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I hadn’t seen anyone outside of my brother and Thatcher Reed without the use of a screen for a long time. It’d been long enough where the presence of another definitely threw me, and not only did I drop everything in my hands, ice immediately locked on and froze my entire body. Limbs wouldn’t move. Legs wouldn’t run.
And sight took hold.
Palms up, a man came out of the shadows from behind the graffiti wall, but even before he got up on me, I knew who he was. Thick curls tucked under a backward ball cap, his letterman jacket on, but he was tall and something I always took note of because I was tall too. I had a vantage point way over most girls, and I usually stared guys in the eye, even if they held a few inches over me.
But this guy, this boy I always had to look up to, and even more so than the dark prince.
“Don’t run,” he said, and I noticed I did have a leg out, arms up. I was mid-sprint and didn’t even know it. Ares patted the air. “Please don’t run.”
I blinked, staying there. I wasn’t reacting how I thought I’d react and did think if I saw him again, I would run. He’d lied to me.
But for some reason I stayed still as he gained closer, each step deliberate but cautious. His throat worked. “It’s just me.”
It’s just him.
I even looked to see, studying the corner he’d come out of. I’d been on the painted side of the wall when he’d come through.
The side we’d tagged.
Of course, it hadn’t been just us. He said his dad and him had…
“No one else knows I’m here,” he stressed and even pulled off his hat. His curls fell out of it. “I swear it’s just you and me.”
My breath accelerated, air supply short, chest tight. “How did you know I was here?”
When Bru had called me, I’d just run and had no thoughts at all where I was going. He’d tried to ask me where I’d go, but I’d hung up. I had left and come here and totally hadn’t known where I was going until I’d arrived.
Ares shifted on his shoes a beat, and where he stood, breathing appeared to be hard for him too. He took a large one after I spoke. He faced back to the wall. “I thought if it was me, I’d come here.” He pressed his hair down before sliding his hat back on. “Lots of pipes and places to hide so…”
That made sense.
“I guess I just had a feeling too or… or something.” He wet his lips. “I don’t know. I felt like you’d come here. Like I said, I would.”
I nodded, messing with my hands. He started to come closer, and I raised mine.
He did too.
“Sorry. I won’t— Fuck.” He bit his lip, nostrils flaring. Large puffs of air clouded around him, and there definitely wasn’t a lot of light going around. Besides the shitty lighting coming off the channel, there was just the minimal light pollution from the city below the hill. His hands lifted higher. “I’m not here to do anything, and I haven’t told anyone I’m here.”
He hadn’t?
“D called me after he ran into Bru, and I just hopped in my car. Started driving.” His jaw shifted. “I just want to be here, okay? No pressure, and you don’t have to come back with me or anything like that. Just…” He swallowed. “Just let me be here. Be here with you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, but definitely hadn’t expected that tightness to hit my throat. He just wanted to be here, and for some reason, I wanted him to be and what the fuck?
“Okay.” My voice cracked, like I was on the verge of fucking tears and what the fuck again.
Ares’s hands lowered. He took a step back, letting me past.
We sat at the wall.
We parked it there together in the low light, my legs out and his up. I gauged time between looking at them and at him, though he stayed facing forward.
How did I not know?
How did I not see it, our similarities? Besides us both having pretty crappy attitudes the majority of the time, this guy basically had my face if I was a boy.
It was my face.
