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“What?”
His shoulders lifted. “Your guardian. You said he stepped in. How?”
Not that any of that was his fucking business. I cuffed my arms. “It was all my dad. Apparently, he left a will?” Ares’s eyebrow arched slowly, and I nodded. “Anyway, my brother and I didn’t know about it. It named Callum as our guardian.”
Ares cuffed his arms now, his head still angled. “Callum.” His lips pinched tight. “You’re saying your dad left you with him? Had the foresight to do such a thing when he had all these problems like you said?”
One of his problems had been paranoia, so I guessed that hadn’t really surprised me when I thought it.
Ares leaned forward. “He left a will when it didn’t sound like y’all had a whole lot.”
Surprisingly enough, it didn’t sound like he was making fun of me for once. I shrugged. “Our dad was really paranoid. Suffered from anxiety and mental illness.”
I studied that pass over Ares’s face. Again, I had no idea why I was telling him this stuff. It was just pouring out, all this a lot. Maybe it’d been a long time coming since I’d been stressed.
I scrubbed my face. “Look. I committed to you, and I’m going to be here.” He had me locked in on that in case he’d forgotten. “But I need my phone. It won’t get in the way, and this may sound stupid to you, but I need to look out for my little brother. I know he’s seventeen. I know that, but he’s sick, and he’s all I have.”
There was so much truth in that, and though that may look different from the outside, that was true. Callum had given us stuff, but it was temporary.
His lips pursing, Ares kept silent, and it was obviously pointless to try to reach the human part of him. I sat on a stool, phone in hand, and he came around the car.
“It’s not dumb,” he said, and my eyes flashed. He frowned. “I have brothers too. They’re not blood, but I do. And I have Bow.” He paused, his jaw shifting. “She’s my sister. The guys my brothers. So no, it’s not dumb.”
I knew he had them, and though I didn’t have that kind of bond, I didn’t know if it’d feel the same. Thatcher and Bow probably had a connection that he’d never had with her. There’s nothing wrong with that, but they weren’t blood.
Blood was different, I think.
Of course, I didn’t know the alternative, so I couldn’t say, and in his silence this time, Ares tapped the car.
“We can’t start like this,” he grunted, grabbing a hoodie off the car. He slid it on over his head. “Let’s go on a field trip. The energy is all fucked in here, and we can’t start that way.”
I agreed about the energy being fucked, but what kind of field trip?
What that apparently was had him heading to his car. He opened the door. “Come on. I got a place where we can get out of these negative vibes. I don’t work well in my head.”
Had what I said managed to affect him in some way and, I don’t know, actually give me some fucking sympathy?
Maybe not, but he was right about one thing. I didn’t work well in my head either.
I got up. “Where we going?”
Of course, he didn’t say, looming by his big-ass ride. Smirking, I got my own hoodie. I zipped it over my clothes, and even though it was against my better judgment, I did get in his Hummer. The thing was honestly built for combat, not a teenage boy.
It did fit him, though, both obnoxious and large. Ares definitely liked to have a big presence.
“Get ready to put some work in,” he said, revving the thing up. Sometime between getting in the car and turning it on, he’d lit a joint. The thing currently smoked from the side of his lips. He grinned around it. “But by the end of it, we’ll actually be able to get some stuff done here.”
*
Ares’s field trip was only a partial ride. The rest was a fucking trek through the sewage systems of Maywood Heights, and he had us huffing it the whole way. My only saving grace was there was no actual sewage going through the pipes, and Ares did stress the city used these for rainwater to prevent flooding.
Still, I was ankle deep in shit and muck. He’d driven us to the outskirts of town, and only the arrogance of the abundant and privileged would allow someone to leave their expensive-ass Hummer out and about for anyone to take. We literally left it behind to take the pipes, and Ares not only did it, but acted like he’d done it many times before. His next move was to throw me a bag from the back of his trunk, and it was heavier than shit. He strapped one about twice the size on his own back and had the nerve to sprint after that. He left me behind for a good solid length before realizing. He stopped every few feet for me to catch up and didn’t hesitate to flash that smug fucking grin of his.
“We really got to get your cardio up, little,” he said, jogging backward. We’d made it out of the pipes at this point, walking a concrete channel that water from the pipes spilled off into. He smirked. “It’s a good thing you’re not running for your life.”
Yeah, good thing, and fuck me for taking a hit of his joint when he’d offered it. I hadn’t smoked in a while, and the buzz definitely wasn’t helping my situation.
It only seemed to push more power into Ares’s football legs, but I had enough energy to realize that I’d been insulted again.
