When they woke up the next morning, everything went back to normal. Well, as normal as it can get for two teenage demigods. They woke up, they ate breakfast, they walked to school, and they started class. Nobody mentioned last night's episode. Not even Percy's parents, who most definitely heard her screams. They'd learned that it was best to let Percy and Annabeth work things out on their own, in their own way. Anyway, there weren't any mishaps whatsoever, and that was what worried Annabeth. It felt too silent. Like the calm before the storm. And when Annabeth gets a feeling, she's almost always right.
During lunch is when it happened. The ADHD part of her brain was wondering why it was always lunch that had bad things happen during it.
At her table, Annabeth and her friends were just minding their own business, talking about whatever the newest gossip going around the school was, when tragedy struck. Ok, it wasn't a tragedy, but it was definitely shocking. Annabeth's been spending too much time around Percy; her dramatic side was coming out way too often nowadays.
Percy and his friends sat down at their table. Her friends and her all wore similar shocked expressions, unable to form a coherent sentence.
Last time, it was just Percy, and it wasn't as stare-inducing. Now, Percy and all of his close friends, the popular group, were sitting at the "nerd" table.
Of COURSE everyone was shocked.
"Hey, 'Beth," Percy said, taking a bite of his sandwich.
Annabeth was fully prepared to start ranting about how he knows full well to never use nicknames made out of her full name, but then stopped herself. He was just trying to provoke her. Wow, he wants this competition to end more than she thought. Well, the jokes on him cuz' she's not gonna break.
"Hi..." she answered, faking confusion now that she had figured out what was happening.
Her friend was another story, though. They all turned to her with various emotions displayed on their faces; confusion, anger, surprise, even curiosity. The curious one was Addison, of course. The facial expressions varied between personalities.
"Wha-you ju-huh?" Noah stammered, unable to make sense of what was going on around him.
He, like all of Annabeth's friends, had learned about her hatred for nicknames. Well, they thought it was all types of nicknames, but that wasn't completely true. One person was allowed to give her a nickname, and that person just so happened to be sitting across from them.
"What's going on, guys?" Chloe asked, clearly in on the plan to sabotage all of Annabeth's hard work.
Annabeth narrowed her eyes at her before answering, "Not much. Just talking about how apparently THE Percy Jackson was caught making out with someone behind the school. You?"
She smirked to herself as she looked over at Percy with raised eyebrows. Percy just can't learn that he has no chance of winning, can he?
By the look of his face, Percy was trying to come up with some excuse as to why that rumor was going around. It obviously wasn't true, but he was too caught up in his shock to realize that.
Percy's friends looked over at their friend, silently asking what do we do now? This was NOT part of the plan, but Percy should have known to come with a Plan B when trying to outsmart a daughter of Athena. Ok, maybe not outsmart, but outmaneuver (even that is pretty far fetched, though).
It was quite amusing to a certain grey-eyed girl, really.
"What's wrong, Percy? Cat got your tongue?" Noah asked, not choosing the pass up the opportunity to get some pay-back on the cool kids.
"Shut up, Noah," Annabeth snapped on instinct.
She wasn't able to catch herself before the words had left her mouth. Her other friends were staring at her in shock and Noah looked like he was about to say something he would probably regret later. If anyone had bothered to look over, they would've seen the relief on Percy and his friends' faces. That comment was able to snap Percy out of whatever ADHD stupor he was in, and he was now looking at Annabeth with raised eyebrows and a smirk, almost most to ask, what're going to do now?
And that's when Noah's anger-filled floodgates burst open, "Unbelievable! Why are you protecting them? They're jerks and you know it! You know what they did to me!"
Screw it, Annabeth thought.
"You have no right to say that! You don't even know them! Was it even them who did it to you? Huh?" She yelled back as she stood up, attracting the attention of the entire cafeteria.
Everyone was watching the fight like a tennis match, waiting to see who would lose. Unbeknownst to them, Annabeth never loses.
"No right?! You've barely even TALKED to him! What gives YOU the right to defend them!" Noah screamed back, standing up too and getting in Annabeth's face.
Wow. How oblivious can someone be? If Annabeth is protecting Percy, doesn't that mean they know each other? All of her other friends seemed to come to that conclusion, but apparently Noah was too mad to realize it. Oh, well. Let him get it out. He's probably been holding this in for awhile by the way things have escalated so quickly.
"He's my boyfriend!" Annabeth finally screamed.
The entire cafeteria went silent. So silent that you could hear a pin drop.
Percy didn't seem to know what to do. He just kinda stood there, flabbergasted, like everyone else.
Annabeth was practically radiating pride. She didn't care that she technically lost, all she cared about was Percy. So what if she was wrong ONE TIME. She loved Percy and that was enough for her. Who needs a silly competition when you can have the best boy in the world?
Since he didn't look like he was going to do it, Annabeth took the initiative and walked over to Percy, pulled him down to her, and kissed him. It took Percy a couple seconds to catch on, but when he did, the kiss was one of the most passionate they had ever shared in front of people. The whole world faded away; it was just the two of them.
Yeah, it was one of those kisses.
They only pulled away when people started clapping and wolf-whistling. But even then, Percy still kept an arm around her shoulders while they looked around. Pink tinted both their cheeks in embarrassment, but Percy still had the biggest smile on his face anyone had ever seen. And it wasn't because he had won, it was because he finally had his girlfriend back. Well, ok, maybe a small part of it was because he had just beat Annabeth Chase.
"Wanna get outta here, Chase?" Percy whispered in her ear.
She nodded slightly, and he led her through the crowd that had formed.
Why had a crowd formed? It wasn't some big event! They had just kissed. In front of the whole school. Very passionately. After Annabeth had just screamed that he was her boyfriend. Oh, crap.
They didn't even bother to finish the rest of the school day. Percy just texted Paul to sign them out and then left.
Back in the cafeteria, hundreds of conversations had started up as soon as the couple had left. Percy's friends seemed to try to act like they didn't know anything, but it wasn't working. At least not for everyone. Addison was very perceptive. As soon as Annabeth had made her announcement, everything had clicked. It was so obvious! She had to talk to Annabeth. So she took off after the retreating lovers, trying to figure out if her friend had ever mentioned where she lived.
"Hey, Addison!" Someone called after her when she was in the hallway.
She turned around to find all of Percy's closest friends standing a couple yards away from her. They all had knowing looks on their faces. She figured they already knew about the relationship.
But why would Annabeth tell them when her best friends didn't know yet? Were they even best friends?
"Looking for where she lives?" Mikes asked, referring to Annabeth.
"Yeah, where is it?" Addison said, wondering how they knew, but decided against asking.
The teens shared a look that Addison wasn't able to decipher, but it looked like they were about to share some big secret that would shock anyone into silence. What could be bigger than her best friend hiding an entire relationship from her?
"Percy's," Mike answered.
"'Percy's' what? What do you mean?" Surely he couldn't be saying what she thinks he's saying.
"Percy and Annabeth live together," Chloe cut in, cleanly answering so there was no room for confusion.
It's that serious?! Oh, well. That doesn't matter. I need them to take me to their house right now, she thought.
"Take me there," Addison ordered, not caring that she was ordering around some of the most influential people in the school.
"Sure," Chloe shrugged and started to exit the school, "We need to talk to them, too."
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