than just that.
    “Jewelry maker, carpenter . . . you’re a real jack-of-all-trades,” she said, smiling up at him.
    “Yeah. Of all trades that pay jack,” he added with a shy chuckle.
    “Hey, you’re a son of Aphrodite. You could have taken the easy way out. Puckered up those pretty lips for some rich woman and made her fall so madly in love with you she just had to give you a diamond mine or