Dpov

I cut the blow torch and pushed up my welding helmet to get a better look at chariot I was repairing, only to feel a twinge of annoyance as I saw the pile of weapons and armor I had yet to start working on.

'Why did I do this to myself?' I thought a little annoyed, going back to the axel, trying not to think of how much work I still had to get done before lunch. 'Why do I always take on more than I should?'

My muscles were sore from working in the shop all week and for a moment, I thought I might be regretting the discount I'd given any and all campers on equipment repairs.

I sighed for a moment and looked at the stairs that lead to the shop door, wondering if I should take a break, but then I remembered what was facing me out there if I did.

Who was I kidding? I wanted this much work.

Satisfied with the chariots repair, I moved on to a piece of armor that had a crack in the chest plate, trying not to dwell on the fact that I was being extremely underpaid…

But I would take that over Heather.

That was someone that I never wanted to think about again. In fact, I'd probably have been willing to do all this work for free if it kept me busy.

I shook my head, trying to push her out of my mind while going through the motions of the repair, but it was an easy fix, the motions almost automatic for me at this point, and since it didn't have to focus, my mind was sent right back to the place I'd taken all this work on to avoid.

Walking in on my girlfriend of three years, making out with that stupid, smug Son of Apollo.

Even thinking about it now still had my jaw clenching and set my blood to boil.

Ignoring my growling stomach, I decided to work through lunch and just get as much as I could done, when I heard the shop doors open, and the metal music that had been blasting over the speakers cut out.

"Dex!" a voice shouted bouncing off the walls of the workshop.

Confused, and somewhat annoyed, I looked up to see Priya, one of my younger sisters leaning over the railing that looked over the shop.

"Yeah?"

Though she was only fifteen, Priya was tall for her age, and was probably one of the most outgoing members of Cabin 9. She had long dark hair that fell over her shoulder and past the metal rail as she looked down at me, and I was surprised that above the safety googles she wore around her neck, was a smirk.

"I have someone looking for you."

For some reason, her smirk grew at this and I was almost certain I did not want to know why.

"Well whoever it is, tell them I'm busy." I said going back to the armor.

I had way too much to do already. I couldn't take on any more jobs.

"I reeaalllyy think you'll want to talk to them." She said dragging out the word, her tone heavy with an implication I didn't like.

"I don't want to talk to anyone." I said stubbornly gesturing towards the pile on my work bench. "I've got stuff to do."

"She's from cabin 10." She said in a persuasive tone and suddenly, I realized why she was smirking.

Cabin 10 was where the Aphrodite demigods stayed at Camp Half-Blood.

"Well then I'm sure whatever she wants, someone else can handle it."

Getting involved in something that had to do with them was just asking for trouble.

"Dex," Priya said, now a bite of impatience in her tone, "She's gorgeous and she asked for you specifically. By name."

"Fine." I said irritated, tossing my hammer back on my bench, making sure it banged loudly as I started to make my way towards the stairs.

Priya didn't seem to hear it however. She simply smiled and said.

"Excellent."

Why a daughter of Aphrodite was asking for me, or even knew my name, I wasn't sure. But, unlike most of my brothers I was sure, I wasn't happy about it. Ten to one it was just some daddy's little princess type who wore too much make up and heard that I was repairing a ton of camper's equipment this week, and thought she could flirt her way to me fixing her cell phone.

'Well,' I thought with irritation, the steps clanking as my work boots hit the metal. 'She's going to be in for a rude awakening.'

I didn't care how 'gorgeous' Priya, or even the girl herself, thought she was. I was done with beautiful girls. They could all go to Hades by way of express lane as far as I was concerned.

"Don't look so grumpy Dex." She said turning her dark eyes skyward, clearly not amused by my attitude.

"I've got work to do."

"You've been at it for hours, you can take a break," she said stubbornly, putting her hands in her pockets sounding unconcerned. "Besides," she shrugged. "It's almost lunch time anyways."

I didn't answer this, but followed her through the shop door and back into the main part of Cabin 9.

It looked a lot like the lower level, metal and equipment everywhere, only instead of the walls being crowded with work benches, they were lined with bunks. Each bunk, along with tools, had more personal things attached to them. Most of them were things like speakers or computer set ups, but occasionally you found something a little weird like Priya's 3D printer.

I expected the Aphrodite girl to be waiting outside, but was a little surprised to see her standing next to my bed, apparently interested in the tower of my PC set up.

"Well," I said snapped, feeling my eyes narrow as I saw her inspecting the RGB casing. I didn't like people messing with my stuff. "I'm here. What do you want?"

She straightened, her long dark hair slipping past her shoulder and falling down her back. And when she turned, even I had to admit that yes, she was gorgeous.

"You're Dex, right?" She asked with a smile. "Dex Cartwright?"

Her eyes were a bright shade of blue and were looking at me with interest. She'd paired the orange camp shirt that everyone wore with a pink skirt, and somehow, made it look as if it belonged on the magazine cover she appeared to have stumbled out of. Photoshop and all.

I didn't know what was more amazing, the fact she'd found a way to make that shade of orange look fashionable, or that she hadn't gotten some sort of grease on her skirt within five seconds of being inside this cabin. My experience had always been that in here, the more expensive the fabric, the faster it was trashed.

"Yeah." I said stiffly crossing my arms over my chest.

Something about the girl seemed familiar, but not enough to be recognizable which surprised me. I might have been annoyed, but I wasn't blind. If a girl like this had been at camp long, any guy with a pulse would have at least known her name.

"What do you want?"

I put her at about my age, seventeen or eighteen and while year or two ago, I would have probably been thrilled someone that looked like her knew my name. Now I just wanted to get her out my cabin and away from my stuff.

"I was hoping I could talk to you." she said throwing me a stunning smile, that I refused to acknowledge. "See if you might be willing to do me a favor."

'There it is.' I thought, something more than just annoyed at this point.

Of course, she wanted something from me.

"What's a matter princess? You break your boyfriend's Xbox or something?" I asked raising an eyebrow, ignoring the glare of indignation Priya was throwing in my direction. "Because flirting with me won't get you a better rate for a repair. You should have asked a week ago. I'm all booked."

I could tell she was surprised by my rudeness, but I didn't care. I'd been in situations like this before, where a girl thought she could come running to the shop and bat her eyelashes to get something fixed. Apart from being good with battle equipment, I was sort of the go to guy around camp for tech repair.

"My Xbox is fine actually." She said tossing her hair over her shoulder casually and inspecting perfectly polished nails. "And I don't have a boyfriend." She glanced back at me with a sly smile. "Actually, that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. Princess."

I felt my eyebrows shoot up as Priya let out a laugh, and I wasn't sure what was more surprising. What she'd said, or how she'd ended it. I didn't think anyone had ever called me princess before. I was nearly 6'4".

"What? You don't like the term of endearment?" she asked with obvious sarcasm. "My name's Lore by the way. Since you didn't ask."

She was clearly fishing for an apology and if she'd been polite about it, she might have gotten one, but I wasn't having it. Not after being called princess.

"Lore?" I asked skeptically. Was that a real name?

She seemed to catch my line of thought.

"Short for Lorelei."

Somehow, this didn't seem any better.

"Alright, Lore." I said putting an emphasis on the name. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to talk to you." She said with a shrug, dispensing with the hostility in her tone, her expression far friendlier as she continued. "I was hoping you'd have lunch with me."

"Lunch?" I asked drawing a complete blank, and she seemed to realize it to with the knowing smile she shot me.

"Yeah, you know. The thing where people eat food. Usually around mid-day."

"I know what it mea-" I started aggravated, but Priya quickly cut in.

"He accepts."

"What?" I asked turning on her, but Lorelei clapped her hands together as if everything was settled.

"Great!" she said sounding pleased. "Meet me by the lake in a half an hour. I'll start setting up a picnic."

And with that, she turned on delicate heel and made her way to the metal door. It shut with a heavy 'clang' and I rounded on Priya.

"What was that?" I asked her incredulously.

"That was me getting you a date." She said as if I were the one that was being unreasonable. "Despite your terrible attitude."

When she saw my expression however, she continued.

"Don't look at me like that!" She protested. "You should be thanking me."

"For what?" I asked incredulously.

"For saving you from yourself." She said as if it were obvious. "For some inexplicable reason, that girl seems to like you." she pointed toward the cabin door through which Lorelei had just disappeared. "And I sealed the deal before you manage to insult her into changing her mind." She gave me a satisfied look. "Now you get to spend lunch with a cute girl instead of skipping it again claiming that you're 'too busy'."

"I am busy." I said annoyed and she rolled her eyes. "And I do not want to go on a picnic with the real life version of Barbie."

"Barbie's blonde, Dex." She said in exasperation, as if this was something everyone should have known. "And you need to quit hiding in that basement."

"Did you see all of the stuff on my work bench." I said stubbornly.

"Yeah, but you did that to yourself, and you can't keep skipping meals because of it. Besides," she gave me a significant look. "Are you telling me you really think that's too much for you?" She asked raising an eyebrow.

I wanted to tell her that it was, but knew I'd be lying if I did.

"That's what I thought." She said smugly, but her smile faded when she saw I wasn't jumping to fire back like I usually did with her. "Seriously Dex." She continued and I could see the concern in her eyes. "You need to get over Heather. I know what she did was messed up, but you can't avoid her forever."

Again, I gave her no response, but she seemed to take it as agreement, which it very well might have been.

"I'll help you fix the rest of that stuff if you actually get behind," she said snapping her safety googles on, and making her way towards the workshop. "But you can't keep using your workload to wallow."

"I'm not wallowing." I protested automatically, but she raised and eyebrow and I felt the fight drain out of me.

"Alright." I said grinning a little at the bug-eyed quality the googles gave her. "I guess I'll see you after lunch then?"

"Yup." She said opening the door and stepping through it. A warm gust of air drifted into the room after her, smelling like metal and oil. "And take a shower!" she added over the sound of machinery humming. "You look like a Harpy dropped you on the floor of an auto shop and you decided to roll around for a while."

I grinned and looked down at my stained convention T-shirt as well as the grease on my arms.

"So my usual attire then?" I called after her.

"Exactly!"

I laughed as the door swung shut, then, still smiling and shaking my head after her, went to grab my shower things reflecting that Priya might be the only person on the planet that I'd agree to do this for.

Lpov

"You think he's gonna show?" Jake, my best friend and a son of Ares, asked as I applied a second coat of lacquer to his nails.

We were sitting by the lake, on a blanket I'd set up a little off the shore, watching as the campers beached their canoes in preparation to head to the Dining Pavilion for lunch.

I saw a couple of people give us some strange looks, clearly a little taken a back that an Ares brother built like a pro-wrestler on steroids was having his nails done, but I needed to practice and it didn't bother Jake, so here we were. He could have stomped on anyone who tried to bother him about it anyways.

"Who?" I asked frowning at his cuticle, making sure the line was perfectly even.

"Wow," he said and I looked up to see him smirking at me. "Forgotten about your new boyfriend already?"

"Are you talking about Dex?" I asked raising an eyebrow.

"Who else would I be talking about?"

"Dex is not my boyfriend." I said composedly returning to his nails.

"Yeah, yeah," he said waving his free hand casually, trying to let them dry faster. "But do you think he's going to show up?"

"I dunno." I said honestly, feeling myself frown a little as I said it. Before I'd met him, I would have said it was certain. Dex was a good-looking guy, and I mean, what guy wouldn't want to talk to me? But from the first word he'd said to me he looked annoyed, unfriendly even. Like he hadn't wanted to be around me at all.

"He might or might not." I said with a shrug, trying to both feel and appear unconcerned. "He had an awesome set up I'll tell you that. You'd love it," I added then grinned. "Lots of RGB."

This distracted him into a rant about lights and why can't he find a normal keyboard which I knew it would, but eventually, he went quiet.

Then, out of nowhere, he asked.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Lore?"

"Do what?" I asked a little confused, still focusing on the task at hand and looking critically at the nail polish. "Wrong color? We could have gone with red, it would match nicely with the blood of your enemies."

His lip twitched a little at the joke, but I could tell he was trying not to get derailed from his original thought.

"I mean, this, whatever your planning with Dex." He frowned a little, trying to figure out how he wanted to sort his words. "Wasn't he the one who found Heather and Caleb together?"

"Yes." I said stiffly.

"On his birthday."

A surge of guilt went through me, but I pushed it away.

"Yeah." I muttered quietly, but even I could hear the regret in it.

"Seems like he's been through enough."

I didn't answer. We both already knew what I would say. I didn't have a lot of options.

"Look," he said and his tone was uncharacteristically serious. "I know your mother was upset about what happened, but I can't see how she could possibly blame you for it."

"Yeah," I said sarcastically. "Because if there's one thing my mother is known for, it's being rational."

I let go of his hand and looked out over the water, the last few people trickling away from the dock.

"And she does blame me." I added. She'd made that quite clear to me the last time I'd seen her.

From his expression, I thought for a moment I thought he might try to argue, but he didn't.

He simply shrugged and said.

"Seems kind of crazy but alright. Either way, you know I'll always have your back."

I grinned.

"Thanks Jake."

"Any time Lore."

We talked for a few more minutes until he decided it was time to follow the other campers for lunch, leaving me alone with my thoughts for longer than I would have liked.

I tried to push away the anxiety from not just what I was doing, but the situation I was in.

Maybe Jake was right. Maybe I should have taken a bit more time, thought this through. Dex probably didn't deserve it.

'But what about me?' a voice said in the back of my mind.

I didn't get to answer it.

"Well, I'm here." Said an irritated voice, and I turned to see Dex standing not too far behind me. "You said you wanted to talk?"

It took me a moment to realize that the feeling going through me was surprise, and only now did occur to me that I really hadn't known if he was going to come or not. A pang of adrenaline went through me.

I didn't like that. Guys didn't surprise me. Not anymore at least.

I didn't let any of it show however, and instead smiled.

"Muffin?"

I held up the basket of baked goods and his eyebrows shot up.

"You were serious about the picnic thing?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"It seems a bit… childish." He said after a moment's hesitation, as if he'd just barely avoided saying something else.

'Jeez,' I thought a little annoyed. If childish was his back up, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what his first adjective had been. Judging by his expression, 'stupid' was probably the top contender.

"Fine." I said delicately putting the basket down, plucking a blue berry scone out of the snacks for myself. "Don't take the muffin then."

He seemed to regret what he'd said however, because he looked a little frustrated, mostly with himself, and continued.

"Sorry. I'm not in a great mood today."

"Evidently."

His attitude was at direct odds with his actions. Judging by his words and his tone, you'd think I was annoying him. But it was clear he'd put somewhat of an effort in when getting ready to see me. He'd changed into clean clothes, and his hair was a few shades darker, suggesting he'd showered. He was tall, taller even than Jake it looked like, with a similar build. Broad shoulders and strong arms that suggested he spent a lot of time lifting a lot of heavy things. But unlike Jake, Dex didn't look in the habit of throwing his weight around, though I had no doubt he could if he'd wanted to.

Simply put, Dex was hot. He didn't seem all that aware of it though.

"Look, can you just tell me what you want?" he asked sounding agitated. He'd crossed his arms over his chest in a defensive manor, as if warding off something threatening about me, and though statements made it seem like he wanted to pick a fight, his body language was very different. As if he wanted to get out of here. Like he thought I was some sort of threat. "I'm pretty sure we've never spoken before." He continued. "I have no idea who you are and even less of an idea of how you know me."

"We have spoken before." I said grabbing one of the bottles of iced tea from the insulated bag next to the basket of food. "And as for who I am when it comes to you." I paused in order to keep my control measured, trying to force down all the anger and bitterness I felt. "I'm the girl whose boyfriend Heather cheated on you with."

Whatever he'd been expecting, it was obvious it wasn't that.

"Oh." He said, clearly thrown.

There was a moment in which he didn't seem to know how to respond. Eventually, he said.

"I didn't remember him having a girlfriend last time we were at camp."

"Neither did he, apparently." I said mildly with a shrug.

There was another pause in which he was clearly debating what he wanted to do, but, after rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, he eventually closed the distance between us and sat on the blanket next to me.

"Thanks." He said quietly, this time accepting the basket I held out for him, and grinning slightly, he grabbed a muffin.