Tera Childs - Oh. My. Gods.

He grins with that cocky smile. “Considering how pissed you are at me, I’ll take that as a hell yes.”

“Whatever.” I roll my eyes.

But he’s right.

We run half a mile in silence. My eyes trained on the horizon, my mind trained on the rhythm. Step, step, step, breathe. Our footfalls are perfectly timed. Step, step, step, breathe. From the corner of my eye I see his chest rise and fall in time with my every breath. Step, step, step-“You’ll get over being mad at me.”

“Not likely.”

Step, step, step“I promise not to gloat about it when you do.”

“I won’t.”

Step, step, step“Because I want to be with you so badly I don’t care if you’re screaming at me the whole time as long as I’m with you.”

I stop dead in my tracks.

Two steps later, Griffin notices I’ve stopped and jogs back to me.

“We have another mile to go,” he says, as if I’ve stopped because I think we’re done. Then his face wrinkles up in concern. “Did you hurt your ankle again? I thought you said it was completely…”

“Did you mean that?”

“… healed. What?”

“Did you mean what you just said?”

“Of course I did.” He kneels down and inspects my ankle. “Now tell me-”

I grab him by the arm and pull him back up. “My ankle is fine.”

He looks at me funny for a second before that cocky smile comes back. “Oh. Good.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Good.”

“I am sorrier than you can imagine,” he says.

“Yeah-” I take a deep breath. “I know.”

“Does that mean I’m-”

“Forgiven? No.” I smile when his face falls. “Not yet.”

His smile returns.

“But you will be.”

With one small step he closes the distance between us. My heart starts racing as he lifts his hand to my cheek. His fingertips hover over my temple. I can feel his heat even though he isn’t actually touching me.

Then he leans forward-like in slow motion-until his face is micrometers from mine.

The smile in his bright blue eyes vanishes. My eyes flutter closed-the anticipation is killing me. I haven’t kissed anyone since that jerk I used to date-what was his name?-and I feel like I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone more than I want to kiss Griffin Blake right now.

His lips brush mine. Barely. Just a tickle, really.

But it’s more than enough.

My entire body sparks like the fireworks from bonfire night.

It takes me a few seconds to realize he’s not kissing me anymore.

I reluctantly open my eyes to find him inches away. His smile is back.

“Come on,” he says, taking me by the hand. “I promised Coach I’d give you a good workout.” He tugs and I stumble after him.

“We’ve got another mile left on our warm-up. Then the real work begins.”

Hand in hand-okay, so it’s not the best training technique-we finish our run. And the rest of the workout.

All I can think the whole time is, “When did my life get so good?”

“MORNING,” GRIFFIN SAYS when he appears at my locker.

“Want an escort to Tyrant’s class?”

He leans in and kisses me, really briefly, on the lips.

“I thought you’d never ask,” I say, still marveling at how much my life has changed since yesterday. “Do you want to go into the village after school?”

I grab my copy of Ulysses and throw it in my bag.

When Griffin doesn’t answer, I add, “Maybe we could go for ice cream.”

After zipping up my backpack, I slam my locker shut and turn to take my place at Griffin’s side. That’s when I see why he stopped talking.

Nicole and Troy are standing a few feet away, looking like they’re contemplating murder. Great, I wanted the chance to tell them about this before they saw us together. To explain before they jump to conclusions.

Then Griffin shows up at my locker and I forget all my good intentions.

“Hey guys,” I say, trying to sound like everything’s perfectly normal. “What’s up?”

“What are you doing with him?” Nicole demands.

Troy doesn’t say anything, just crosses his arms over his blink tee and glares.

“I should go,” Griffin says as he starts to back away.

“No,” I say, grabbing his arm. “Don’t go.” If he and I are going to be together, then Nicole and Troy come with the package. It’ll be better for everyone if we air things out now.

He moves to my side and I slip my arm around his. Nicole’s scowl deepens.

“As of yesterday,” she says, sneering, “you hated his guts.”

“I know.” I squeeze his arm tighter so he knows that’s all changed.

“But we talked things through.”

“You were nothing but a bet to him,” Troy finally says.

“No!” Griffin shouts. “That’s not true. It was never just about the bet.”

Nicole snorts. “Right, as if we’d ever trust anything you say.”

There’s a sudden tension in the air, an electricity that’s about something much more deep-rooted than my fight with Griffin.

Nicole looks ready to unleash her powers on him, regardless of the consequences.

They’ve kept their feelings about the past-about whatever ended their friendship and disrupted their parents’ lives-long enough. I know that Troy is mainly upset out of loyalty to me, for the heartache Griffin had caused, and to Nicole, for whatever she believes Griffin did to her. If we work through the problem with Nicole… well, at least it will be a start.

“I think it’s time to confront the past.” Boy, do I sound like therapist Mom, or what? “Both of you have been avoiding this for too long.”

“I’m not avoiding anything,” Nicole snaps, “except a lying, two faced traitor.” She spits on the ground before turning and stalking away.

I nudge Griffin in the ribs and he steps forward.

“Nicole, wait,” he says. “Phoebe is right.”

She doesn’t turn around or say anything, but she stops walking away.

“We were friends once,” Griffin continues. “Can’t we put the past behind us? I know that things ended badly with us-”

“Badly?” She spins around. “Badly!? Considering everything that happened, I think ‘badly’ is an understatement.”

Griffin steps back from her outrage. I grab his hand and lace our fingers together-for support… and to keep him from running. He squeezes tight and I can feel his pulse racing. He is just as skilled at hiding his emotions as Nicole, and they are not going to work through this without help.

“He wasn’t trying to diminish the past,” I say. “He just wants to talk about-”

“Forget it, she doesn’t want to talk,” Griffin interrupts. “I’m sorry for whatever you think I did back then and for whatever harm you think I caused, but I think you’re exaggerating the situation.”

Nicole looks like she’s trying to burn a hole right through his skull. “My father lost his job and my parents got exiled from the island.”

“And mine got banished from the face of the Earth.”

“It’s nothing more than they deserved,” she says, her entire body shaking with rage.

Griffin jerks back like he’s been slapped in the face. So that’s what happened to his parents. Wrapping my free hand around our laced fingers, I concentrate on sending every ounce of compassion and sympathy I can to him. His hand relaxes and I can tell that he’s calming down.

Nicole keeps going. “If you hadn’t been so self-centered, if you had only told the council where we were-”

“I did,” he whispers, his words echoing through the ancient halls.

Nicole stares at him, blinking. “You-what?”

“I did tell them,” he says, his voice steady. “I told the high council that we were the ones that stole the nectar of the gods and fed it to Hera’s son.”

“Oh my gods,” Troy gasps. He’d been silent and huddled against the lockers up to this point, so what Griffin just said must have been really bad.

“What?” I ask.

“If a god consumes ambrosia before the age of two, it steals his immortality,” Griffin, not taking his eyes off Nicole, explains. “I told them that we didn’t know. We were only seven, for Zeus’s sake.”

“Y-you did?” Nicole stammers, as if she can’t believe what Griffin said. “You told them?”

“I did.”

“Then why-”

“My parents insisted I was lying to protect them.” The muscles of his jaw clench and I can tell he’s boiling with emotion-he has been holding on to this since his parents disappeared more than ten years ago.

I lift our joined hands and kiss his palm.

He adds, “They took the punishment that should have been mine.”

For the longest time, Nicole just stares at him. My heart breaks for her. She has been holding on to this resentment for such a long time, too. It must be hard to realize that all those years of resentment were misplaced.

Finally, eyes glistening, she says, “And mine.” She wipes roughly at the tears. “It was my idea.”

Then she does the most surprising thing. She rushes forward and pulls Griffin into a hug. Now, I haven’t known Nicole for all that long, but I think it’s safe to say that public displays of affection-or any display of affection-is not really her thing.

“All these years,” she says, her voice tight. “You were my best friend and I blamed you-”

“Shhh,” Griffin says, squeezing my hand tighter and using his other to stroke Nicole’s back. “I came to grips with my guilt a long time ago. Don’t you pick up where I left off.”

It could be his hero instinct compelling him to make her feel better, but something tells me that this is as much about Griffin healing as it is about Nicole. That’s a lot of anguish for them to carry. Hercules has nothing to do with this.