CHAPTER SEVEN
⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚

As promised, Connor was outside the Ares cabin at promptly 9:57 p.m., waiting outside of a window to help Joey crawl out of it. When she eventually opened the window and slipped out, he caught her around the waist and gently lowered her to the ground.

"Very sneaky, you're a natural," Connor whispered, after Joey had closed and locked the window behind her.

"Would you be shocked if I told you I do this almost every night?" she asked, a small grin on her face.

Connor's jaw dropped in mock surprise. "What? No."

"Yeah." Joey nodded, shouldering her backpack. "Ready?"

"Of course." He held out his hand and she grabbed it with a smile. Together, took off running to the woods, not stopping until they reached Zeus's thumb.

"How are you not dying?" Connor panted when they'd finally stopped running, leaning over to catch his breath.

"I'm a sprinter for my school's track team," Joey said, an amused smile playing on her face. "Need some water, Stoll?"

"Water would be great."

With a small laugh, Joey reached into her bag and tossed Connor a Camp Half-Blood branded water bottle. He immediately started chugging the contents, while she took out a navy blue throw blanket and spread it in the grass.

"I thought you had orange blankets?"

Joey looked up from her bag, where she was digging around for a flashlight. "How'd you know that?"

"Since you wouldn't tell me your favorite color, I asked Clarisse." He shrugged. "She said she didn't know, but that you wore orange a lot and you had orange blankets in your bunk."

She scoffed in disbelief. "You really cared that much about my favorite color?"

"I wanted to make sure you liked your flowers," he said simply, like it was obvious.

A small grin grew on Joey's face as she watched Connor sit down on the blanket. It had been a while since someone cared for her that much. Still, she'd never had someone that desperate to make her happy that they'd reach out to someone they never got along with to find out something as simple as her favorite color.

"Are you gonna sit?" Connor asked.

Joey realized she had just been staring at him in disbelief for the last thirty seconds and quickly went back to searching in her bag.

"Yeah I just—" she dug around a bit more, "—I can't find my flashlight."

"Why do you need a flashlight to stargaze?" Connor looked up at her with furrowed brows.

"Don't make fun of me," Joey said sternly, meeting his gaze.

"Okay, I won't," he said warily. "What's up?"

"I get a little nervous being out here in the dark," she admitted quietly, pursing her lips.

"Wait are you—" Connor got to his feet, walking closer to her. "Are you afraid of the dark?"

"I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of what's in the dark," Joey stated, frustrated as if she'd had to explain this millions of times.

"Hey, don't worry." From his pocket, he pulled out a small switchblade. "I'll protect you."

"You're so stupid," she said, rolling her eyes. "Why do you even have that?"

"Just in case I get run up on."

"Who the fuck is running up on you, Connor?"

"Uh... the opps?"

"Oh my gods."

⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚

The pair spent the next twenty minutes lying on the blanket and staring at the stars. They pointed out familiar constellations, made stupid jokes, and almost got caught a couple times.

Joey thought Connor was pretty funny, surprisingly. In one night, he had made her laugh more than any other guy she's ever dated. Which wasn't saying a lot, because there were only two.

"I wanted to ask you something," Connor suddenly said, sitting up.

Joey sat up too. "As long as it's not a dumb question, I'm all ears."

"At first, why were you so determined to push me away?"

She faltered, her gaze dropping to the ground. This was a topic Joey purposely strayed away from. Telling the story made her sound weak and vulnerable, something Ares kids shouldn't be.

But this was Connor, and right now he was staring at her like she was the only girl in the world, like no one else around them existed. She noticed whenever they were together, she was his main focus. Not the strawberries on their first date, or the stars they had come out to watch, or even the ants crawling on his hands. Just her.

"I don't ever really tell people this," she finally said, looking up to meet his gaze. "I wanna tell you, but I'm afraid you'll see me differently."

"You could tell me anything, Josephine, and I'd still feel the exact same way about you."

"When I was fourteen, I had a boyfriend," Joey started, taking a brief pause to take a deep breath and look away from Connor's eyes. "I loved him just about as much as a fourteen-year-old could. I know it seems unserious because we were so young, but it felt so real and for so long he was such an important part of my life. He still is, I think."

"What happened?" Connor asked, his eyes trained on the side of her face.

"He cheated on me, like, a bunch of times." She laughed. "Looking back now, I'm surprised I didn't know."

"Gods, Joey, I'm sorry," he said.

"It's okay. It just sucked." Joey shrugged. "I mean, I trusted him and stuff, and that's kind of hard for me to do. Since him, it's been even harder."

"Do you trust me?"

Joey turned to face him again, locking eyes. "I think I do, yeah. I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

Connor reached over and clasped her hand. "I couldn't ever imagine myself hurting you. You're really great, Joey."

She squeezed his hand and smiled. "You're pretty great too, Connor."

Hesitantly, Connor leaned in. He stopped a few centimeters away from her face, meeting her eyes again.

"You're not pulling away."

"Nice observation, assface."

With that, Joey cupped his jaw and closed the gap between them. The kiss was slow and gentle, like they were just testing the waters. Connor pulled away, his stupid grin back on his stupid face.

"Did Josephine Barquero just kiss me?" he asked humorously, letting go of her hand and placing his on her waist.

"Just shut up and kiss me again."

MATTHEO.
I've never been on a 1on1 date before so if this isn't how they go then that's my bad fr 🙌

Also writing this made me miss my ex should I text him!?

Also also this isn't grammar checked so don't do too much