In preparation for the Christmas eve party, Jason was given one of the easiest possible jobs. Nothing could go wrong. At least, that's what Piper thought. His task was to make the salad. All he had to do was toss lettuce, tomatoes, onions, olives, shredded carrots, peppers, and croutons into a bowl and mix it around.

The mess started right when Jason started. He was standing in front of the counter in Piper's kitchen with a bag of assorted lettuce. The bag was giving his particular trouble as he tried to open it. Pulling with too much force, the bag split open and went everywhere. His first instinct was to clean up and get more lettuce from the fridge. The only problem was that there was no more.

"Everything going fine in there, Sparky?" Piper called from her living room as she paused from her last minute vacuuming.

"Uh… yeah, yup, totally fine." He mentally punched himself for the uncertain response he gave.

"Okay, then…?" Piper continued her cleaning.

Being the 24th already, none of the stores would be open so Jason created a plan quickly. He grabbed an entire roll of paper towels and the lettuce from the ground and got to work.

20 minutes later, Piper walked into the kitchen. Pronouncing every word separately Piper said, "What are you doing?"

She had every right to be surprised by the scene in front of her. The counter was covered in paper towels with single leaves of lettuce laid out on top of them.

"I washed them so now they have to be dried," Jason responded.

"Why?"

"Because I, uh… dropped them."

Piper released a great sigh. "What am I going to do with you?" She looked up at him with a goofy smile. "You know, it's pretty adorable how hard you were trying." Crymson begins to grow on the blond's cheeks. "But it's pretty unnecessary." Walking over to Jason, she got on her tippy-toes and kissed him on the lips quickly. Her grin only grows. "It's Christmas eve. You know that nobody is going to eat the salad anyway."

"That's true. Let's just pray to every god that Percy and Leo don't finish the entire tray of cookies by themselves."

A/N

The salad recipe is courtesy of the Olive Garden website and they obviously own it, not me.

The next chapter will be some Piper, Annabeth, and Reyna fun, and it will be the final chapter.

Hope you enjoyed, please review.

-Cat