Chapter 4

Ok, so Percy was half-right. Annabeth DID wait until they were both home to act, but not in the way he had expected.

As soon as he had closed the front door, he was immediately pushed up against it again. Annabeth was kissing him fiercely, and it took a second for him to respond, but Percy ended up kissing her back just as passionately. In the end, Annabeth was the one to pull them apart (but not before they had ended up on the couch).

"What was that?!" Percy asked, eyebrows raised.

"I love you," Annabeth said, breathless.

"Ok, I love you, too, but WHAT WAS THAT?" he asked again.

Annabeth sighed and moved so she was sitting next to him, "Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to not do that at school today?"

Ok, not what I was expecting. But not necessarily bad, Percy thought.

"I do know, but I thought you would be pissed at me for doing what I did at lunch today," he said before he could stop himself from bringing it up.

"Oh, I am. But I needed to do that more," Annabeth replied.

And she was mad, but she had known to expect something in retaliation for doing what she did that morning. Annabeth couldn't really blame him for wanting pay-back, even if it was completely evil. Even so, he was most definitely going to be paying for what he did. She couldn't just LET him do that without getting him back for it! And just like she usually does, Annabeth had a plan.

"Oh, good. I was starting to get wor–" Percy was cut off by the sound of the door slamming open.

"Mr. McShizzle-Bad-Boy-Supreme is in the house!"

"Leo," Percy and Annabeth sighed in unison.

"And us!" Piper exclaimed.

When they actually looked, Percy and Annabeth saw that Leo, Calypso, Piper, Jason, Hazel, Frank, Nico, and Thalia were all barging into their apartment. That's one thing you can also expect from demigods: no manners.

"Oh, well, just come on it, guys!" Annabeth exclaimed with a heavy amount of sarcasm.

"It's not like you're interrupting or anything!" Percy said the same way.

"Thanks!" Thalia said.

Percy and Annabeth exchanged a look, "What do you want?"

"We just wanted to check in on you guys. See how you're doing without each other," Piper answered.

"Yeah, right. You wanted to see if we've cracked yet," Percy said.

"Well..." Jason said.

Thalia didn't have any such hesitation with admitting their true intentions, though, "I would never pass up a chance to see my little cuz suffer!"

"Well, you will be sorely disappointed because we are still keeping the secret with ease!" Annabeth cut quickly.

"Is that right?" Frank asked.

"Yes," Percy replied simply.

"Ok! Now where's the food? Papa's hungry!" Leo exclaimed, marching off to the kitchen.

The topic of their challenge was never brought up again for the rest of the night. The demigods and titaness just enjoyed spending time together. However, they couldn't stay together for long, because of the monsters. Having that many monster-attractors in one place was just asking for an attack of momentous proportions. So, the group enjoyed some dinner, and then they left.

Sally and Paul had decided to go out on a date that night, so they had only come home for a little while to get ready, and then they had left, trusting Annabeth and Percy enough to leave them home alone.

"Oh! I forgot to mention that Mike, Jack, and Chloe are gonna be coming over tomorrow to hang out. If you don't want them finding out, then you should probably stay out of the apartment after school," Percy said as they were getting ready for bed that night.

"Ok. Goodnight," Annabeth answered simply, crawling into bed.

"That's it? Nothing else?" he exclaimed incredulously.

"Yep! Love you," she said.

"Love you, too," Percy said, accepting he wasn't going to get anything else out of his girlfriend, and climbing into bed as well.

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The next day at school, Percy was on edge the entire time. He was expecting Annabeth to retaliate sooner. But when she didn't, that just made him get even more suspicious. It is never good to let your guard down when you're in a competition with Annabeth Chase. He learned that the hard way.

So, he was still on edge when he was walking home with his friends.

"Is it weird that we haven't been to your house yet?" Chloe asked.

"Not really. Nobody from school but Paul has been to my apartment," Percy answered, shrugging.

Jack shook his head, "It still feels so weird to hear you call Mr. Blofis Paul."

"He is his step-father," Chloe pointed out as they were going up the elevator.

"Whatever, all I care about is seeing what's inside of the famous Percy Jackson's apartment," Mike said.

Percy just rolled his eyes. He wasn't that popular. It was bad enough having people treat him like he was the next Hercules at camp, and now he has to deal with it at school, too. It almost makes him wish he was back to being picked-on by Nancy Bobofit in the sixth grade! Almost.

"Welcome to my humble home!" Percy said dramatically, opening the door and widening his arms.

"Wow, it's very...homey," Mike said.

"I guess..." Percy dragged out his words.

His friends started to inspect everything in the living room, which doubled as the entrance room. They looked at all of the pictures of younger Percy, as a baby and as a demigod. Percy started to panic when he saw Jack looking at a picture of him, Grover, and Annabeth just after their first quest. They were all covered in dirt and scrapes, but they were also all grinning like idiots. That tended to happen when you had just prevented a major war between the gods.

Just as he was about to try and explain why there was a picture of him with Annabeth Chase, Jack moved on to another picture, not evening mentioning anything. Apparently his friends weren't that observant. It probably also helped that they hadn't really been close enough to Annabeth to realize that she was the same person in the picture.

"What do you guys wanna do?" Percy asked, sitting down on the couch.

"Movie and snacks?" Mike suggested.

"Sounds good to me!" Percy exclaimed, hopping up to grab food from the kitchen.

"Anything involving food sounds good to you, Seaweed Brain!"

That single sentence caused everyone to freeze. Standing under the entrance to the hall, was Annabeth Chase. In one of Percy's shirts no less! Don't be getting the wrong idea though, she had shorts on under there.

"Um–uh," Percy stammered.

"Very intelligent, Perseus," Annabeth laughed.

"Um, Percy? Why is there a girl in your house, wearing your shirt?" Jack asked, being the first one out of Percy's friends to regain the use of his voice.

But he never got an answer because suddenly, Mike broke out of his shock and yelled, "That's freaking Annabeth Chase!"

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