Hurricane ~ L. Valdez

2.4- So, Nemesis... I'm Not A Big Fan

      I wasn't feeling this. Now, don't get me wrong, riding Arion was great. Except for the fact that I was stuck at the end of the horse, and my boyfriend had his arm around another girl.

      I felt bad for feeling bad about it, (if that makes any sense). I knew I could trust Leo. I just... didn't like it. I also knew that if I wasn't uncomfortable about Hazel and Leo that I would've stayed to help Jason.

     I gripped my arms around Leo's waist, reminded of our adventures on Festus in the winter. I had to be careful with how I leaned against Leo, as the side of my face did not like to be touching anything, and so that left me awkwardly holding onto his waist, and barely holding on to him.

      Because that obviously helped with my jealousy dilemma.

      Arion thundered onto the beach. He stomped his hooves and whinnied triumphantly, like Coach Hedge yelling a battle cry. Finally we dismounted, Leo jumping off the horse before me so that he could offer me a hand down.

      Arion pawed the sand. "He needs to eat," Hazel explained. "He likes gold, but—"

      "Gold?" Leo asked. I looked at the horse confusedly. I'm no equestrian expert or anything, but I'm 98% sure that gold isn't in a regular horses diet.

      "He'll settle for grass. Go on, Arion. Thanks for the ride. I'll call you."

      And in a blink of an eye the horse was gone. Like poof- bye bye horse.

      "Fast horse," I commented, raising an eyebrow, "not to mention expensive to feed."

      "Not really," Hazel said. "Gold is easy for me."

      Leo raised his eyebrows. "How is gold easy? Please tell me you're not related to King Midas. I don't like that guy."

       I shuddered, remembering our awful adventures with Midas and his hot son Lityerses. What a shame that guy was so evil and so annoying. Not for me of course... just for the— female population. (*cough* cassidy bennet *cough*[don't tell her bf])

      Hazel pursed her lips, as if deciding she didn't like the subject. "Never mind."

     Leo knelt and cupped a handful of white sand. "Well...one problem solved, anyway. This is lime."

      Hazel frowned. "The whole beach?"

      "Yeah. See? The granules are perfectly round. It's not really sand. It's calcium carbonate."

      Gods, my boyfriend amazes me. It was times like these when I realized that I was in love with every little quirky fact about him, including the fact that he apparently could recognize lime by first glance.

      Leo pulled a Ziploc bag from his tool belt and dug his hand into the lime. And then he stopped, staring at the sand.

      "Leo?" I questioned. "Everything ok?"

       He took a shaky breath. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, fine." Liar. He started to fill the bag and Hazel and I knelt next to him and helped.

      I nudged him, sending him a look that said 'we're talking about this later'.

      "We should've brought a pail and shovels." Hazel said awkwardly, smiling softly.

      That caused Leo to smile. "We could've made a sand castle."

      "A lime castle." Their eyes locked— for way too long. My heart clenched. Hazel looked away. "You are so much like—"

      "Sammy?" Leo guessed. Who in Hades is Sammy.