CHAPTER SEVEN
" Every day, I wake up, then I start to break up
Lonely is a man without love "

          IT HAD BEEN WEEKS SINCE Steven let Antonia study in the library and Antonia used every second of it to try and balance out her double life.
However, she had begun to notice Steven becoming more forgetful than he was already.

As her neighbor was running behind, Antonia sat behind the desk, filling out her take-home test. Suddenly, a small tap was heard. She turned her head to see a smiling woman. "Hi. You must be Antonia, correct?"

The girl observed the woman, a curly-haired brunette. But it hit that she is the woman who has been checking Steven out; her name is Dylan.
"Y-Yes—Yeah! Yeah, what's up?"

"Is Steven clocking in today?"

"Yes, he just runs late a lot," Antonia smirks, "He is a busy man, you know, the hard worker type."

"Really?"
"An ambitious man, what can I say."

Dylan nodded her head and smiled impressively, "Well, tell your dad to talk to me after his shift, if I don't visit him."

As the woman walked away, Antonia's face turned blank at her words.
"Wait——"

"Where the hell is Steve?"

The girl looks to Donna, who is already annoyed. "You know, it's rude to greet customers like that."

"Yeah, and it's rude for customers to sit behind the register." The woman shooed the girl away, making her move all her belongings to the small corner of the counter.
"Get Steven here now."

Antonia scrunched up her face in annoyance seeing Donna leave, as if she could control when Steven shows up. The girl just turned her head to her book, but again, she was interrupted.

"Be wary."

The girl snapped up her head from the sudden voice of her goddess.
She looked around herself for anything suspicious but there was honestly nothing.

The only thing she noticed was a little girl chewing gum and staring at a pyramid, which Antonia guessed she would stick her gum in.

"Yes. Be wary of the 8-year-old who I can punt to the wall," She whispers sarcastically.

It didn't take Antonia but 5 minutes to be interrupted once more. This time her face lit a little when seeing Steven get himself to set boxes down on the counter, with Donna already on his ass.

"Don't know how many times I have to tell you this. You're not the bloody tour guide, Stevie," Donna reminds.

"Steven, actually." He shows his name tag before snapping in on his shirt. "I am... Steven." He taps the tag.

"No, you're bloody useless unless you're actually doing what you're paid to do, which is to sell these to children." The manager pushed a small basket of candies to him.

"Who pissed in your cereal this morning?" questioned Antonia.

As much as Antonia could understand that Donna was just doing her job, Donna needed to tone down her attitude and better word her sentences. Antonia hated the way Donna talked to Steven.

The manager looked at the girl and back at her employee. "Get that girl in check before I kick her out."

As Donna leaves again, Steven looks at the Vera. "You will get me fired one day, you know that?"

"Hey, we'll be unemployed together."
Looking at her homework, she landed on history, which she always struggled with. "Can you help me with these questions?"

"Toni, last time I helped, it led to me doing all the work."

"Okay, it wasn't my fault! You were carried away with it. Besides, these assignments are piling up and my history professor just loves to believe his students don't have a life."

"Maybe," Steven answers, "and that's not a promise."

The two were interrupted by Dylan, in which Steven immediately began to become awkward.

"Hello," The woman smiles at him.

"Hello," He hums and waves.

"How's the sugar trade going?"

"I don't know what this has to do with Egypt really," He admits, "They didn't have that back then, did they? No. They liked figs and dates, and——"

"My next tour's here but just checking, we still on for 7:00 tomorrow?"

Antonia's jaw dropped as her hand let go of her pencil. Steven also seemed just as shocked as Antonia.

"'7:00 tomorrow'?"
"'Best steak in town?'" She reminds.

"Oh, y-yeah. Right. Yeah," He plays off, making Antonia turn her head to him.

Seeing the woman walk away, Steven calls to her, "Sorry, but... Are you asking me out?"

Dylan just chuckles to his confusion. "You're funny. I'll see you then."

As the tour guide walked away completely, Steven stood close enough for Antonia to repeatedly hit his shoulder in excitement. "You ass, why didn't you tell me?!"

"Stevie, you absolute rascal." Donna came into the picture. "I didn't know you had taken a crack."

"I didn't know either," He mumbled, a little starstruck.

"Hang on did she say steak? What in the world's a bloody vegan gonna eat in a steak house?"

Steven sassed, "I don't know, Donna. Salad? Bread?"

"Yeah, I can see why she went for it. Real catch you are," She grims before walking away again.

"She shouldn't be one to talk," Antonia tells him, "Ain't she in the middle of her third divorce?"

"Don't be gossiping, it's rude."

"You're the one who told me!"
"Yeah, not out loud."

As Steven began to stock his supplies, someone tapped Antonia's shoulder. The girl turned around to see Jackie.

"Girl, shouldn't you be working?"

"I got a few minutes to spare," She shrugs, "You know I'd rather talk with you than be in that job alone."

"Hey, it's not like I wanted to be fired."

But Jackie noticed something. "What's up with you?"

"What?"
"You're smiling."
"Damn, okay, let me just not smile anymore."

"You smile! This is just a lot more. What happened?"

Looking to see if he could hear, the Vera confessed, "Steven asked out Dylan."

"The tour guide?"
"Yes."
"Girl, I knew that."

"Wait, what? How did you know?"

"He asked her in the café, I saw them," Jackie explained, "You were not there that day."

"Steven? My Steven, asking out Dylan?"

"Yeah. Honestly, never seen him so confident before. I was impressed, to say the least, I didn't know he had it in him."

Antonia was equally as impressed also. She would've never thought Steven could do it, but she guessed she underestimated him.

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ANTONIA woke up abruptly.
She groaned and rubbed her eyes, trying to figure out how long she had been sleeping for. Seeing as there was barely anyone in the building, the dimming lights, and no more music, it was closing.

She quickly packed up her bag and wiped the drool from her mouth. Antonia finally saw Steven coming to close the register.

"Morning, sleepyhead," He hums, "come on, everything's already closed up."

Hauling her backpack, Antonia asked, "How long was I out?"

"An hour or two. I didn't want to wake you."

The two walked together back to the apartment complex, not without stopping to grab dinner; Steven was too tired to make something.

As Steven and Antonia had gotten closer, Antonia had been lucky enough to be in Steven's place more often. At first, Steven was reluctant to do so, as he didn't know what her parents would say, so she gave a half-ass excuse by saying that her parents were always working and never home to take care of her.

She mostly uses his apartment for studying and assignment work. If she stayed in her apartment any longer, she would've turned to Sorceress patrol, which would delay even more of her work.

His apartment was much more cozier than hers. It was furnished with wood furniture and many bookshelves and historical maps to even count. The books were more about the mythology of history than history itself, though Steven can be knowledgeable in general world history. This apartment was a history-feens dream come true. The only thing weird was the restraint latches on his four best posts.

Obviously, the first thing that came to mind when she saw that was Steven was secretly a very kinky man, but he quickly explained that he had to buy them because his sleepwalking getting worse and worse.

Other than that, Antonia did like hanging around Steven's apartment. It beats her place, it actually seemed more like a home.

As they were sitting down and eating, Steven said, "You can stay for a few more hours and you're going back home."

"What, why?"
"Because you look exhausted, Toni. You need to sleep."

She knew damn well if she walked into her apartment, she'll easily just patrol all night.

"And how about you, huh? Another all-nighter?"

Steven just grumbled and continued eating his food. It didn't take long for Antonia to finish her food, clean up, and make herself comfortable for the hours of work.

Looking at her unfinished history work, she quickly looked to Steven, who was flipping through his mountain of books.

"You know what can ease myself into sleep? If you kindly, help me with my history work," smiles the girl.

"No."
"Why?"

"'Help' means me doing all the work, while you stare and pretend you understand."

"But it's just one assignment!"
"Nope, you must work on your own."

Steven Grant had always let Antonia slide with many things. He took his food, taking his couch, but school was the one thing he was stubborn about.
Education was his biggest priority for her, especially knowing that she was a smart girl. Antonio just has trouble time-managing assignments and can't figure out her priorities.

Steven stayed focused on his work.
He kept his mind from falling asleep on him, as he listened to his tape over and over again.

Trying to fight his tiredness, the man looked to his clock, seeing that it had already hit 2 a.m., it had been almost 5 hours. Steven walked over to the couch, seeing Antonia curled and asleep.

At first, Steven stretched his arm to shake her away and send her to her apartment, but something stopped him.

Her phone was buzzing on the floor, Steven almost stepped on it if it didn't ring.

He took the phone and saw who was calling, which was named: Bitch Bridget. Minding his own business, he silenced the ringer and put her phone down on the table. Steven failed to see the multiple texts and calls from the same number.

He looked at the coffee table to see the scatter of finished and unfinished papers, mostly were just Antonia correcting wrong answers and drafting essays. The girl had a booklet rest almost fall off her lap, with a pen that is barely hanging on by her fingertips.

Steven took the pen and booklet and put it back on the table, but the booklet stood out.

It was the history assignment she wanted him to do. Most of her answers were answered — most being the short essay answers — but there were a few who were fill-in-a-blank and true or false questions.

The man kissed his teeth and he stared at the papers, then to Antonia, and back at the clock.

"... Geez."

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THE sun shined in the girl's eyes. Stirring herself awake, she looked around to see an empty apartment, but no Steven in sight.

She looked to at the table to see it had been organized in neat piles. One was her finished work, the other wasn't.
On top of the finished work was a familiar booklet with a yellow sticky note on it.

'You're lucky you're my favorite neighbor. Be back soon — Steven'

"Steven, you are a god," Antonia mutters, smiling madly.

As she began to put her stuff away, Isis stood in front of her. "Your friend was off."

"Well, it's Steven. Him being 'off' is his thing."

"No, it's not him having his habits. He closed his eyes for a moment and then he quickly grabbed his things before leaving."

"So?" Antonia shows her the note. "He's probably taking a short trip and coming back tonight."

"But it wasn't like Steven. He was different."

The girl's face contorted. "You don't think... Can sleepwalking do that?"

Isis couldn't answer what theory the girl had. The goddess stood still and silent, while Antonia watched and waited for an answer.

She saw Isis slowly grow stiff and cold. The goddess' eyes turned emotionless as her body stood up straight. Something was happening, something that only Isis could feel.

In a blink of an eye, Isis was now gone. Antonia blinked before looking around her. She couldn't feel her presence anymore, Isis was gone.

But Antonia did feel something else.
Looking around the room, something was different. The apartment was silent and empty, but it had felt like someone was there; not just Steven, her, or even Isis.

It was someone powerful, someone who could trigger her senses with ease. Isis saw this and waved her hand, making sure Antonia didn't notice it anymore.

The girl immediately stopped feeling the other presence.
Isis told her, "Make sure you use your time wisely." The goddess left quickly after.

While the girl shrugged and began to pick up her things, Isis had grabbed whoever was in the room with them and traveled outside the building; to avoid Antonia noticing. Its presence became visible to her once its back was to the concrete.

"Khonsu?"

a.n
sorry for the long awaited chapter, college life has made me busy! sadly, you have have to wait for chapters to come out like this. i'm gonna try and get update whenever i can <3