True Blue ✷ Leo Valdez.

30: Team Bleo.

      LEO VALDEZ WAS RIDICULOUS. Blaire had known this since their first encounter, when Leo had sheepishly asked her if she was a witch due to her parentage. Since that day, he'd only worked to solidify Blaire's belief in his absolute and utter ridiculousness by merely being himself. It was almost as if the boy was wired to be some sort of endearingly goofy moron because everything he did was absolutely nuts.

  But this—his plan to distract Narcissus and the Nymphs— was definitely the most outlandish, bizzare, and quite frankly stupid thing he'd ever done.

    The son of Hephaestus was giving himself a makeover using the few things he'd managed to conjure from his toolbelt. Meanwhile, Blaire stood beside him with crossed arms, not even trying to conceal the amusement creeping onto her face.

  Leo's rowdy curls were slicked back using machine oil, and the sleeves of his white T-shirt were rolled up, revealing his (lack of) biceps. A wrench was stuck in his back pocket for reasons Blaire was totally unsure of. And to top it all off, he was wearing a pair of welding googles— not over his eyes but perched atop his hairline as if they were sunglasses. Of course he looked idiotic, but he somehow pulled it off— in the way he was totally embracing his dorkiness. Being a loser looked good on him.

"Yo, Mrs. Magic," Leo called, twirling a marker he'd pulled from his belt between his nimble fingers. "Do me a favour, give me a tattoo." He held the writing utensil toward her. "Something unique, but sexy."

   She took the marker with furrowed brows. "Unique but sexy?" Whatever the hell that meant.

She unscrewed the lid and hesitated, deep in thought, then she grabbed his forearm, pulling it to eye level. In big block letters, she began to write.

As she sprawled her chosen words on his flesh, her eyes flickered up to meet Leo's yet her hand didn't still. Leo was looking at her with an electrifying sort of intensity, his mouth was slightly agape as if he'd started to say something but decided against it at the last minute. Because that's exactly what had happened— any coherent words died in Leo's throat the second Blaire, who's head was ducked to see what she was writing, looked up at him through her long, dark eyelashes. The point where Blaire was holding his forearm to keep it steady suddenly felt very warm. Leo thought he might have accidentally willed his body temperature higher on accident.

  Without even meaning to, she squeezed his arm once before dropping it.

HOT-STUFF; that's what she'd written.

  "There," She said at last, her eyes gleaming. "Unique but sexy."

Leo made a noise deep in the back of his throat, then he blinked harshly and averted his gaze to Hazel. She looked pretty flustered herself.

"What in the world are you thinking?" Hazel asked, refusing to meet Leo's gaze.

"I try not to think," Leo admitted with a sheepish shrug. "It interferes with being nuts. Just concentrate on moving that Celestial bronze. Blaire, Echo, you ready?"

"Sure," Blaire snorted, wishing she had a camera.

"Sure," Echo repeated, probably also wishing she had a camera.

Leo took a deep breath and nodded towards the pond. Together, the three of them strutted toward the pond, trying to appear confident in themselves.

"Leo is the coolest!" The aforementioned boy shouted, his voice hardly carrying over the large crowd.

  "Leo is the coolest!" Echo repeated, waving her arms around for emphasis.

   Leo nudged Blaire, awaiting her praise.