Disclaimer: I don't own the Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus series, RR does.


CHAPTER 7


They were eating in silence, both still thinking through what had happened. Strangely enough, it wasn't an awkward kind of quiet that one would usually experience with a total stranger. One part of her brain wanted to focus on wondering about that phenomenon but she gave it up, filled with the pleasure of the fabulous meal.

Joe had been cleaning glasses for a while, glancing at them from behind the counter with a deep wrinkle across his forehead. Leo wondered how the situation from a few moments had looked in the big guy's eyes. What could he have read from Reyna's face..? Were Leo's notions completely pie-in-the-sky? Because there was absolutely no way Reyna could have looked at him like she cared that much, right?

Not that he didn't want her to care. He was just almost too used to the opposite scenario. It was always him trying hard and them, the gorgeous specimens of the female kind, treating him as if he'd been air, at best. After all, could he even be compared to the wide-shouldered Jason or blue-eyed Jason or Jason with the cute scar on his upper lip or any other member of the soccer team? He wasn't the one to get the girls' attention, he'd never been. He wasn't even a nerd, for gods' sake, they found girlfriends in their pools of people! He alone was the group that sucked most - not entirely the brain but certainly not the brawn either. He'd learnt not to be bothered by that romantic ostracism too much. Of course, it didn't matter it didn't hurt every time, even a little. But he focused all his might on throwing such thoughts out of his head. Smile, Leo!

Although with Reyna it seemed to be harder than ever. Every little glimpse of her smile made his heart flip and his lungs suddenly fill with oxygen to the point it was hard not to suffocate from the overdose. Every one of her displeased grimace, on the contrary, made him want to hide in his bedding and never come out again.

He may not knew the exact cause of that occurrence, but he knew one thing: he'd been falling for her, and falling hard.

Too bad it was most likely going to be yet another of his letdowns...

"Well, well, well, look who we've found..." Leo froze, hearing a familiar voice, and felt his gut twitch unpleasantly. He had a feeling her presence certainly wouldn't help any of his relationship issues...

"Hey, Thalia" he turned to the door to force a smile at the grinning black-haired woman, her nose covered in freckles. "Hi, Luke" he added as the handsome blond man came in after her, closing the door. Luke returned the smile, skin on his cheeks wrinkling and a scar on the left side of his face moving up.

"Hey, Leo. How's life-" he broke off abruptly, realizing the younger of them wasn't alone. Reyna turned around and smiled half-heartedly.

"Hello" she simply said. Thalia snorted.

"Ooh, are we interrupting anything?" she teased, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. Luke looked at the turning red two with compassion.

Leo felt his ears getting hot. Could there be anything worse than indecent allusions made by one's former crush? Especially when it was about a girl like Reyna. He could almost see the headline in the collage newspaper: Some nobody killed in an accident in the Chemistry laboratory.

"We're having lunch together, is it something to make fuss about..?" he mumbled, looking at his plate. Reyna glanced at him, somewhat interested. So he really hadn't been trying to catch her in his snare and just wanted them to have good time or was he just embarrassed and was trying to drive Jason's sister and her boyfriend off?

Luke embraced Thalia's waist and pulled her backwards. "C'mon, we'll find a table in a more secluded part of here" he said, smiling apologetically at the young pair.

Thalia frowned. "But I want to tease them a bit more, Luke!" she half-whined, looking at him with puppy eyes. Luke smirked.

"I can keep you too busy to have time for that, you know that..." he purred out in a husky voice. Thalia swallowed, a tiny little blush accompanying her freckles. She returned the smirk and grabbed his hand.

"Bring it on, tiger" she mumbled as they walked to the other side of the restaurant. Gods, had Leo really seen her bite his earlobe just before they'd disappeared from his sight?! Spare the PDA, guys, would you?! Now he would have to scald his eyeballs...

He was just trying to dispose of his dismay when he noticed that Reyna was looking at him. Gods, was she going to run away once again? She'd done it when he'd overdone it with the speed of the things. And then, when he'd been as careful as he'd ever been able to be, had come Thalia and had quickened it all again! Damn, he'd been going to give Reyna time to think what kind of relation she wanted to have with the biggest loser at the campus (if she wanted to at all) but... It all went wrong, like always!

Maybe he should have expected that.

What made his thoughts crash roughly into a wall inside his mind was the sight of her smile. It wasn't an easy achievement for her but, seeing the panic in his eyes, she decided his intentions couldn't have been inapt. He'd really been trying hard for her to have a nice time and had wanted to prevent any awkward situations like the one from their first lunch together. She couldn't possibly be resistant to such effort, right?

"So... You're Thalia Grace's suggestive comments' victim too?" she asked, hoping to sound chilled out, which she certainly wasn't. He blinked a few times and frowned.

"Are you?" he answered with a question. She lowered her head but he could swear he'd seen her blush.

"Yeah... Kind of... I'd been before Piper came" she smiled at him weakly, hoping to conceal the bitterness of the last sentence. She didn't even know why she was telling him all that but it just... seemed right at the moment.

Leo's eyes widened when the sentence sunk in. Oh. So she and Jason..? He knew they'd been friends since high school, good friends, to be exact, but he'd never expected their relationship to be... Well, a relationship..! But maybe he'd got it all wrong? He looked in the direction where Thalia and Luke had disappeared just a moment earlier. No, there had never been a single mistake in Thalia's teasing intuition field. So there really was something to it..?

"Leo?" her voice stopped his train of thoughts. He focused his sight on her again and tried to smile. He felt his insides melt when she returned the smile. "Good, you're back" she added half-jokingly.

Wait. Reyna joking..? That he'd never witnessed!

He grinned unconsciously. "Yeah, I am" he said. She didn't understand the inflow of her kindness towards him either but suddenly the whole lunch thing seemed like a really pleasant occurrence to her. He wasn't as bad as she'd thought he was, after all...

She looked at her watch out of habit. "Damn" she mumbled "My next class starts in half an hour" she looked at him, smiling apologetically.

"Oh" he just managed to mutter when she was standing up and taking her stuff from the chair. He stood up too, just when she'd taken out her wallet.

"How much do I have to pay back to you? For the last time, too" she asked, looking at him expectantly. Leo's eyes widened.

"What? No, you don't need to at all! I invited you, after all!" he rushed to say, putting his hands in front of him and shaking his head.

"I insist" she was relentless. Leo opened his mouth and closed it again, not knowing what to say. What saved him was Joe's bass, the big guy obviously trying not to laugh.

"It's all on the house, ma'am" he winked at her. Reyna frowned.

"Are you sure? I bet it's not the cheapest-" Joe finally laughed, interrupting her speech.

"Trust me, it's ok" he said. "And if I ever change my mind, I'll just use this gentleman" he pointed at Leo with a pen he was holding. Reyna looked at her companion with compassion.

"I'm sorry, I really have to go" she said, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I'll try to recompense you for it... somehow..." she added, smiling apologetically. She didn't know that her mere presence was a compensation too large for him already, not even talking about her smile.

"No, really" he chuckled shyly, ruffling his hair and hoping that she couldn't see just how thrilled he was. Small steps, one by one...

"Thank you" she said, running out of the restaurant and trying to convince herself that her heart thumping loudly in her chest was just the result of the run.

Leo finally lowered the hand that had been waving to her dreamingly even after she'd long disappeared.

Yeah, he'd been falling extremely hard for her...


ZJeM, 31.01-07.02.14


From author:

Haha, a new chap! :D

I know it doesn't bring much to the story but... Well, I follow Leo's rule: Small steps...

I hope you like it and aren't tired with the nothing really happens atmosphere already. ^^''

THANKS FOR READING!