Chapter 2: Catering and Carnal Echoes
The Pacific below the restaurant terrace was a vast, breathing sheet of hammered bronze under the late afternoon sun. Ted watched a container ship, a tiny silent smudge on the horizon, inching toward a future he couldn’t imagine. The scent of rosemary and garlic from the kitchen was meant to be comforting. It just made him queasy.
“And then she had the nerve to suggest succulents,” Kathy said, her voice cutting through the hum of other diners. She leaned forward, her hazel eyes bright. “Succulents. For the centerpieces. I said, ‘Margo, this is a wedding, not a rooftop terrace in Silver Lake.’” She laughed, a warm, familiar sound, and took a delicate bite of a miniature crab cake. “You’re not eating.”
Ted looked down at his plate. The food was a beautiful, meaningless arrangement. “Not that hungry. Long day.”
“The Montgomery venue finally signed off?” she asked, dabbing the corner of her mouth with her napkin.
“Yeah. Signed off.” The words tasted like a lie. He’d called in sick today, something he never did. He’d spent hours in his shower, scrubbing at his skin until it was raw, trying to erase the scent of her. It was still there, woven into him like a new chemical signature.
“Good. One less thing.” Kathy reached across the table and squeezed his hand. Her fingers were cool, her grip firm and assured. Her engagement ring—a modest, sensible diamond he’d saved for—glinted in the candlelight. “Because we need to finalize our own tasting menu next week. The caterer is booking into fall.”
“Right.” He pulled his hand back to pick up his water glass. Condensation ran over his fingers. “Whatever you think is best.”
Kathy’s smile softened, but her eyes got that slightly scrutinizing look, the one she used when assessing a property’s potential flaws. “Ted? You’ve been miles away all afternoon. Is it work? Something else?”
He could tell her. The thought flashed, absurd and terrifying. A goddess showed up in my studio and fucked me on my drafting table. She says she’s here to win my heart. I think she already has my soul. He took a long drink. The water did nothing for the dryness in his throat. “Just tired. Burned the midnight oil on those blueprints. You know how it gets.”
“I do.” She nodded, satisfied with the practical explanation. It was a language she understood: work, fatigue, deadlines. Not divine intervention. Not possession. “Well, you’re here now. With me.” She gestured at the view, the elegant setting. “This is the life we’re building. It’s okay to enjoy it.”
The life they were building. A spreadsheet of a life. Venues, menus, mortgage payments. A photo album of predictable joys. He had wanted it. He still wanted it, didn’t he? It was safe. It was real.
But then his mind betrayed him. It replayed the crush of her hips, the searing tightness, the sound of his name on her lips—not “Ted” as a name, but as an incantation. The way the room had glowed. The feeling of being not just wanted, but consumed. It had been a week, and the memory had not faded. It had fossilized inside him.
“...so I think we should go with the peonies after all,” Kathy was saying. “Even though they’re seasonal, the florist guaranteed she can source them. The blush pink, not the coral. Ted?”
He blinked. “Sorry. What?”
“The peonies. Blush pink. Yes or no?” There was a faint edge in her voice now, a tiny crack in her patience.
“Yeah. Sounds great. Perfect.” He forced a smile, the one he used for difficult clients. It felt like a poorly fitted mask.
Kathy studied him for a long moment. The candle between them guttered in a soft breeze from the ocean. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” she asked, her tone quieter, less certain now. “This isn’t just about work. Is it… cold feet?”
The question was so human, so painfully ordinary, it almost broke him. Cold feet. If only it were that simple. A chill you could warm up. This was a permanent winter in his bones.
“No,” he said, and it was the most honest thing he’d said all day. “No cold feet. I love you, Kath.”
She reached for his hand again, and this time he let her hold it. Her touch was anchoring. It was everything he was supposed to want. “I love you too. It’s a big change. It’s normal to feel… unmoored sometimes.”
Unmoored. He was adrift in a sea he hadn’t known existed, and the only star in the sky was a goddess on a cruel wager.
The waiter came to clear their plates. As he leaned between them, Ted caught a scent on the man’s uniform. Not rosemary. Not garlic. Orange blossom and salt spray.
His head snapped up. The waiter was just a guy, maybe twenty-five, with a tired smile and a nametag that read ‘Marc.’
“Everything okay, sir?” Marc asked.
“Fine,” Ted muttered, his heart pounding against his ribs. He was hallucinating. He was losing his mind.
Kathy ordered coffee. Ted excused himself to the men’s room.
He splashed cold water on his face and stared at his reflection in the ornate mirror. He looked the same. Tousled hair, earnest eyes shadowed with guilt. A kind-hearted architect. A loyal fiancé. The man in the photo at Big Sur. But the man in the reflection felt like a ghost, a shell housing a chaos he couldn’t control.
He pulled out his phone, a stupid, compulsive move. No messages. No missed calls. What was he expecting? A divine text? He opened his photos. There was the sequence from last weekend: Kathy holding up paint samples for the guest room, smiling. Him pretending to consider Sage Green versus Coastal Fog. A future in muted tones.
His thumb swiped left by accident, and he was in a older folder. Work scans. Close-ups of structural details. And there, between a concrete spec sheet and a window trim diagram, was a photo he had no memory of taking.
It was his studio, from that night. A blurry, dark shot, taken from a low angle, as if the phone had been on the floor. The edge of his drafting table was in sharp focus. And on the floor beside it, unmistakable, was the small, golden statue of Aphrodite he kept on his shelf. It was glowing, emitting a faint, ethereal light that illuminated the dust in the air.
He dropped the phone into the sink with a clatter. It landed screen-up, the image still displayed. That soft, impossible glow.
“Found you.”
The voice came from the doorway to the restroom. Not Marc the waiter. This voice was a melody.
He turned slowly.
She was leaning against the doorframe, one ankle crossed over the other. She wore impossibly tight white jeans and a simple black tank top, an outfit that somehow looked both casual and like a declaration of war. Her golden hair was piled in a messy knot. She held a martini glass, the olive sinking slowly.
“You’re not here,” he whispered.
“I’m wherever you are, right now,” Venus said, taking a slow sip. Her eyes traveled over him, from his damp hair to his shoes, with proprietary amusement. “The restaurant is lovely. A little… beige for my taste. But the view is almost as good as the one from my temple in Cnidus.” She pushed off the doorframe and took a step inside. “How’s the fiancée? The crab cakes were a bit dry, don’t you think?”
“Get out.” The words had no force.
“Or what? You’ll call for help?” She smiled, setting her glass on the edge of a sink. “You see, Ted, that’s the fun part. You won’t.” She closed the distance between them. He was backed against the cool marble counter. She didn’t touch him, just let her presence envelop him, that heat, that scent. It overwhelmed the sterile lemon cleaner. “You’re thinking about me right now. While she’s talking about peonies, you’re thinking about the way I felt around you. You’re thinking about my mouth.”
“Stop it.”
“You’re wondering when you can see me again.” She did touch him then, a single finger tracing the line of his jaw. A spark shot straight to his groin. “The answer is tonight. Your place. After she’s asleep.”
“I’m not doing this.”
“You already are.” She leaned in, her lips a breath from his ear. “The wager isn’t just for me anymore, Ted. It’s for you. What do you truly want? The safe harbor?” She glanced toward the terrace, where Kathy waited. “Or the storm?”
She pulled back, picked up her martini, and walked out. The door sighed shut behind her.
Ted stood there, trembling. He grabbed his phone, frantically swiped back to the photo of the paint samples. The glowing statue was gone. The image was just a blurry, dark shot of his floor.
He stumbled back to the table. Kathy was sipping her coffee, looking out at the ocean. She turned, and her smile was worried.
“You were gone a while. Everything okay?”
“Fine,” he said, his voice too loud. He sat down. The candle had burned lower. “Just… ran into someone I knew. From college. Briefly.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Nobody.” He reached for his own coffee, his hand shaking so badly the cup rattled in the saucer. He put it down. “Kathy. What if… what if love isn’t just about showing up? What if it’s about being set on fire?”
She frowned, then gave a soft, understanding laugh. “That’s just the movies, Ted. Fire burns out. What’s left? Ashes.” She covered his shaky hand with hers, steadying it. “I’d rather have something that lasts. Something real. Wouldn’t you?”
He looked at their joined hands on the crisp white tablecloth. He thought of another table, of blueprints tearing beneath him. He thought of a glow that left no ash.
“Yeah,” he lied, the word crumbling in his mouth. “Something real.”
But as he looked past her, toward the restaurant’s entrance, he saw a flash of gold hair in the departing crowd. And he knew, with a certainty that hollowed him out, that he would be waiting for the storm.