Disclaimer: I'm ten chapters in. Do I even need to say this anymore

Nico made pancakes. Actual, non ready-mix pancakes. They ended up hopelessly scrambled when he lifted them out of the pan, but that wasn't the point. He scraped a pile onto his sister's plate, planting a kiss on her cheek.

"Thanks for the um," Hazel settled for the word "breakfast."

He grinned. It hurt his face muscles.

"Baking is definitely not my strong suit."

"No, they're good.."

"Pancakes."

She looked down at her plate like she was trying to see the resemblance between the scrambled batter and actual pancakes, then nodded, but she still looked pretty unconvinced. Nico couldn't help it, he cracked up. Hazel grinned back.

"Your,uh, friend left. Said something about work."

"Oh, yeah, he said. Well, his exact words were 'I,um, work, yes' but I got the general idea."

His sister smiled sweetly again. A stretched silence. Nico drummed his fingers on the surface of the table nervously. Hazel began working on her pancakes, trying to spike the pieces with her fork, before giving up and pouring syrup over everything.

"Hazel? How'd you know?" he tried.

She looked up at him quizzically, and he lost his courage completely.

"It's nothing, nevermind."

Back into a forced quiet. Nico took a long draught of his coffee.

"So, Will Solace."

He almost spat his drink back out again.

"What about him?"

"I'm just saying, if you too ever got together, I would definitely not complain."

"Oh, no no, we're not..."

"That's what he said."

A break in the conversation. He fidgeted with his skull ring, a birthday present from Bianca.

"How'd you know, back at the cafe?" he blurted ,"You assumed that I had a thing for Will, so how'd you know? That I'm... attracted to males."

"I guess I had my suspicions. And the way you always talked about Percy back when you were twelve."

Nico went a shade of pink, suddenly very interested in his pancake.

"Hey, I thought it was pretty sweet."

He wondered why she was taking this so well. She's grown up in an especially strict Christian part of New Orleans, she'd had the same ideals he had drilled into her head and he wasn't taking it well. Nico's father back in Italy had been a pretty strong Catholic, Maria di Angelo, not so much. She'd never set foot in a church before she'd married his father. Nico had hardly set foot in a church, aside from the Easter and Christmas services his father dragged them to. He remembered one of the fiery sermons the priest had delivered, that homosexuality was wrong, how they were all going to hell. Nico never went back.

"Nico, for what it's worth, you're not in Italy anymore. Same-sex marriage is legal in all fifty states. That includes New York."

Did she just read my mind.

Hazel stood up to pack her plate away, and Nico retreated upstairs to finish off his chapter.

I would just like to say now that I have absolutely nothing against Christians, Catholics, or the Catholic church in Italy. But as a Catholic, I can say

that this is unfortunately the attitude a lot of religious people tend to take about homosexuality. If I offended any of the above groups, my apologies, that really wasn't what I meant to do here. But this chapter did need to be written and those issues did need to be addressed.

Sorry for the short chapter, I will try to write another one to make up for it, but no promises because I've got a pretty busy schedule right now.