I didn't really see the appeal of climbing trees, but apparently Will did, and somehow, between his big puppy-dog eyes and nearly overbearing enthusiasm, he'd managed to convince me to climb into an oak tree at the edge of the forest with him, although I had refused to go any higher than the very lowest branch. That didn't seem to matter to Will, though, he was content to sit on our branch, swinging his legs back and forth while humming quietly to himself.

We were sitting close enough that Will's thigh was pressed against my own, and I was trying to ignore the faint blush that didn't show signs of fading from my cheeks any time soon. "So, you brought me up here bec- WILL!" I yelped as he dropped backwards, and almost fell off the branch in my panic before I noticed that he was still hanging on with his legs.

He was laughing at me now, with his arms crossed over his chest, the only thing keeping his shirt from falling the rest of the way over his torso. I had to look over my shoulder to glare down at him, "Not funny, Solace."

"Actually, it's hilarious. You should've seen your face."

I rolled my eyes, "It's not half as bad as your face on a regular basis."

"I am hurt that you would say such a thing, di Angelo."

"I have the worst taste in men," I muttered.

Will attempted to crane his neck and look up at me, "What was that?"

I glared at him again, no matter how many times I did it, it never seemed to faze him. "You're going to pass out, get back up here."

He uncrossed his arms to tug on my shoe lightly, which made his Calf Half-Blood T-shirt drop down past his chest. It was all I could do to keep my blushing to the bare minimum. "You should try it. It's fun!"

"There is no way in the entire Underworld that I am hanging from a branch by nothing but my legs." I wiggled my foot, attempting to shake his hand off, which just made him grab my ankle with an evil smirk, "I hate you."

"Come on, Neeks. Live a little!"

"Just because I'm a child of Hades does not mean that I can't live."

"Oh, really?"

"Really."

He gave me his best challenging smirk, "Then, why aren't you down here yet?"

I didn't even think twice about dropping backwards to hang next to him just so that I could glare at him pointedly, my arms crossed stubbornly over my chest.

He smiled at me, his eyes half-lidded in a way that made me gulp audibly at the abrupt change in atmosphere. "Do you want to know the real reason I wanted you to come down here?"

I was noticing all over again that our sides were barely a centimeter from being flush against one another and he was reaching out to tug lightly on a strand of my hair, which just made the entire thing that much worse. My mouth opened and closed unhelpfully, which just made his smirk grow even wider.

"So I could do this." Our faces were already so close together that Will barely had to lean forward at all to press his lips against mine.

I was frozen for half a second, trying to process exactly what was happening.

He's kissing me. Oh my gods, he's actually kissing me.My thoughts seemed slow and sluggish, which might have been from the amount of blood flooding down to my head, but I wasn't really thinking about that. I was more focused on warmth was spreading through my chest and how his hands had settled themselves tentatively on my waist.

My arms hovered in the air, unsure what exactly to do with themselves, before they slowly found their way to his face and my fingers brushed over his cheekbones. He deepened the kiss slightly and my thoughts turned to Jell-O, my muscles relaxing as I moved my lips with his.

I only remembered that I was hanging upside down when my legs slipped and my eyes flew open a millisecond before I was falling through the air with a drawn out, startled yelp and then crashing to the ground in a heap of limbs and new bruises.

Will's laughter echoed above me, which I answered with a low moan of pain. He grabbed onto the branch and pulled his legs over his head to flip gracefully out of the tree and land in a crouch beside me. "I've got to hand it to you, Nico, you really are a man of action. I didn't think you'd be falling for me so soon."

I punched his leg weakly, "Shut up, Solace. Aren't you supposed to be going all worried doctor on me, making sure I'm okay? I'm pretty sure laughing at wounded people doesn't fit into your job description."

Will snorted, "You're not that wounded, Nico, the most serious injury you're going to have is the bruise on your back. Believe me, I can tell."

I glared up at him, grunting in pain. "Easy for you to say."

He batted his eyelashes at me, "Do you want me to kiss it better?"

I hit him in the arm, harder this time, so that he actually pouted at me that it hurt, but truthfully, I didn't think that that sounded half bad.

"C'mere..." I muttered, pulling him down by the collar to kiss me again, properly this time, and he smiled against my lips.