Drew smacked her lips one final time in her gold encased mirror and smiled at her reflection. Light pink, pink as light pink can get gloss lips, matching eye shadow, her long black hair in a fishtail down her back. Some new rage at camp. Tight, baby blue jeans and a matching throw-over shirt tied in the front over a white tank. She looked great, but she still needed to change when she came back from the meeting. Even though fishtails were in, it just… wasn't enough. There needed to be something bedazzled somewhere.
Drew looked around at her sleeping cabin. Everyone looked beautiful in their sleep, except Piper. Drew still refused to believe she had taken her spot, but she tried to focus her mind on other things, like fishtails and sudden meetings with Chiron, like the one she was about to have.
Chiron had come up to her after dinner the night before, telling her that there was an urgent meeting needed at the big house at 5:00 the next morning. She didn't know why it had to be so ungodly early, but apparently it was urgent. She just kept her hopes up that she might be appointed back to the cabin leader.
She walked slowly out the door, being careful to step over the almost invisible metal strip placed at the edge of their doorway from the Hephaestus cabin. They had recently been quarreling with them over something stupid which Drew had already forgotten, and now they just had to keep getting each other back. It was getting pretty serious now, and one of the Hephaestus kids had nearly gone blind after a perfume ambush. Ever since the Titan war, nothing had been the same. Silena and Beckendorf had kept everything calm while they were together, with the Aphrodite cabing just oohing and ahhing over them every second. But now they were both dead, and we couldn't stop them at anything now.
The sun was barely beginning to rise when she reached the big house. Her metallic pink heels were getting wet from the morning dew, and she inwardly groaned. She was quite fond of those heels.
Chiron was waiting for her right inside the doors. He beckoned for her to follow him. She did, and he led her into the room where most demigods came when Chiron welcomed them to camp. It was a strange place for a meeting, especially with Mr. D sitting there drinking coke in his usual Hawaiian print shirt.
"Hello, Mr. D," she said as politely as she could. He just snorted and went back to drinking his coke.
Drew waited there for almost half an hour, watching Mr. D drain four coke cans, when finally, Leo Valdez stumbled in, still with a sleepy look on his face. His hair was messed up, a huge mess of dark curls, and there were bags under his eyes. Motor oil and grime stained parts of him, and as Drew sniffed the air, it smelled like gasoline. She scooted as far away from Leo as she could as he sat down.
"Thank you, for coming here so early at such short notice," said Chiron, looking at the two of us. "Now that we are all here, we can start the meeting." Mr. D finally put his diet coke down and came to sit on a stool next to Chiron.
"Will you get on with it?" Mr. D asked, summoning another can, and taking a gulp. "I need to get my beauty sleep." He glared at Drew when she snorted.
"Yeah, can we get straight to the point?" asked Leo, yawning. His breath smelled like pizza. "I think we're all tired, except Drew. Well, her spell might be hiding it, but…"
"So, anyway," Chiron interrupted Leo from his becoming rant. "I know that there has been many fights between the both of your cabins, am I correct?" Drew and Leo nodded, and Mr. D burped. Drew rolled her eyes and snorted again in disgust.
"Will you tell her to stop snorting at me?" asked Mr. D.
"No." replied Chiron. "Moving on. Things were calm when Silena and Beckendorf were dating, right?" the two nodded again. "Well, I think it would be a great idea if we repeated that." Chiron looked me straight in the eye, and I knew exactly what he meant.
"Okay, we can hook up Piper and me, and that'll benefit us all. Except Jason of course, but we can tell him it's just for show…"
"Valdez," Drew interrupted. "How can you be so stupid? He wants us to fall in love."
"Wait, what?"
"Yes, Leo," said Chiron calmly in response to Leos outburst. "You two are going to pretend to fall in love with each other, so all the Aphrodite cabin will only be able to gossip, and the Hephaestus cabin will get bored, and maybe even talk about the strange relationship, too."
"Why can't it be Piper and Leo?" Drew asked in disgust. "Why me?"
"Because it would be kind of obvious if it were a leader of a cabin, so… just do it for me, please?" Chiron looked at us, almost pleading. "I just don't want anything worse to happen between the two cabins."
"I'll do it for the safety of everyone," said Leo, trying to be bold, and failing.
"I'll do it because I have to." Drew replied, disgusted. They were just going to break up in a week, like all the Aphrodite girls did. This was just going to be another one of those outrageous relationships that only lasted a few days, a week at the most. But Chiron seemed to read Drew's mind.
"We aren't twelve anymore, you guys," he said. "We need this to be a pretty long-lasting relationship, okay?" Leo and Drew nodded reluctantly. "Thank you guys so much, I don't know how I could ever thank you…"
"By not making us do this?" Drew asked, raising her eyebrows. She tried using charmspeak, but she knew Chiron was well immune to it.
"Drew, I'm sorry, but you have to do this…"
"Fine." Drew stood up hastily and strutted out the door. Why her, of all people? Why not Lacy, or Piper, or even Mitchell? Why her? She just marched through the still-wet grass until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Drew whipped her head around to see Leo, who was breathing heavily.
"I didn't know you could walk that fast," he said in between breaths. Drew rolled her eyes.
"Didn't know you were so out of shape, Valdez." She shot back at him. Leo's crooked smile dropped off his face, and inwardly she smiled.
"Drew, please," he said in his best pleading tone. "Just do it for everyone. Please?" I looked right into his dark, fiery eyes, and instead of seeing the fake mask, she saw real pleading. A small, very, very small part of her heart melted, and her mouth twitched.
"Fine." She said flatly. "I can play the beautiful, hot girlfriend, but can you play a role good enough for her boyfriend?"
"I think I can," he said, holding out his hand. "Can we start now?"
"Why not convince everyone now," she said sarcastically. She saw a little bit of hurt in his eyes as his hand slightly lowered, and she sighed and took his hand. "Fine. Lets start now." Her hand slipped effortlessly into his as he walked Drew down to her cabin.
Leo stopped when they hit the door of the pink cabin, and she turned around.
"There are people watching, hug me," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth. Leo raised his eyebrows, but hugged her awkwardly all the same. Drew felt some warmth from him, but as soon as he let go, she shoved it out of her brain.
"Thanks, Drew," he said, grinning at her.
"Should I tell my cabin?" Drew asked, and Leo nodded. "Alright, Fire boy. Go run along to yours now." Leo nodded and gave her his most charming smile, which Drew snorted at. She opened the door of her cabin and gracefully stepped in. Leo turned and walked to his cabin. What had he gotten himself into?