Connor Stoll was insufferable.

He wasn’t as funny as you knew he thought he was, with his stupid pranks and jokes. It was like he knew the worst times to bother you and what exactly would get on your nerves.

It was like a game to him, you thought, always trying to outdo himself and break a new record for how annoyed he could make you.

Yet you still felt yourself drawn to him, like some invisible force was pulling you in.

Your mind seemed to fixate itself on the parts of him that weren’t so bad, when his jokes were funny, when he actually was nice to you.

Your secret admiration began a few months ago.

It was late into the night, but the party in the Dionysus cabin was still packed. The place was entirely too crowded and miserably hot. You felt like you couldn’t breathe, and your level of intoxication certainly didn’t help.

You had to fight your way through the hordes of fellow demigods to make it outside for fresh air. Your head was spinning, you couldn’t think straight, and your stomach felt wrong.

You weren’t surprised when you threw up in the grass right after you left. Then suddenly, Connor was there, holding your hair back as your body rid itself of the alcohol.

He was uncharacteristically nice about it all. He walked with you back to your cabin, and when you thanked him, he simply shook his head and replied,

“It’s the least I can do.”

The next day, he was his normal self again, but the strangest part about it all? Not once did he bring it up after, nor did he use it to try and tease you.

Now you’ve started to notice the little things.

The way his jokes never managed to cross the line from annoying to just plain rude, how his pranks only had manageable short-term effects, how he always backed off when you got too annoyed.

Connor was growing on you, and you hated it.

You still rolled your eyes when he told a dumb joke, and you still got mad at him when he pulled a prank on you, but you started to let little smiles and laughs slip here and there.

You even started looking forward to when he’d show up to mess with you again.

Which was why today, you were left disappointed. Not once did he approach you with his usual antics, and he didn’t even make his usual eye contact with you at dinner from across the dining pavilion.

It bothered you to no end, even though you didn’t want it to. You should be glad to be left alone, you told yourself, it’s a blessing.

Yet it still drove you so crazy that you couldn’t help but join him at the campfire that night.

His eyes were on the fire, watching it burn even after all of his other friends left. He had a frown on his face. You’d never seen him with one before. It was a strange sight.

He glanced at you when you sat down next to him but still didn’t smile. Instead, he just mumbled, “Hey.”

“Hi,” you replied. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he lied.

“Clearly it’s something. You’re sulking.”

“I am not sulking,” he retaliated, but he sighed and gave in when you gave him a look. “Okay, fine. It is something, but it doesn’t matter.” He sounded almost bitter.

You still didn’t back down. “Sure it does. We’re friends, right?”

That got him to smile, but just a little. “Right,” he agreed with a nod. After a few seconds of hesitation, he began to explain himself. “I was worried you were actually getting annoyed with me, so I was trying to lay off. That’s all.” He shrugged.

Then, he grinned. “I guess this means you’re not so sick of me after all, huh?”