"Why are we here?" I repeated as Grover pulled me inside.
"Because we need suits!" Grover grinned. This reminded me of my dream about him in the wedding shop, and I shivered, thinking of the giant Cyclops.
So, I was used to being confused by now this weekend, but why did we need suits? I swore I was going insane. "Grover…" I asked, "why do we need suits?!"
Grover sighed and covered his face with a hand. "Percy," he groaned, "It's kind of obvious!" I just stared at him, dumbfounded. "Morp!" he laughed.
Oh.
I nodded, "Okay, so Juniper asked you?" Grover nodded and beamed, letting out a happy bleat. "Okay," I repeated, "But Annabeth hasn't asked me!"
"But she will," Grover said, "Right?"
"I don't know, I guess. But she hasn't yet, so why do I already need a suit?!" I demanded. He sighed.
"Percy, she will ask you. So, you'll need a suit sooner or later before the dance. I need one, too. So…here we are!" he laughed.
"But why today?" I pondered. Then I had a guess. I sighed. "This wasn't Annabeth's plan was it?"
He stammered. "W-why? What do you mean?"
"Well, she's been acting weird lately – wanting me to leave. Does this have to do with that? What's going on?" I asked.
"No, we're here to buy suits. Because there is a dance coming up. That's what's going on. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I told you why we're here, so let's buy suits!" He sounded truthful, but I wasn't sure. I sighed. There was nothing I could do, so we started looking at suits.
Annabeth's POV
I knocked on the Aphrodite cabin door, and Hailey and two of her sisters came out immediately. We walked over to my cabin to get a couple more girls, and we sat on my bed. There was a knock on the door, and Juniper came in. I grinned.
"You asked Grover to Morp?" I asked. She nodded and beamed. She came over and said she wanted to help with my plan. So, Hailey started telling her and others about the idea while I pulled out the planning.
A few girls from the Apollo cabin joined, bringing the needed paper, poster board, and markers. And we slowly started making the scheme come to life.
Percy's POV
"Here," Grover said, handing me a dark blue suit. "You need blue; you're the son of the Sea God. And there will be others in blue suits, trust me," he said reassuringly to stop my protesting. He shoved me into a dressing room, so I had no choice but to try it on. I got undressed and first pulled on the dress pants. They fit, at least. But they felt weird. I wasn't used to suits. The, I pulled on the light blue dress shirt. I pulled down the sleeves and buttoned the cuffs. I buttoned the shirt, and moved my arms to see if it fit. It did. It was perfect. Then, I pulled on the blazer. Once again, perfect fit. I smiled in the mirror…I looked nice. I opened the dressing room door for Grover to see. He smiled.
"Nice, Percy! It's perfect!" he said. I nodded, content with the suit. "Now, all you need is shoes, socks, and a tie. But we'll do your tie later. We have to wait until Annabeth gets a dress so that your tie can match it. And if we can't find a good tie that matches, I think we'll just stick with blue."
I raised an eyebrow. How did Grover know all this? He caught my suspicion. "Juniper gave me tips on suits," he admitted with a laugh.
"Okay," I said, "So I guess we can buy this." Grover nodded but then his expression seemed to change. Into I-don't-know-what. It was just different – like from decided to undecided. But why?
"Um," he stammered, "you could try on more just to be sure, though. Here, try a black one. Though I think you should get blue, Annabeth might want you to get black or something. He pushed me back into the dressing room so that I could change back into normal clothes before trying on another suit. I sighed.
But this suit is perfect, I thought, pulling it off. Even Grover thought so. Why do I need to try on more? Then I had another guess. Was Grover stalling? Why wouldn't he want me to leave? Why would he want me to try on more suits, even though I know this is the one I'm going to get? Maybe Grover was part of Annabeth's distraction. But I wasn't sure. I changed back into my clothes and stepped out of the room to confront Grover about my suspicions. But before I could say anything, he was throwing another suit at me. I stumbled back into the dressing room and he closed the door. I groaned.
This suit was black with a white dress shirt. I took off my clothes and slipped on the new suit. I looked in the mirror again. It was nice, but simple. I liked my other one better, but probably just because it was blue. I still looked good in this one, though. I stepped out, and Grover nodded.
"Which one do you like more?" he asked.
"Well, I like this one, but I like the blue one better," I said.
"Then blue it is!" Grover grinned, "Unless Annabeth doesn't like it. But I'm sure it will be fine." I changed once again into my normal clothes. It felt like we had been here forever, and Grover still had to pick out a suit. He grabbed a black one and took it to a dressing room. He thought twice before changing where people could see his hooves and jumped onto the bench in the dressing room with a thunk. I bent down to make sure I couldn't see his goat half.
I clutched my blue suit and waited for Grover to finish changing. It must be really hard to buy clothes when you're a satyr, I thought with a smile. He finally stumbled out in a black suit and red Converse. I laughed, even though I knew he couldn't come out without the shoes. He glared at me.
"Not my fault," he held up his hands in surrender, "Ignore the shoes. Does the suit look good?"
"Yeah, it's fine," I laughed. He nodded and went back in to change back into his jeans. I could hear him bumping around in there, trying not to fall off of the bench.
After a few minutes, he popped out and smiled.
"So, we have our suits picked out," he said.
"Wait, I don't have any money with me," I realized.
"No problem, I'm buying," Grover replied. I cocked my head to the side.
"Why?" I asked, "I'll pay you back later. He shook his head.
"No, I'm paying. It's fine," he said, and I decided not to argue. After he bought the suits, we finally got back into my car. I threw the suits into the back and sighed, leaning back against my seat. I closed my eyes and smiled. At least I had my suit now. Then, I looked back over at Grover. He was sniffing at something and opened my glove box.
I looked at him curiously. "Grover…what are you doing?" I didn't even need an answer; he pulled out an aluminum can and bit in before looking up at me.
"What? I was hungry," he said with his mouth full of the aluminum. I broke into laughter.
"Camp Half-Blood?" I asked hopefully when my laughing had subsided.
"Nope," Grover answered, biting another hunk of aluminum out of the can, "Now we need shoes." I sighed and he directed me toward another hopelessly boring store.
