He was still staring at the floor and the area I’d been searching but stopped when I started to pass him. He put a hand out. “Wait. I want to talk to you.” He directed a finger. “And it’s Sloane, right? I heard that’s what people are calling you.”
Wow, he had a couple of brain cells up there.
Though I wondered why he actually bothered to learn something about me. I lounged back against the lockers. “What do you want? Or is my breathing bothering you now?”
I’d done less before.
He smirked at me. A couple of thirsty bitches passed him in the hallway, and he merely whipped those curls in their direction to get a giggle and red cheeks. This guy was just as full of himself as the rest of them, but I didn’t have time for it. I started to go again, but he cut me off with that long wingspan.
I frowned. “Let me by.”
“If her highness would come down from her ice castle for all of a second, I might be able to tell her I’m offering an olive branch,” he said, and my eyes twitched wide. He nodded. “This shit between us I’m over. I’m sure you’re over it too.” His eyes narrowed. “I figured we should squash it before we killed each other in the end.”
He hadn’t cared about that before, until this moment anyway.
He scrubbed into his hair. “Believe me or not. I don’t care. But here I am, and I can say I tried.”
He started to walk away now, but I cut him off this time.
He shook his head. “My time’s better spent on the field or in my art. I don’t have time for anymore sophomoric shit, despite what you may believe.” He eyed me up and down. “I also know this tense shit has become a thing between us guys. Thatcher and Wells are obviously taking up with you, and I too have to acknowledge you did Bow a solid. That girl’s like my little sis, and I’m tired of whatever this shit is between us making D look at me funny.”
Dorian was looking at him funny? I wondered why.
And he said he did art? I jerked my chin in his direction. “What kind of art?”
“What?”
I laughed. “What kind of art do you do? Painting? Sculpting?”
He studied me. “Sketch work. Specifically, I like to design.”
“Design what?”
“Stuff.”
Well, sorry. Jesus. I smirked. “I never would have taken you for an artist.”
“Well, you don’t know me. Do you?” He angled a look at me. He put a hand out. “So, are we going to squash this shit or what? I don’t want to hear it from my boys anymore.”
Honestly, I didn’t care about him or the situation with “his boys,” but I did care that, with our war, a line against the Legacy was still drawn.
That alone had me giving him my hand. “Fine.”
“Fine,” he said, a more than tense truce. But at least it was one. He let go. “I’ll see you around then. Maybe at my party tonight.”
“Party?”
He nodded. “I do them sometimes.” He eyed me. “Give me your number. I’ll text you the deets.”
I let him because I honestly was having an out-of-body experience here. No way was my luck suddenly changing like this, where Ares was acknowledging me and actually inviting me to his party. I didn’t care about this shit, but I was shocked he’d come forward.
After I gave him my number, he shot me a text. “There you go. See you tonight.”
Nodding, I backed away from the conversation, leaving him there.
“It’s a lingerie party, by the way,” he said behind me. He dashed up his thick eyebrows. “If you dare to show up now, that is.”
And he just couldn’t help himself, more than a dare in his voice. He probably thought I wouldn’t show up now. I hugged my books. “That’s if you dare to show up.”