Project Apollo: Book Two ✔️

Chapter Nine

Apollo Diaz

Axton slapped my hands like a fucking cat. "Stop, I'm not getting up! I'm fine!"

"Ace, if you don't get your ass out of my bed, I will drag you out. You're meeting with the..." I grabbed his foot and pulled. "College."

He yelped as he hit the floor, pulling my blanket with him. Then he huddled underneath it like a hibernating bear. "No."

Sighing, I wasn't accepting this. He put it off for too long. Time to bring out the big guns. "Emery! Axton told me how much he would love to hear even more about the creation of waterfalls!"

Axton pulled the blanket from over his head, glaring at me with his tired eyes. "Why do you hate me?!"

Emery barreled inside of the room, knowing full well that Axton didn't want to hear about it. He jumped into his lap, smiling with so much sunshine, it almost made me sick. "So, you know the part about erosion, let me continue from where you stopped me last time."

"Okay! I'm going! You know, you're adorable and everything..." Axton dumped Emery onto the floor like he was simply a bucket of water. "But if I have to hear one more thing about older rock and younger rock, I will throw myself into a volcano." He stood up, eying Emery. "I'll let you choose which volcano, though."

Emery popped off the floor. "Mount Fuji. It's in Japan."

Jason poked his head inside the door. "It's 12,388 feet tall and a stratovolcano. Emery's favorite."

"Great. Perfect."

Axton stomped into the bathroom, closing the door as I sat on the end of my bed. I grabbed my blanket from the floor and tossed it by my pillows. Emery swiftly left the room after giving an accomplished smile. Yeah, we started torturing Axton with Emery's endless talk about waterfalls to get him to do things he didn't want to do. Emery didn't mind because when it came down to it–if he needed someone to listen–Axton would do it in a heartbeat. With that knowledge, he agreed to be the person to get Axton off his ass.

He and Alaric have to head over to the community college to get registered. I already completed it. And since Alaric received his passing scores almost two weeks ago, he wanted to get in the system. We were starting this fall, and he wasn't backing out of our deal. None of us were excited about going back to school–but we had a deal. We'd uphold it.

I noticed Jason still lingering by the doorway, curiously peeking inside of my room. It wasn't anything spectacular. His attention strayed to the out-of-place car inside the glass case. It wasn't expensive. It was important to me, and if I wanted to...move past all the resentment we once had for each other, I needed to be a little more open. Not that I hid any deep, dark secrets.

"My grandfather and I built it," I told him, glancing at the constructed car. "He likes building things and he loves cars. We did it when I was a kid. He bought a kit, so I helped him. I don't get to see him as much anymore, but I cherish that project. Not a huge fan of cars, but he is. That's all that matters."

Jason released a breath, taking a step inside as if my words were the key to my dungeon. "Oh, thank goodness. I thought I was going to have to apologize for your loss. You spoke in the present tense. He's still alive." He blinked, shaking his head. "That was...insensitive. I'm bad with death."

I watched him take careful steps toward the glass case, smiling as he admired the car inside. I couldn't remember what kind of car it was. He told me while we built it, but it was so long ago–I'd have to ask so I had more information for the one who seemed to devour facts like they were his daily breakfast.